Jill McDougald's Blog Post #7 March/April Ch.6 Plan for and Monitor IR/Ch.7 Make Assessment Instruction's Working Partner

In Ch. 6, Routman really emphasizes that students need independent reading time to become better readers.  We, as teachers, need to make it happen. Students need to be able to pick out their "just right" books.  It is the teacher's responsibility to teach their students how to do this.  As the teacher, I need to monitor my student's book choices through conferences.  If a student constantly chooses to read the more difficult books but he can't recall or understand what he has read, it is a waste of time. During conference time, I can check for understanding with the student.  Then, at that time I can help redirect the student's choices. The choices the students make are very important.
Slow progressing students and students with special needs need to be given more opportunities to read independently. I feel they need to start out with very easy books so they can build self confidence. Here's the reason I say this, one day I realized one of my little ones was picking very short books with very little words. I slipped a book into his book box that I felt he could read because it had a lot of sight words he knew.  I ask him to come conference with me and bring his book box. As he was picking a book to read to me, he found the one I slipped in.  He looked at me and said, "I didn't put this book in here."  I told him I did.  He looked at me and said, "I can't read that book."  I asked him why, he said it has too many words.  I told him I thought he could and let's try it. Hesitantly he opened the book and started reading.  I encouraged him throughout the book and reminded his to use his picture clues.  He read the majority of the book by himself!:)  After reading, I looked into those big brown eyes of his and said I told you you could read it!  My reward was that big smile I got back from him.  From that moment on, he knew I believed in him and he believed in himself!  He is now reading up a storm!

In Ch.7, Routman talks about making the assessment of IR an ongoing assessment with what the student has chosen to read.  She says during conferencing time, tell the student what their strengths are, what they need to work on then make some goals to achieve.  She also suggest use every opportunity we can to teach from what we have assessed from conferencing.  It may be a need for one student, a small group or the whole class may benefit from it.

Both of these chapters have helped me see a picture in my mind how I need to structure and assess IR time next year.  I will send a parent letter explaining how important IR time is for higher student achievement.  I will put a copy of the guidelines for picking out a "just right" book inside my student's IR folder and title it, A "Just Right" Book for Me.  When I confer with my students, I need to be more relaxed and ask them to tell me about the book instead of me asking questions at first. I really liked her Framework for An Informal Reading Conference and the "Child Friendly" reading goals.  I plan to make a copy of these to use next year to get my year started off on the right foot.