Independent Reading Expectations

The Expectations of Independent Reading

An important part of teaching literacy is providing daily opportunities for students to read, on their own; books they have selected themselves.  Through independent reading students:

• Learn to exercise choice as readers, selecting from a wide variety of texts.
• Develop favorite books, types of books, genres, topics, writing styles, and authors.     
• Develop the habit of spending a significant amount of time reading.
• Build a “reading agenda” that includes books, authors and types of books they want to read in the future.  
• Gain “mileage” as readers by processing a large number of texts on a regular basis.
• Engage in fluent reading daily *including well-paced silent reading in which they are processing syntactic structures).
•  Learn about themselves as readers.
• Become part of a community of readers.

Work with your team to develop accountability for your students.  Remeber that minimal competency is four books a month.  Think about methods of differentiation so that less capable readers are successful.

Rick Dufour (2008) states "if all students are to learn at high levels, the adults in the organization must also be continually learning" (Dufour, 2008, p. 18).  It is our goal to develop an environment where we are free to share and engage in a culture of excellence.  There will be bumps along the way but we will get through it together.  In this blog, we will be able to share best practices, research, and information that will enable us to help ALL of our students not only succeed, but excel to high levels.
Dufour, R., Dufour, R., & Eaker, R. (2008). Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work. Bloomington, IL: Solution Tree Press.