Saturday Sayings!

I am tickled pink to join Tammy at Forever in First, Julie at Lighting a Fire in Third Grade, and Lori at Conversations in Literacy, as we share our favorite quotes and reflections! Tammy has allowed us to link with her during the month of April!  Please visit all of our blogs and join the discussion!  We would love to hear from you!

My quote this Saturday is from Richard Allington:  

"If children are to read a lot throughout the school day, they will need a rich supply of books they can actually read. This seems a simple statement of fact. But there also exists a large and potent research base supporting supplying children with books of appropriate complexity.  Simply put, students need enormous quantities of successful reading to become independent, proficient readers."  (Allington, 2001).

We have put this quote into practice this year with great success!  Here's a few of the things we have learned:

• It takes A LOT of books in every classroom to makes this work!
• It takes constant conferring with every student to find books that interest them and are on their independent reading level.
• You have to teach students what real reading is-Engaged Reading!
• You have to monitor student engagement.  We focused on at least 30 minutes or more of sustained reading daily.  

The results are impressive!  The classrooms where teachers focused on engaged, independent reading saw increased scores throughout the year.  But most of all, they saw students fall in love with books!

I would love to hear how you have focused on independent reading!

Sandi