Class Reading--July 24

      After reading the article about one-minute fluency measures by Deeney, I have to agree that I don't think the one-minute measures are a teachers best option. This being said, I think time is of the essence in the classroom and it's sometimes hard to fit in more than that with each student. I think it can be done though. The article suggests:

• Increasing automaticity 
• Decrease readability levels
• Read interesting texts
• Increase reading volume
• Increase expectations
• Reread books
• Engage parents and caregivers

     These are all really good things to keep in mind when you want to increase both fluency AND endurance for reading. These ideas are all really important in helping students to become better readers. I think one of the most important ones would be reading interesting texts. When I was in middle school, we started reading books as a class that really turned me off from reading. Although they were probably really good books, I didn't always enjoy them. In elementary school the books we read that were really interesting and my teachers always had great activities to go along with them. One book I remember reading that I enjoyed was The Chocolate Touch. My teacher related this to all of the things we were doing in class like social studies and math. It was a fun way to be actually interested in the book we were reading. I think it's important to remember that even though students may be older, it is still vital to make things interesting and fun so that learning is more meaningful. I will be certified through 12th grade and although elementary activities aren't appropriate if I was to teach upper grades, I would like to still be able to make lessons fun and interesting.