Teacher Interview Summary

Summary The first teacher that I was able to interview was a 2nd grade teacher at the school I currently work at, she has 32 students in her self-contained classroom and said that, “we only have a few minutes for independent reading.” Mississippi introduced a reading assessment at the end of 3rd grade that all students must pass to be promoted to 4th grade. When this test was introduced strict guidelines were placed on 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms to get students ready for this test. This particular teacher has a state liaison in her room on almost a daily basis making sure students are being prepared properly for the test in two years. Students have an independent reading center that they go to for about 20 minutes three days a week, but

This particular interview was the only one that I went into knowing that the teacher would not be bogged down by some form of testing. I asked this teacher what she did to implement independent reading time and she explained that her entire classroom revolved around guided reading. Every month the class had a different theme such as poetry or memoirs and students picked 2-4 books in that category to read. During class, students had 30-40 minutes of independent reading time followed by 20-30 minutes of discussion. Discussions were free form but specific questions were asked by the teacher to help students meet specific standards. In the beginning of the year the teacher also spent the first month teaching students how to interact with their text, taking notes, highlighting, making notes, using post it notes

It seems that in a haste to prepare students for a reading test, administration and teachers alike have forgotten that reading achievement is correlated to time spent reading (Samuels & Farstrup, 2011). Both teachers also neglected the fact that there was a key component missing from both a reading center and reading at home: teacher support. Although in the 2nd grade classroom there was some teacher guidance in book selection there was no time set aside for teacher and student to sit together and discuss reading strategies or the book as a whole, important aspects of successful independent reading (Samuels & Fastrup, 2011, Miller & Moss, 2013). In the book No More Independent Reading Without Support Miller and Moss give 7 practices that are critical for effective independent reading including “students need explicit instruction about what, why and how readers read… students need access to texts… students need teacher monitoring, assessment and ongoing support (2013, p. 19, 27, 30). Each of these components was missing in some way from both of these classrooms. In the second classroom of 7th grade students the teacher relied on students reading at home which of course removes all teacher support but also leaves students without books. Student access to books is a major contribution to these students lack