Independent Reading

          I read the section about independent reading, it talks about the importance of self-selected reading time. This is because it allows the student to have time to pick their own book that they are interested in. The section goes over the best way to prepare for independent reading which for the teacher that is to be able to understand your students' literacy personalities. This requires the teacher to look around and see what their students are reading during read/write aloud, shared reading, etc. The teacher must also have a great classroom library. It's the teachers role to see what their students are reading and then carefully take time to develop a classroom a great classroom library. It is helpful too to have the students offer other books to each other to help them expand their material. In the book it has a survey the students fill out in the beginning of the year about how they feel about themselves as a reader.  I thought this was clever to do in the classroom to be able to see how the students judge their own reading ability.
        The section also discusses how to have the students respond to independent reading, this would involve having the student use sticky note and take notes as they read along, it can be questions, predictions, or talking about to the text. Keep a reading journal where the students can write about what they read and what they thought of the book. A one-on-one reading conference can help the student as well, this will be between the teacher and the student,  the two will talk about the book while the teacher judges how the student understood the material and listen to the student read orally.
        All of these aspects are great for a teacher to use to help the students grow on their reading ability and let the student read what they choose to and enjoy it greatly.