The last, and final blog of 337

For my blog post I decided to talk about SSR time in the classroom. I remember as a student always loving when my teachers did something like this. We got to just pick a book and read. I feel like now in classrooms, you don't see that done as often and it's sad. I think it's so great for student's to have the chance to find and explore different books during this time without feeling the pressures of having to read for an assignment or because they "have to."

This article,
https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/reading/ReadingCoach/ReadingCoach005.shtml, had a lot of great point talking about why SSR is such a great thing to have, and how to do it in your classroom. The first thing that stuck out to me was when it said to establish a time for it, and never sacrifice it. This is so important. You can't say you're going to do SSR time, and then push it off to do something else you think is more important. It also said we have to trust our students in their book selection process. During this time, we can't limit them to what book crates or levels they have to read from. We have to let them pick whatever book they want, and trust that they will do their best to read it, and if they can't, that they will go and pick a different book.

I also think that SSR time can help build a student's love for reading. I know that it grew my love, and I looked forward to this time everyday, and was sad when we didn't have it. It gave me a chance to sit with a new book, or an old favorite, and just read. It wasn't a book that my teacher picked, it was a book that I picked. I was able to explore different genres and authors and figure out what kind of books I actually enjoyed reading. It was a great experience! I also think that teachers should read during this time if they aren't answering questions. It models what a good reader looks like, and shows the students that grownups read too!