Laura Riemensnider’s Blog #2 Routman, Reading Essentials, Ch. 4: Teach with a Sense of Urgency

            In this chapter Regie Routman writes that if “we don't know how to teach reading and move students forward, then we must take responsibility for learning how.  We must jump start our own professional development.” This stands out to me because when I began teaching I did not have the realization that I was lacking in reading skills. I thought that if you spent time reading with children in the state provided basal, you follow the lesson plans that came with the basal, and then added here and there to meet your student’s needs, then you were teaching reading. As I became exposed to other ways of teaching reading and began to work with many teachers from many different backgrounds my eyes begin to open. I had been delivering the basal, not teaching children! It's amazing to look back on those first few years of teaching and realize how very little I actually knew about teaching reading. Parts of me would love to go back in time with the knowledge that I have now and teach those children all over again. I understand now why it's so important to acknowledge the strength and experience that we have in our older teachers. Others may view them as being stuck in old ways, not being so proficient with technology, or just counting the days down to retirement, but to me they are some of our greatest treasures. They have had the most experience and they have seen all the different methods of teaching come in and out of popularity. I am grateful that I have gotten to work with seasoned teachers who we're very willing to share their knowledge with a younger teacher.

Further into her chapter, Routman wrote about the optimal learning model. She summarized the parts of the model, highlighting the gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to the student. I reflected on what she wrote about how once a teacher understands this learning model, then they begin to make different decisions. That we begin to think about teaching as it relates to our students' needs and interests. One area that Routman points out in her chapter, that I feel that I could personally use to improve my own teaching, is the part about interactive reading. She encourages teachers to allow their students to have more opportunities to talk while the teacher reads a story aloud. It's a good time for the teacher to model what they're thinking when they're reading. She makes a good case with this when she points to students having the opportunity to think about the text more. We know that when students are more engaged, they are learning more.