Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) is a period set aside for students to read materials silently. There is a great debate on, as to whether silent reading is more effective in the teaching of reading than ‘read alouds.’ That argument is yet to be won. However, I believe that the use of blogs and wikis are more aligned with silent reading. Students post information on their blogs and comment on the teacher’s blog or those of their peers. They are required to read the posts and comment on them. This reading is typically silent reading. Thus, the concerns about this form of reading can also address that of blogs and wikis. Stahl (2004) noted several well-founded concerns and criticisms of
traditionally implemented SSR. The concerns sited include:
1. The absence of the teacher /student interaction in the reading of text.
2. Secondly, he condemned “the lack of teacher monitoring and accountability for whether or not students are actually reading during SSR time.”
The incorporation of web 2.0 in the syllabus would be of value but it must be monitored and have rules that govern how student teacher /interaction should take place.
One possible method of ensuring quality instruction is to practice Scaffolded Silent Reading of blogs and Wikis and to provide feedback wherever possible.
Reference:
Reutzel, Ray, D., Jones, D., Cindy, Fawson, C., Parker, and Smith, A., John, Scaffolded silent reading:a complement to guided repeated oral reading that works! The Reading Teacher, 62(3), pp. 194–207 (2008)
I agree with you that scaffolded instruction is needed in SSR, but I would like to add some information. If we want our adolescent students to grow to appreciate literature, a first step is allowing them to exert ownership and choose the literature they will read. How can
ReplyDeleteWeb 2.0 help students become literate adults who are lifelong readers? When Hunt, a professor at the University of Vermont, introduced the concept of Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) in the late 1960s, the premise was that students will become better readers the more they read and will read more if they select their reading material.
With Web 2.0 technology students can do just that. With the introduction of ebooks, students can have the choice to decide what books they want to read based on thier own interests. At times I think that we are too far removed as teachers from the interests of our students and perhaps we choose books for them based on what we think they may like-but if we give them a choice, maybe, using ebooks thinkiing may change about SSR
Hi Syndy,
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of incorporating Sustained Silent Reading with the use of blogs and wikis. I believe in SSR and I will entertain any ideas to make the period more appealing to my students. I also like the idea "reading who" gave about using e-books to motivate students to read. She has a point about allowing children to choose the books they like to read. However, students tend to be limited in the choice of books they tend to read so we as teachers need to provide them with a wide range of genre. We can do this by reading stories from different genre thereby motivating them to expand their genre.