OTT 258: 3 Ways to Keep Reading Routines Strong When Curriculum Kicks In

Ever found yourself sacrificing read-aloud time for pre-assessments and curriculum demands? You're not alone. In this heartfelt exploration of keeping reading routines strong, we dive into why those beautiful reading structures we create in August often crumble by September.

The paradox of early-year teaching hits hard when faced with pre-assessments that seem designed to highlight what students don't know. "No kidding they're not on level—they just started second grade!" This frustration resonates with teachers everywhere who see reading time compressed as curriculum demands intensify. But here's the truth we must remember: reading isn't fluff—it's foundation.

Through personal stories, including a memorable moment when students were shocked to see their teacher actually reading alongside them, we explore three powerful strategies to protect and enhance your reading block. First, establish predictable structures that incorporate interactive elements like turn-and-talk discussions. Second, maximize read-alouds by using them for character work, social-emotional learning, and cross-curricular connections. Third, choose depth over breadth—one rich discussion trumps five rushed activities every time.

Remember what matters most: the goal is connection, not checking boxes. The magic happens during reading time, when students laugh until they cry over Junie B. Jones' latest adventure or sit spellbound by a powerful story. You became a teacher to share stories and spark a love for learning. Your reading time isn't extra—it's essential. Need a reset? Grab the free four-week read aloud unit mentioned in the episode and reclaim the joy of reading in your classroom.

Free Reading Unit

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to One Tired Teacher
• 1:58 Why Reading Routines Slip
• 4:17 Reading with Students: Personal Experience
• 6:18 Three Strategies That Work
• 10:23 Free Read Aloud Unit
• 13:18 Connection Over Checking Boxes

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to One Tired Teacher, episode 258. Three ways to keep reading routines strong when curriculum kicks in. So by now we are in September. You may be a few weeks into the school year and your beautifully structured reading routine is already getting buried under diagnostics and pre-assessments and curriculum maps and classroom chaos. And you are not alone, my friend. Let me tell you first of all how much I hate pre-assessments. Determining at the beginning of the year that my students are not on second grade level was maddening. No kidding, they're not on level. They haven't done the grade yet, they just started on level. They haven't done the grade yet, they just started second grade. There's nothing more defeating than seeing all those red and yellow right from the start. So now I do feel like it's a good idea and it's a good practice and it's very helpful to work through some of those diagnostics and actually help drive instruction instead of like predetermining if they don't know it, we're still going to teach it anyway, kind of thing. But you know what? That's a whole nother topic. I could really go on and on about that. So today we're talking about how to protect and simplify your reading block even when curriculum demands start creeping in, because reading isn't fluff, it's foundation. Welcome to One Tired Teacher. And even though she may need a nap, this teacher is ready to wake up and speak her truth about the trials and treasures of teaching here. She is wide awake. Wait, she's not asleep right now, is she? She is awake, right?

Speaker 1: 1:48

Okay, from Trina Devery Teaching and Learning. Your host, trina Devery. Hey, so let's get to it.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Okay, the first thing we're going to talk about is why reading routines tend to slip. Because it happens, it just happens to all of us. We, you know, we have the best intentions in the beginning of the year and then something, something kind of messes it up. So what happens? So let's acknowledge, first of all, how reading time let's acknowledge it Like, let's acknowledge how it gets can often get shortened. It gets skipped or overlooked. It actually never gets skipped. We know it doesn't get skipped because we are like bound by that 90 minutes and some of us have to do more than that and it's just feels like you know, they're just pushing, pushing, pushing.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Anyway, I'm talking about, I'm talking about your real time read aloud time. That's the part that sometimes gets skipped when we don't have the chance to read aloud, as well as time for kids to actually read independently. Those are the things that get missed. We think we don't have enough time. We've got to do instruction. Even if we're using, like, a shared reading activity, or we're doing something with a book and we're reading parts of it, or we're reading the whole thing to the class and we're working through things, sometimes we think that part doesn't, we don't need to do that part Like, we just need to share like snippets or bits of it. But that whole experience of read aloud is so, so important, and it's also really important for kids to get the chance to read independently as well. So those have to be like sacred, sacred spaces. It's also there's also a lot of pressure to cover more ground and tie everything to standards. Okay, we know that We've got that. It's okay, we can still do all of that. I want you to know that we can still have all of that together and that consistency and joy they really matter more than perfection. All right.

Speaker 1: 3:54

So my favorite time was when, on occasion, I would get to read with my kids and and this was something that you know they used to a long time ago in my early, early days it was like drop everything and read and everybody was like encouraged to read, but that went away because there's like there's not enough time, we don't have time for teachers to sit around reading, as if that's a bad thing, and they made you know. It was like every minute counts. Every minute does count, but I do remember this one year that I was super addicted to the Twilight series and I was really like I could not put it down, and so I'm like I'm gonna take this like 20 minutes. I think we really got up to like 45 minutes of independent reading time in my classroom and and that consisted of kids responding to the instruction and story that we had just worked through, so it was like a reading response and then as soon as they were finished with that, they moved into independent reading and and I also let them move around, so they were on the floor, on the couch, you know, under tables, like in comfy spots, so that they could sustain that, and we worked our way up to that. We didn't start at 45 minutes, but, but it just made such a difference, anyway.

Speaker 1: 5:18

So one of the times I'm like I'm going to spend 20 minutes with them, I'm going to read with them, and. And they were like shocked, because normally I was pulling groups at that time and, um, but they were like, what are you doing? And I was like I'm going to read too. And I got on the couch and then, like a couple of kids were like snuggled up with me and we were reading and it was just the best thing in the world and it really, it really was like. You know, this is what reading looks like reading for pleasure and my kids were so excited and that they wanted to read more. When the timer went off, they were like we were all like no, and I'm like let's read for five more minutes. And they're like yes, and it was a beautiful, beautiful thing to witness.

Speaker 1: 6:07

So sometimes, sometimes we have to, we do have to break the routine. We have to model the pure love and joy of reading All right. So let's talk about three strategies that work. First of all, we want to lock in a predictable structure. So we might do something like a read aloud with like an interactive element where they're turning and talking or they're doing a quick response or you know, we're doing like a little, almost like a round table, but not necessarily at their seats. I like to pull kids in to the book nook and have them reading on the floor with me and they can bring I do sometimes have them bring whiteboards so that they can do quick responses, quick sketches, quick, you know, little jots of notes so that they can be part of it as well, because I don't necessarily always want them just at their seats. So, anyway, the familiarity it really keeps kids engaged and makes planning so much easier when you have like a structure to follow.

Speaker 1: 7:19

I think turn and talk is also really crucial because it allows kids to help it develop those strong comprehension skills as they read or listen to texts and books. And even a quick response, can you know, it doesn't even have to be like a full, complete graphic organizer. That can be something that they do go back to their seats to do, but it can be something quick, like an exit ticket or an exit slip, which I do have in my store on TPT Trina Devery, teaching and Learning, and I have them for all of the reading comprehension strategies and they are quick and an easy way to look and see who understands and who doesn't. And I love those little things. It's like a little, you know, like a little ticket. There's like four to a page and then they're super easy, and kids can fill them out right there on the floor with their whiteboards and their pencil, and it depends on what you have them come to the floor with, and you don't even need clipboards if you've got whiteboards, because they can just use that as like their hard surface.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Anyway, a second thing that we can do, a second strategy that works, is we can use read alouds for more than reading. We can tie this into character work. We can tie this into social and emotional learning. We can tie this into empathy building. We can tie this into writing. We can tie this into writing in response to reading, which hello standards based. We can use books to build classroom culture and integrate across subject areas, and this is a huge way of integrating science and social studies, especially when you don't have a block of that time anymore because we feel like we don't have enough time to teach that, which it blows my mind. It blows my mind when we are falling behind as a nation in science and we are not teaching science. Like I know, some schools have even moved to teaching science like on the rotation, like as a special, and that's it One day of science. What Science sometimes is a subject that kids who struggle, excel because they think like that. They think that in that mathematical, scientific way. So we can't let go of science, and social studies is also very important as well, and okay anyway.

Speaker 1: 9:43

So when I'm doing informational text, when I'm focusing on informational text, I like to teach with different genres. I feel like that was really powerful for my kids, but anyway, I loved to focus on informational text that had to do with science or social studies. So all this informational text standards, like you know, the main idea and the problem and the solution cause and effect those kinds of things were, you know, text features. All that could be taught with books that were based on science topics or social studies topics that I had to cover my class. That way it was, like you know, killing one bird with two stones or two birds with one stone or whatever that saying is. I hate that saying. Actually, I don't know why I keep saying that. I've actually said that before. I don't want to kill a bird, but you know what I mean. All right, and then number three, the third strategy pick fewer activities but go deeper. One rich discussion is so much better and more powerful and helping with deeper comprehension than five rush tasks. So give yourself permission to slow down, slow down, connect to stories.

Speaker 1: 11:02

I loved moments where I had kids feeling things, where we were reading and we were crying or we were reading and we were laughing hysterically. I will never forget one time when I was reading this was my, because this read aloud I'm talking about is actually part of instruction. I also did a read aloud that was kind of more for relaxing and joyful and fun and that was like just to kind of refresh us after lunch and it was usually like some kind of chapter book or something. And I remember reading a Jenny B Jones book and it was Jenny B Jones is the beauty, was Ginny B Jones is the beauty shop or Ginny B Jones is the beauty shop guy, and I was dying laughing when Ginny B comes, has like cut her hair and comes out with all these different hats on and her grandpa, her grandpa's, like whoa, whoa, whoa, and I was laughing so hard, I was crying. My kids, I couldn't even get to the page because I couldn't. Even I hadn't even shown them the picture yet and I was dying laughing and they were like laughing with me but they didn't know what was happening. They were like tell us, tell us and they were. So, oh my gosh, it was so funny. I think I ended up blowing that picture up and like making a copy of it and hanging in my classroom because I thought it was so funny. Anyway, um, all right.

Speaker 1: 12:23

So if you want a like plug and play way to start strong or maybe even reset some of your reading routines, I have a free read aloud unit. It's a whole unit. Have a free read aloud unit. It's a whole unit. It's four weeks of lessons and activities and it walks you through setting up your reading routines, your introduction to character work. It's four lessons of our four weeks of lessons, printables and routines that feel doable. And here's the link. I'm going to say the link, but I'm also going to post the link in the show notes, but it's TrinaDeboreyTeachingAndLearningcom. Forward slash all one word reading unit. Trinadeboreyteachingandlearningcom. Forward slash reading unit. So just reading unit right at the end. It's super easy to find All right.

Speaker 1: 13:18

So let's remind you that you don't have to do it all. Reading time should feel like a breath, not a burden. You can rebuild your routine anytime. It's never too late. So if it's already the beginning of the year and you're feeling like it's not working, stop, re-evaluate, determine what you're going to do differently and re-teach the procedure. If you have to re-teach the procedure multiple times until they understand and remember what that looks like Like, you're telling them what the procedure is.

Speaker 1: 13:51

You probably have it written down and maybe some visuals to help them understand the steps, and then you are allowing them, you're modeling it. I often do like an example of it and then a non-example, and then I allow my kids to practice it. I want them to understand how to do it flawlessly so that that time is like a coveted, beautiful time in my classroom. That's how I used to feel about it. And remember the goal is connection, not checking boxes. All right, you became a teacher to share stories and spark love for learning. Your reading time isn't extra. It's where the magic happens. You've got this, this, and I'm cheering you on every step of the way. Until next time, sweet dreams and sleep tight.