IDR - Independent Daily Reading

Independent reading lets students practice strategies that they learned during the other instructional contexts along the gradual release of responsibility.  During independent reading, students read from texts at their independent reading level or texts that are easy enough for them to decode and understand without a lot of effort.  The goals of independent reading are to...

• practice a smoothly operating reading process
• to exercise choice  
• develop reading interests  

Independent reading that offers guided choice, that teaches children how to select books that are on an appropriate reading level for them, and during which teachers confer with students yields positive results.  It is critical to maintain the balance between student choice and text demands.  Independent reading is often referred to as reading practice, and the ways students interact with texts at this point in the gradual release of responsibility should echo those practiced in read-aloud, shared, and guided reading contexts.