One of the biggest goals and focuses for my classroom this month(really, for the next 3 months) is to help my students feel confident and successful about reading and responding to text. So much of their yearly assessments requires them to read text that is on and above grade level---on their own. Yikes, I know! But, the purpose to get students reading and strengthening their comprehension goes so much deeper than that for me. As a teacher, I understand that students will be reading for the rest of their lives, and now, when they are in the lower elementary grades, we owe it to them to help prepare them for such a task. One of the best ways that I know to do this is to expose them to as much text as possible-both fiction and nonfiction. ALL. THE. TIME. Like most elementary teachers, I spend a great deal of time helping my students build a foundation for reading by teaching strategies during the first half of the school year. A majority of our reading lessons are centered around me ...