We spend time each day reading independently (private time) and talking with a partner about our books (partner time). Just as adults often enjoy talking about what they read (book clubs, conversation topics, blogs, etc.), and professionals have to discuss what they read, kids also need time to share what it is that they are reading, noticing, and learning.

It is during private time that we build our stamina (how long we are able to read our "just right" books for), apply our schema (prior knowledge; the stuff that we already know), make connections, and use strategies to figure out tricky words. We also think about the book and monitor for meaning and understanding. 

Reading is about understanding.  If, after reading a text, we don't know what we read or we can't talk about it, we aren't really reading.  Talking about what we read helps to deepen our understanding.  This is when we share the conversations and actions that happen in our heads (retelling, questioning, synthesizing, visualizing, making connections, sequencing, etc.).  Think about it this way: If you don't speak Spanish, you could probably get away with reading the words on the page in a novel or newspaper; however, you wouldn't understand what it was saying.  What did you learn or understand by "reading" the text?  We read to make meaning and collect information.  Partner time provides the opportunity to share silly, funny, interesting, surprising, etc parts of a book and also to hold us accountable for our time and understanding.

We also use partner time to practice our reading fluency.  We learned 3 ways to read with another person:

• Echo reading-one person reads and the other person repeats
• Buddy reading-taking turns reading pages
• Choral reading-reading together (at the same time)

Here are two children practicing echo reading together: