ABSTRACT
I sat at my desk during silent reading time. With one reading conference finished and another one not yet started, it was the perfect time for a student to come to me with a question. I was happy to see Gloria approach my desk with her book in hand. Eager to help, I leaned forward to see her book, and was soon disappointed to hear, “What does this word mean?” Despite so many mini-lessons on different reading strategies, modeling, practicing with groups, completing homework lessons on making predictions, connections, inferences, and so on, the only question I was asked during silent reading time was, “What’s this word?” I began my inquiry wondering how I could help my students become more independent readers during silent reading time. I wanted them to find out about new words without me prompting them to consult a dictionary, or to use the reading strategies they seemed so capable of implementing during whole-class instruction.
