Lunacy

[ScottishHib]

Observation a month ago - colleague told that children reading for enjoyment was not learning and classroom was too quiet and boring. Observation repeated to see if any progress - colleague completed a daft quiz getting the pupils to use their smartphones to answer questions. Head of learning commented that it was great progress. Does it make sense?

Reading your own book in silence is a bit dangerous for a lesson observation though. It gives students opportunity to opt-out as reluctant readers could easily just sit there staring at the pages and not reading. And how do you know a child is learning? There's no way the teacher could check comprehension from 30 kids who are all reading a different book and you have no idea if your weaker readers are reading the words right.
I disagree with kids using their smartphones in class from a safeguarding standpoint (opportunities to take photos of other students, access to social media in class etc) but I'm guessing the quiz was something like a kahoot which is a fun way of checking understanding.

Without more info such as the age of the kids, the subject being taught, the learning objective that lesson and what the quiz was, I can't really tell you if it was poor advice, but at a basic level, the former lesson didn't sound productive, no.

I would never have kids just reading in a lesson observation.

If they have smart phones are they secondary age? How long were they reading for? 10 minutes seems fine, longer I can kinda see the observers point. If it is enforced reading is it really reading for enjoyment?

I would have concerns about both lessons.

It should be an absolute given that smartphones have no place in schools, for a start. That’s a major concern.

Individual silent reading needs careful management. It can be an effective use of time if the teacher has a clear approach to monitoring, which might included hearing children read on a regular basis and assessing their fluency against a clear model like Rasinski’s rubric, and checking the children’s engagement and understanding of their chosen book with questions following the predict - clarify - summarise - question structure. Even then it is incredibly difficult to check that every student is genuinely reading and not just pretending.