"Level-Mania" and the Identity of the Reader
I read something interesting at the Edge of the Forest about leveled book systems in elementary classrooms. A small snip from the thoughtful piece:
In the name of "just right" books, we may be sacrificing real reading experiences that will last a lifetime.
The author seeks to make the point that leveled systems in classrooms which funnel children into baskets of books that match their reading level deny those students authentic ways to develop the 'behaviors of readers' by building 'their own identity as a reader.' Predetermined reading baskets provide fewer opportunities to explore genre, favorite authors or illustrators and provide greater opportunities to read only with the purpose of getting to the next level basket.
Don't get me wrong — by recognizing this piece I'm not arguing against leveled systems. Leveling systems can maximize the instructional value of a lesson by providing a reliable way to match a young reader with a book. They also provide guidance to teachers who are new to the concept of the reader-text match. But I see the author's point about reading ownership.
So, here's the challenge: have kids read on their instructional level (defined here as 90% accuracy) to help develop their skill as readers and, as teachers, engage in all kinds of other behaviors that help children develop their "reading identity". Some tips for doing that, again from the Edge of the Forest :
Help children find favorite authors.
Guide them to choose books with characters they might come to love — books where the same character appears in several books
Ask them about the kinds of books they like, not the level of book they want
Organize our books in baskets by author, genre, topic and series, rather than by level
Allow kids to choose books that are too hard or too easy if it fits their purpose
Talk to kids about my favorite books, authors, and genres
Introduce children to new books, authors, and genres
Have conversations with children about new books that I am excited about
Share ways that I keep up with new books coming out using internet resources
Share book reviews with children and talk about the kinds of books that sound good to them.
"I'm Done, Now What?": A List of Things Students Can Do After Seat Work
Children work at different paces. Here are some suggestions for how to keep your speedy workers occupied while their classmates finish their assignments.
An Example of the 90 Minute Reading Block
Research shows that students need at least 90 minutes of uninterrupted reading instruction per day in order for sufficient student reading development, and that this instruction must be dense: systematically delivering explicit teacher directions; scaffolded over time; and differentiated across the classroom. Here is a chart from Just Read, Florida! that provides an example of how to set up a good 90-minute reading block.
Arranging your classroom
Our babysitter is starting her first year of teaching this week. She'll be teaching kindergarten at one of our high needs schools. It's an Open Court school, so while most of her curriculum is already prescribed for her, how she arranges her classroom is up to her. And she's filled with questions!
As a teacher, setting up your classroom is one of the most exciting parts of August! Where should the classroom library go? Where should the teacher desk go? How should the student desks be arranged? In my mind, each decision says something about how the classroom will run and what the teacher values.
For desk arrangements, this site, from Huntington College shows various desk arrangements, and the types of learning encouraged from various styles (my classrooms were usually a variation of the horseshoe or the group work plan). Our own article, Classroom Arrangement, provides guidance about some things to consider when setting up all your furniture.
For classroom libraries, I think I've mentioned this site before, but I'll mention it again because of its helpful pictures and labels. A second good site on classroom libraries is here. I like the breadth of topics on this site, including ways to acquire books, labeling the books, and creating a welcoming spot.
We'd love to hear what has worked for you, August is a great month for veteran teachers to share their expertise! What's your classroom arrangement like?
Audiobooks: Ideas for Teachers
Encourage students to become better listeners and readers through audiobooks.
Big trouble, written down
Something I never thought I'd hear...
"Joanne, this is Mrs. Z from school. Anna's bringing home a note today. I thought I'd give you a head's up."
Oh boy. It seems Anna had trouble including someone in a game on the playground yesterday. What a sad "backpack unpack" we had... Anna was distraught to have to show us the letter she wrote describing the incident. Here she was, fresh with new writing powers, needing to use them to write about her trouble at school. Darn it.
I'd show you her letter, but it would break your heart. This morning, after she left for the bus, I found another letter from Anna on my pillow: "Tooda will be a good day. I love you"
I love you too, Anna. And when you get home, let's read about other troubles at school. How about Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse? The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash? Berenstain Bears' Trouble at School?
Are there others you can add that we could read?
Though the goal of classroom management is to head off conflict before it can start, occasionally students will get into fights. These tips from the Southeastern Connecticut Gang Activities Group will help you break up a fight.
How your classroom is arranged can have a big effect on your ability to effectively manage your class. This article discusses some ideas you should keep in mind as you set up your classroom.
These tips on how to keep your classroom running smoothly have been gathered from teachers around the world.
These systems of rewards and consequences emphasize the techniques needed for sucessful classroom management.
Consequences, Privileges, and Positive Discipline
Managing a classroom effectively keeps unwanted behavior at a minimum and encourages learning for all students. The following provides suggestions for doing so through the use of consequences, privileges, and positive discipline.
How do you create a classroom library that is both organized and enticing to young readers? Here a teacher illustrates how she set up a classroom library. She provides tips on acquiring books and materials, organizing the shelves, creating labels, and making it cozy.
Desk cleaning, first-year teacher style
Stories from a time when we had "more enthusiasm than commonsense" enable us to share a laugh. As Brenda Powers, editor at Choice Literacy wrote, the most memorable stories often begin with a failure — the bigger the better.
As school begins to wind down for the summer, I always remember one afternoon in May from my first year of teaching. My "classroom," a single-wide trailer behind an old, single-level red brick school, was tiny, cramped and the center of my universe. Twenty-four second graders and I fumbled our way through the year with too few books and 2 reams of paper for copies. By May, we all longed for more space and some fresh air.
Our principal announced that student desks needed to be cleaned, inside and top, before the kids left for summer. As we chatted in the lunchroom one day, a fellow teacher shared her trick for removing the sticky residue nametags and number lines left on desks: menthol shaving cream. "Just have the kids squirt it on and squish it around on their desks. It works like magic!" she said.
A quick trip to the CVS and I was ready. Twenty four cans of menthol shaving cream, twenty four second graders and a young teacher with good intentions. Clean desks were on the way.
You can imagine what happened next. The shaving cream did START on the desks. My kids squirted it on and squished it around. For about 30 seconds. Then, chaos!
It was everywhere! Arms, clothes, hair, floor, books, walls, white foam everywhere. To make matters worse, it turns out that 24 cans of menthol shaving cream is A LOT of menthol in such an enclosed space. And it gets dry. And sticky. And we had no running water, or even a bucket of water with rags (in retrospect, THAT would have been a good idea).
Very quickly, our plans changed. "Hands up!" I cried, "get into line. We're heading to the bathrooms!" Bless their hearts, my twenty-four second graders quickly marched, hands up surgeon-style, through the hall of the school to the group bathrooms. I'm sure I heard more than one teacher snicker as we passed their door.
Lesson learned, and event cemented in my memory! How about you? Care to share a memorable story from a time when your enthusiasm bubbled over?
Effective Schools and Accomplished Teachers: Lessons About Primary-Grade Reading Instruction in Low-Income Schools
Taylor, B.M., Pearson, P.D., Clark, K.M., & Walpole, S. (2000). Effective schools and accomplished teachers: Lessons about primary-grade reading instruction in low-income schools. The Elementary School Journal, 101, 121-165.
How running a reading program is like running a campaign
As I write this blog on Wednesday morning after our historic presidential election, I'm struck by an article I read on msnbc.com. Howard Fineman summarized what he saw as Obama's seven-prong approach to his campaign that served him well.
It was easy for me to see how well these same seven prongs could serve schools and districts well as they consider how they teach reading.
Below are the seven prongs as described by Fineman, with each prong's relationship to reading summarized. See what you think!
1. Be decisive. Make an informed, research-based decision about the reading program you're going to use.
2. Have a tight circle. Listen to the voices of parents, teachers, and administrators. Don't go it alone and expect it to work.
3. Stick with the plan. Too often, schools change gears before giving a program a chance to work. If you have evidence that change is occurring, stay with the plan.
4. Sweat the details. Find out how things are working for all your kids: your ELL population, your kids with LD, and other subgroups. Find out what you can do to improve data collection and implementation.
5. Understand your brand. In reading, I think this means the daily reminder that our goal is creating a population of kids who can (and want to) read well.
6. Go digital. For classrooms, this means developing teachers who know and use technology for assessment and teaching.
7. Use caution. Be wary of programs and interventions that claim to have quick and easy solutions for struggling readers.
As I've said before, it's darn hard work, but we can do it!
How young is too young for cursive?
My friend Cathy called to talk about her daughter's first grade teacher. Lilly, her six year old, started complaining about school a few weeks ago, and over the past two weeks the situation has gotten steadily worse. Cathy finally coaxed it out of Lilly that the problem is all about handwriting. Lilly's teacher requires that all school assignments, including spelling tests, be written in cursive. In cursive! In first grade! Lilly's handwriting is apparently not up to par, and she's had to do lots of extra practice sheets to work on her cursive writing. No wonder she hates school!
When I taught third grade, I taught cursive. My students had handwriting workbooks, and right after recess we'd come in and do a page or two of handwriting. The students LOVED handwriting time; it was definitely the quietest part of our day! I still remember looking across the room to see my students, usually with their tongue stuck out the side of their mouth, really concentrating on those loopy lines and "letter shields."
Third grade seemed like a reasonable age to teach cursive; their fine motor skills were fairly good, and their understanding of locatives (words used for spatial and temporal concepts such as "up" or "next to") was solid. But first grade? C'mon! My first-grader is still working on her letter and word spacing. I can't imagine her trying to link two letters together to write in cursive.
Some folks question whether we should teach cursive at all, given that most students will do most of their writing assignments on the computer anyways. Others suggest that maybe kids' interest in learning cursive should be the deciding factor as to whether and when to teach cursive.
What's your opinion? Should we still teach cursive to kids? And if so, at what age should we begin?
I Do, We Do, You Do
Susan Hall, co-author of Straight Talk About Reading and more recently the editor for Implementing Response to Intervention: A Principal's Guide gave a workshop at the Center for Development and Learning's conference. The topic was on teaching the tough phonological awareness skills, and in it she referred to an instructional procedure she called "I Do, We Do, You Do."
As teachers, we're all familiar with this notion; we model, we work through it with our kids and then we release the responsibility to the students. As a variation of scaffolding, this model represents what we know about good teaching: teachers explicitly teach a new skill, teacher and students practice the skill together, and then student demonstrates the skill through practice activities. Corrective feedback and pacing vary by group and by student.
I like the language of I Do, We Do, You Do; it's simple, short, and clear. I can see the practicality of using it with young students as a guide for work throughout the week. I am sure someone has turned this into a poster or has created a neat graphic for their classroom. If you have something like that, please share!
Key Lessons: Class Size and Student Achievement
After more than 20 years of research, class size continues to be at the forefront of the educational and political agenda for schools, school districts, and school boards. Here is a snapshot of what research tells us about class size and student achievement.
Key Lessons: What Research Says About Reorganizing School Schedules
Like class size reduction, increasing instructional time has lots of common-sense appeal as mechanism for raising student achievement. But more time in school can be costly. These key lessons summarize the current research on different approaches to organizing school time and schedules, beginning with the obvious question: Does more time make a difference?
Key Lessons: What Research Says About the Value of Homework
How much homework is too much? Not enough? Who should get it? These are just a few of the questions that have been debated over the years. While the research produces mixed results, there are some findings that can help inform decisions about homework.
Literacy Instruction in Nine First-grade Classrooms: Teacher Characteristics and Student Achievement
Wharton-McDonald, R., Pressley, M., & Hampston, J.M. (1998). Literacy instruction in nine first-grade classrooms: Teacher characteristics and student achievement. The Elementary School Journal, 99, 101-128.
The literacy-rich environment emphasizes the importance of speaking, reading, and writing in the learning of all students. This involves the selection of materials that will facilitate language and literacy opportunities; reflection and thought regarding classroom design; and intentional instruction and facilitation by teachers and staff.
Managing instruction when kids are sick
Molly went back to school Monday morning after being out sick all last week. She had the double whammy of H1N1 and strep throat. It was a loooong week for her and me! She was miserable, feverish, and missed five days of school.
Flu-related absences present a real instructional challenge for teachers. After all, it's hard to run a reading group with half the group out sick. And what about that new science unit, or the concept in math you planned to teach? Should you hold off new content, or go ahead and teach it and plan to teach it again when the sick kids are back?
The U.S. Department of Education offers some advice in their document Preparing for the Flu: Department of Education Recommendations to Ensure the Continuity of Learning for Schools (K‐12). Included are recommendations that range from sending hard copy packets home to sick kids to recorded class meetings made available online or through podcasts to distance learning courses. Each recommendation seeks to keep the learning going, even when kids are out of school.
Molly's teacher used a simple paper form to communicate missed assignments. Every day she filled out the sections (math, science, social studies), and sent home worksheets and pages to read from the reading group's book. It worked for us, and it's what many teachers do during this time of the year.
For parents, kids under a blanket are a captive audience! Use this opportunity to start a new read aloud at home. Or, check out our booklist called From Book to Film. You can plan a fun day of reading a book and snuggling up for the movie adaptation.
Teachers: What are you doing to keep instruction going in your classroom? Please share your tips and advice!
Parents: What are you doing to occupy your sick child? Got any great tips or advice to share?
New school year = rough transitions for some
My friend Kathy has a son with mild to moderate disabilities. Henry is going into third grade this year, and I just got an email from her:
"Back to school" has special meaning for Henry. Transitions are tough for him, so these first few weeks of getting adjusted are hard for everyone. I know things will eventually settle down, but I wish these this time of year could be easier. So many tantrums, so many tears.
In Henry's case, he has an IEP in place and a special education team that will be looking out for him. For kids who struggle in school but don't have an IEP, this is a time of year when parents need to be extra vigilant. Do everything you can to make sure weeks of instructional time are not lost — your child doesn't have a moment to lose!
What can parents of struggling students do during these first few weeks of school? Here are a few ideas:
Set up a conference with your child's new teacher. He or she is swamped right now, but see if you can't find a 10-15 minute window to sit down one-on-one. Advocate for your child's needs within the classroom. This article, Taking a Closer Look: My Child's Academic Success may be helpful.
Help your child's new teacher get to know your child. What does he like and dislike? What subject areas are challenging for him? What extra support do you provide to your child? What are your goals for the year? Here's an example of a letter written by parents of a student with ADHD.
Was your child tutored over the summer? If so, see if your tutor would be willing to write a summary of what they worked on and any work habits that may be useful for a teacher to know.
Breathe. Your child will pick up on your anxieties. Trust that a few simple actions on your part will help your family get off to a great start.
Want to read more on the topic? Check out a new article on our sister site LDOnLine called September Thoughts: Reflections on a New School Year.
My girls are having their first day of school today! I've got a special snack ready, and am planning for a nice quiet afternoon. How do you ease your transition to school?
No more Friday spelling tests!
I think I'll open a can of worms this week and declare that teachers should abandon the age-old practice of Friday spelling tests. You know the routine (because you went to elementary school, and it hasn't changed): students get new words on Monday, "practice" them during the week using various drills; they take a test on Friday, and then on Monday, misspell the words and all the other words that share that spelling feature.
I'm not the only one who advocates abandoning the practice; in fact this blog's title came from a similarly titled 2005 Council for Exceptional Children article. Loeffler, the author, describes how this approach of teaching spelling fails kids who struggle, particularly kids with LD who have poor memory skills. She recommends using a spelling rubric (found within the article) based on student writing as an alternative to Friday tests. I have a few issues with the approach she suggests, but I do think it's a step in the right direction.
Teaching spelling well is a huge topic, one that can't be covered here in a blog post. But it's clear that we need to teach kids to spell in a way that makes sense. We know that spelling supports reading and that accurate spelling of words supports fluent writing. We also know that methods like this just fail our kids.
Let's start a conversation about what we can do to teach spelling well. Is your child a good speller? Do you see the "Friday test, Monday miss" phenomena in your house? How can we make sure each child's spelling words are at the right level of challenge? How can we teach sounds, syllables, morphemes, and something about word origin?
Open House: What does a good classroom look like?
Our school has an Open House the week before school starts. It's always a day or so after we find out our teachers for the year. School is open for an hour so families can help kids find their new classroom, and meet their new teacher. There's lots of nervous excitement in the air!
We start school early here (August 20), so our Open House is next week. The girls can't wait, and neither can I. The promise of a new school year never gets old.
It's fun to look around classrooms too — they're as varied as the teachers. There are a few things I always look for in a classroom. I know that some things can't be seen too early in the school year, but other things set the right tone for me.
First, how's the classroom library? Are there lots of books? How are they organized? If you're wondering if and why that matters, here's a good read: Understanding How Classroom Libraries Work.
Second, does the classroom appear organized? Piles of clutter and paper early on signal an "organizational style" that you may need to get used to. I've seen many classrooms where the teacher workstation took up so much space that there were few places where students could work! If you're in need of some organizational help, see Classroom Organization Sites for lots of resources.
Third, are materials available for student consumption? I always had a writing area in my classroom, stocked with paper, tape, scissors, glue…anything the students might need to carry out their work. I knew that if the materials were out and available, my students wouldn't need to interrupt a reading group to ask for a rubber band or a paper clip. Giving students access also helps build a sense of pride and responsibility within the room.
Last, (and somewhat controversial) is it a "store bought" classroom? I get nervous when I see bulletin boards and walls loaded with posters and graphics from teacher supply stores. In my experience, displays like those are somewhat static, and leave less room for student work and teacher creativity. I'd much rather see just a title on a bulletin board with the understanding that the board (and the class) is a work in progress!
What about you? What makes a big impression on you during Open House?
Organizing for Effective Reading Instruction
To address the wide range of individual student variances and needs, reading instruction within one classroom must be data-informed and call on small group instruction and flexible grouping practices. This article delineates routines and procedures to help teachers organize their classroom environment and reading instruction to positively affect student achievement and meet the needs of diverse learners.
Ouch! Tough day for Four Block, aka Whole-Language High Jinks
A new report came out today, authored by reading expert Louisa Moats. In it, Moats takes a hard look at reading programs that market themselves as ones based on Scientifically Based Reading Research (SBRR). The report, "Whole Language High-Jinks," examines Reading Recovery , Four Blocks , Guided Reading, and programs that use a generic "balanced literacy" description. It also includes a comparison of two major approaches to reading instruction (SBRR and Whole Language Derivatives).
The report says this: Some reading programs, in an effort to capitalize on Reading First funding, market themselves as programs that reflect SBBR, when in fact, they do not. Moats' report uses strong language, for example: "Four Blocks is the best example of a whole-language program masquerading as an SBRR program..."[emphasis added]. Moats describes how a good SBRR program 'teaches each component thoroughly, explicitly, and with planned connections to the others. Such programs build in validated assessments of progress so that students who are accelerated and those who need small-group intervention and support are identified and taught accordingly.' The "sheep in wolves clothing" programs fail our neediest students by sharing the following commonalities: teacher modeling (not direct instruction), rely on strategies from the three cueing systems theory, reject systematic decoding, spelling, and grammar instruction, confuse phonemic awareness with phonics, make heavy use of writer's workshop and leveled books, and de-emphasize direct instruction in comprehension strategies.
Several of the blogs I read regularly have also blogged about the release: see Teach Effectively , Joanne Jacobs , and I Speak of Dreams , just announcements, no commentary. I'm eager to see the types of comments that come in. I suspect we'll hear from teachers who use the programs Moats slammed and argue for their 'SBRRness.' Teachers who use some of the "reasonably faithful to SBRR" programs, as described by Moats, ( Open Court , Trophies , Reading Street ) might have their own opinions about teaching with those programs.
I'd encourage everyone to read the report, and if you're inclined, come back and comment. And while I agree with Moats' recommendations for policymakers at the end of the report, does anyone else agree that they seem disconnected from the report's content?
Reading logs, reading blahs
Many of us are back to school by now. And for most of us, that means daily reading logs, where a parent signs a log each night confirming that her child has read at home that day. For us, we're on day five, and we're already a little bored.
In the spirit of starting the year off on the right foot, here are a few ideas (hopes? hints?) for teachers and parents that may make reading logs more useful, interesting, and exciting.
I'd love to hear from teachers and parents about reading logs — what has worked for you, and what hasn't?
Make sure kids have access to good books. School, classroom, and public libraries are all good resources. When possible, kids should be able to check out and return books more frequently than once a week.
Evaluate your reading log. Does the structure of it place unnecessary value on pages read? Minutes read? Ask yourself what you value about reading and whether it's reflected on your form.
Use reading logs as a way extend exposure to an author or illustrator being studied at school. Consider providing a list of books by the same author or illustrator.
Make sure parents know and use some variation of the five finger or the Goldilocks rule for difficulty. The reading done at home should be at a child's independent level (95-100% accuracy).
Is there an interesting science or social studies unit going on in the classroom? Help kids find good books on related themes (example here) to keep the school conversation happening at home too.
Honor the work the kids are doing by reading at home. Engage them in a conversation about what they've been reading, what they've liked and what they didn't.
Reading logs: Our own hot topic
I've written twice before about reading logs: back in August 2007 with "Reading logs, reading blahs" and then again in April 2008 with "Should reading with parents count?"
Those two posts have sparked lots of comments, all of which carried valid points about the purposes and pitfalls of reading logs.
"Mom in super school district" wrote that her daughter's class reading log turned reading from "reading for pleasure" to "reading-for-words-until-I-read-long-enough" (which is exactly what was happening with Molly).
Jen and A.M., both teachers, feel that reading logs help families recognize the value of reading every day; the log is little more than a reminder to read. And thankfully, many commented that at their school, being read to and reading with a family member "counts" toward their time.
Both Jen P and Mark H took issue with the way I handled our own reading log situation, which was to just stop doing it. They reasoned that by doing so, I am teaching Molly to defy her teacher's expectations, implying that it's okay to "opt out" of assignments you don't want to do.
First, let me say THANK YOU for commenting. I read every comment that comes in, and I love your differing perspectives and opinions. It's one of the things I hope this blog encourages.
Second, it's clear that reading logs are as different as the teachers who assign them (and the kids who have to use them). And maybe that's the way they should be used (when they're used) — individually. It's clear within my own family that kids are individuals. What motivates Molly is clearly NOT what motivates Anna.
Here's an idea: What about differentiated reading logs? Thoughts or comments? What would they look like?