Is reading stressful for kids?

These past couple of weeks I have been trying to read "The Golden Compass" by Phillip Pullman as a recommendation from my boyfriend as a crucial part I missed in my childhood.  While the story is very intriguing and captures my attention there are so many other things going on throughout the day that it is so hard to read more than 3 pages at a time before falling asleep.  I wonder if this is how kids feel when we throw multiple texts, tough content, learning reading strategies, not knowing all the words, and being asked so many questions about a book.  Not to mention the idea that we are expecting them to read texts that they may not be interested in.

When developing my literacy action plan I really had to take this idea into account because the texts we choose to use in our classrooms can really impact the growth we see in our students.  The new curriculum guides in Hillsborough County provide resources and instructional focuses that help students toward mastering the standards.  We have started using our close reading modules about every 4 weeks and it has really shown me that if we set the expectations high, students are willing to set everything else aside and do their best.

“Close reading must be accompanied by other essential instructional practices that are vital to reading development: interactive read-alouds and shared readings, teacher modeling and think-alouds.” (Fischer & Frey, p.180)  This tells me that kids need the variety of multiple texts in order to keep their attention while us as adults can't always make the time to read different types of text.

What we hope it's like...

What it may be like...

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2012). Close Reading In Elementary Schools. The Reading Teacher, 66(3), 179-188.

Do we have enough tools to provide Response to Intervention?

Do we have enough tools to provide Response to Intervention?

While the idea of "response to intervention" is excellent for helping students work on their own specific problems, it is also not the best answer for older children.  Within tier one the expectation is that all students are being taught with prevention in mine.  Although, it tends to move the other way since we don't have the tools, the research based methods, to implement in small groups especially at the upper grades.

I teach elementary students, but I imagine it is extraordinarily harder to teach a middle/high school student difficult content when they can't comprehend the text. In regard to this, adolescents need to be taught using response to intervention in mind; teachers need to overcome resistance to incorporate responsive literacy practices into their daily lessons (Brozo, 2009, p.280.)  Although this may be hard due to scheduling purposes, starting with the question "what could go wrong, or what misconceptions might they have?" will help guide the instruction to meet all of the students needs.  For students moving up the tiers, we need to make sure the intervention is meeting their needs at that time and that we are still motivating them to do what's expected.  Since there isn't much research on what intervention methods work at upper skill levels, perhaps we should start collecting data on what we see words and what doesn't.

"In other words, RTI at the secondary level is only as good as its preventative supports.  If content teachers fail to offer responsive literacy instruction to benefit every student and differentiated assistance for those in need of extra help, then the preventative potential of RTI is lost (Brozo, 2009, p.280.)  The bottom line is that we need to do our best to meet the students where they are at and scaffold our instruction to bring them to the understanding of the content.


Inspired by the following article:

Brozo, W. (2009). Response to Intervention or Responsive Instruction? Challenges and Possibilities of Response       to Intervention for Adolescent Literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 277-281.

Let's Make a Change

     The teachers file in to the media center ready for their first day of pre-planning before the new school year and low and behold there are all of these new changes.  Our kids aren't performing as well as we wish they were the administration tell them.  They have set up a new professional learning community format that meets every Thursday morning, and we are all going to have a specific job, and our focus is going to be on Math.  Now the vibe that is buzzing is...why are they taking away our planning time for this silly meeting that won't be worth my time?
 
     For many years schools have had students take standardized tests in order to determine if students are proficient in the major content areas.  These test scores are now determining how much support a school needs in order to continue to promote the highest levels of student learning.  Kathryn Boudett has created a way for schools to work collaboratively in order to make the changes necessary to improve student learning and ultimately those test scores everyone is worried about.  Their protocol addresses ways to look at school wide data, make sense of it, and help teachers work their way into putting the wheels in motion.

     At the beginning of the school year it is important to set a structure using the teachers input with what would look best in their schedules, use the right tone as teachers feel more free to take instead of "pass blame" for bad test scores, and establish times to regroup to see if the strategies implemented are working.  Data is not the easiest thing to look at and analyze, by turning it into good visuals teachers will be better able to focus on the specific needs are not get bogged down by numbers. The next step after looking at the school wide data you have is to turn it into a priority question.  "The Right Question Institute has created a particularly engaging and productive protocol called the Question Formulation Technique...the basic premise of this technique is that for people to take ownership of an issue, they need to participate actively in defining it." (Boudett, 2014, p.85)

     Once you have your focus question as decided by teachers, you will delve deeper into the "learner centered problem" that when solved through different teaching strategies will help meet the larger goals for students.  In this step you would have teachers in their collaborative teams, while using team norms to stay focused on data and not on the teacher, look at multiple sources of student data to help find a solution.  The data may bring out a lot of thoughts and ideas, but it is important to connect the learning to teaching and not any of the outside needs of students.  Allow teachers to establish their own definition of effective practice in order for them to know where they might need to make changes.  "We have found that schools that use questions and data to establish a culture of inquiry in which teachers are participants rather than targets find ways to examine practice." (Boudett, 2014, p.125)  I think this will be the hardest part because no person in this world wants to admit what they are doing is wrong.  If we allow teachers a "safety zone" they will open their eyes to what can be changed.

     Lastly, in order to use data to improve instruction you need to make an action plan.  This plan includes deciding on an instructional strategy that will solve the problem, agreeing on what your plan will look like in the classroom, putting your plan into writing, and deciding on an assessment of the plan so you know if it is working or not. (Boudett, 2014, p.134-135)  I think the one of the most important steps here is putting the plan into writing because teachers and students need to be held accountable for their learning. The other important step is knowing if your efforts were effective and worth your time.  Teachers and students thrive on knowing they are making progress, so assessing your strategies as you go and at major points during the year are crucial if you want to see gains in student learning.

     I will be interested to see if I help lead my first grade team towards Boudett's ideas of assessing data and implementing change, will it be more effective than last year when there was absolutely no professional learning team structure?

Boudett, K. (2014). Data wise: A step-by-step guide to using assessment results to improve teaching and learning.      Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

 

The Struggle is Real

The Struggle is Real

Why are we making students read text that is too hard to comprehend? Is this really what they need?  Have you ever had to read a calculus text book and just see a bunch of number and letters and derivatives and have no idea what any of it means?  I sure have and it doesn't feel good.

This is the real struggle our students are facing in school these days.  They have a hard time comprehending tricky vocabulary or synthesizing new information because they don't have the tools they need to tackle it.   “We might profitably consider purchasing content textbooks written at students’ independent level of reading proficiency” (Allington, 2002) It may take more time for a teacher to compile resources, but in the end you need to do what's best for the students.  You can scaffold them into higher order thinkers by using higher order questioning within text at their level.  There are also various comprehension tools such as Questioning the Author, Story Mapping, and Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) instruction that will help students better express their understanding of their reading.

Let's not forget the technology age and the impact that is having on reading in the 21st century.  As students just become proficient we start asking them to research using various sources, comprehend what they find, and decide if it is reliable information.  We need to provide opportunities for students to be successful as they are assessed on their online reading skills as well as their textbook reading skills.   We can do this by providing various learning opportunities of finding text on their level without giving up the fight.  Providing students with this choice may boost their motivation and make the learning more meaningful to them. 

Allington R.L. (2002) You can't learn much from books you can't read. Educational Leadership, 60(3), 18.

How good are you at reading?

How good are you at reading?

          When reading a book do you often think about the complexity of the text?  I know I go through phases where I want to read really easy feel good type of book and other times I want to read something that makes me think.  As a teacher I feel like I make kids think about their reading every time I assess them and don't leave enough time for the feel good reading moments.

          Assessment is a big deal in literacy because you want to be able to help your students with their reading strategies so engaging in reading does get them to that "feel good" moment.  While reading an article about patterns in reading literacy I thought about my lower level first grade students and their running record I administered with them last week.  After reading the story I asked the students to retell the story and some students chose to look back in the story and others didn't, I wasn't sure what would yield the best results with comprehension.  Caldwell & Leslie (2009) say if the student cannot answer a question, is it because he or she did not understand while reading or because he or she understood but forgot?  If the student can locate that answer during the look-back procedure, you can assume that understanding is in place and forgetting is the culprit. (p. 21)  This makes sense because students do often forget what they ate for breakfast, let along something they only read once.  Another factor I had to consider in my running records were my non-readers who struggled on the easiest words.  "Estimating a student's listening level allows us to determine if the student is challenged by word recognition, basic comprehension, or both." (Caldwell & Leslie, 2009, p. 18)  If a child can't read you can asses them on listening in order to get an accurate read on what the next step is.

          Are these assessments I do with my students reliable because I want them to be reading at the next level?  Are they valid because I am only one person giving my opinion?  I have found that I need to pull various pieces of data and may even need another teacher to administer a DRA to hold me accountable for my opinion of a student's reading level.  As far as other tests that my students take, what is the best way to accurately tell if a student is where they need to be?  I think it's a combination of many types of test, the larger standardized tests may trigger student achievement or they may not, and portfolios can show evidence of student centered learning but take a lot of time and are more subjective.  When all of the data is compiled together there is a clearer picture of where the student has been, is now, and going towards.

          All in all, students are the ones showing you what they can do, so if you strive for them to become lifelong in the moment type of readers, you need to take all of their abilities into consideration and use all types of assessment to inform your instruction.

Caldwell, J., & Leslie, L. (2009). Intervention Strategies to Follow Informal Reading Inventory Assessment: So What Do I Do Now? New Jersey: Pearson.

I don't want to read that!

Have you ever been looking through a newspaper and you just throw a page on the ground because there isn't any good pictures? Or the amount of very small words overwhelms you? Or you just don't want to read about how all these people died? Or who got arrested that week? Have you ever been "window shopping" books at the grocery store because you don't want to buy them and you seem to glance past certain ones saying "no, not pretty enough, no, too futuristic, ewww vampires?"

Well, these are some things that go through my head when I'm faced with reading when I haven't picked out my own books.  Kids are the exact same way, if they don't want to read something because it doesn't look intriguing, there are too many small words for them, or it has no interest to them; then they are showing signs of being non-readers. Maybe we never grow out of it, or we just have more choices when we're older, but we have to be aware of why a child doesn't want to read a book before making them read it

Just Right Books

One night you are up way past your bedtime because you can not stop reading your book until it is finished.  When you finally finish, you have this sinking feeling in your chest because "what book could you read next that would make you feel the same way?"  You feel good because you read this really stellar novel, but are equally in despair because no other book can be that good.  What do you look for in your next book?

As a teacher we teach kids to go to the library to find a "just right book," usually with the right amount of words, pictures, level of vocabulary, and ability to comprehend.  This is all well and good for elementary school kids, but as they grow older there are more things they need to look at for it to be "just right."

I encounter this all the time, I'm at the library, or talking to a friend, or just browsing through random book lists I find online.  You search for the genre, the length, the reviews on the back, if other people recommend it, if the cover speaks to you, if you've read books by that author before, if it's available,  and do you relate to the story line?

Ultimately, you won't know if it's a just right book until you start reading it.  Some books start slower than others and you might not get into it, or you might read through it and think "why did I waste my time?" Choosing a just right book is hard, so teaching students things to look for in a book will help them use their reading time wisely when they are older.