Raegan Shaw, November Blog Post, Ch. 4: Teach With a Sense of Urgency

I found it interesting, immediately as I began reading this chapter, that the meaning behind "teaching with a sense of urgency" was not what I have come to know as urgency at all.  The author simply wants us to understand that urgency does not always mean quickly, but it means efficiently and with a purpose.  What I also learned from this chapter was that there is a gradual way of releasing responsibility on our students; we can't just send them off on their own to do a task right away without teaching them first.  The author provided the order of operations in order for student success: demonstration to shared demonstration to guided practice to independent practice.  Obviously, as teachers, our main goal is student independence; we just need to more carefully scaffold them in the right direction to ensure that they will all meet their goals.

When I read the section on "Understand and Apply the Learning Model," I realized that all too often, I ask a question to students and expect them to come up with the right response within a few seconds.  If they do not, I usually will give them the answer and move on, simply because of the lack of time to wait on them to think because I am stressed to complete lesson plans.  I read in this chapter that children need to problem solve on their own and that is what I am gradually working more toward.  I find it sad that a lot of students have this "learned helplessness" where they depend on their teacher to be the soul provider of information and to solve all of their problems but yet I realize that a lot of times, the way I am teaching is guiding the children to be more dependent on me anyways.  I need to gear my instruction toward students in such a way that makes them want to start solving problems on their own and only asking for help once they have tried their very hardest on it before they come to me.

After reading this chapter, I am realizing how important it is to teach skills and strategies up front.  I think that the more I teach students how to do something, the more I model and let them practice on their own before releasing them, the more good I will do as a teacher.  For example, I recently let my students make newspaper articles on Ellis Island and I did not teach them the correct way that a newspaper article should look.  I just assumed that they knew how they should be written, and low and behold, lots of them were confused at first of what types of things to write and the format to write it in.  I realize that as a first year teacher, I all too often assume that my students know a lot of things that they do not yet know.  I need to assume that they know nothing and start from scratch.  My goal for the very near future is to start from the ground up and build my students to positions where they can learn on their own and grow at a proper pace.

Laura Riemensnider's blog #5 Miller (2013), Section 2: Why Not? What Works? Why Independent Reading Matters and the Best Practices to Support It

Miller (2013), Section 2:  Why Not?  What Works?  Why Independent Reading Matters and the Best Practices to Support It

In Barbara Moss’s contribution to section 2 of No More Independent Reading Without Support, she poses the big question, “Does independent reading influence student achievement?” The big answer is yes, but it has to have the elements that make it effective. Throughout the section, she gives us some wonderful notes on the benefits of reading independently.  Another big question she asks is, “If we know independent reading is effective, why don't we do it?” This is my number one question. I've encountered many teachers who desperately want to find more time in their school day to make independent reading time longer or even possible at all. They are excited to learn about elements of independent reading that make it more effective. I have seen many of my school’s teachers trying out new or different strategies in independent reading.  Moss states that one of the biggest reasons, she feels that we did not have independent reading going on in all of our schools, is the fact that years ago the National Reading panel did not endorse independent reading because they did not have enough studies to say that it caused a success. However, Barbara goes on to write that there have been plenty of studies since then that do show this correlation. I am hoping that as we read, learn, and discuss more about independent reading, it will become more valued and widely used. One thing that stuck out to me, during reading section 2, is a small chart on page 16. This chart lists several things students need to grow as independent readers. Some of the things that are listed are eye opening in the amount of common sense they hold, such as access to texts, student choice, explicit instruction, and to talk about what students read. Many of these are things that I do personally as a reader. Looking back on my experience as a learner in elementary school, the freedom to choose what I want to read is just something I accepted as an adult privilege or a luxury at the public library. In school we read what the teacher gave us, and if we were lucky we had a librarian who let us check out a book of our choice. If independent reading were a part of my childhood I can’t imagine how much vocabulary I would have learned or how my grades would have improved from just my higher level of interest in the material. I think this is the reason that I am focusing on independent reading with my book club kids (my kidwatching focus group of fourth graders).

            Another big idea that Moss brings to the table is that students need to increase their reading volume. This is something that I am working to encourage at my school. We are using the Accelerated Reader program this year as a way to log student reading and see how they do on the AR quizzes. This project is being led by myself and our school librarian. We are using this system because it is in place, our teachers and students know how to use the program, and we can get data rather quickly without having to put the data gathering solely on the teacher’s shoulders. In the future we may have a different system. We have kicked the reading logging off with enthusiasm and a fun theme. I am hoping that we can see an increase in reading volume. However, logging reading can become a chore to the student and the teacher. This is why so many reading logs or programs use incentives to entice the teachers or students to report their progress. I feel that in future sessions of our Read to Succeed courses we will spend time investigating how information gathered from a reading log is very valuable. What we will need is plenty of discussion on what types and how much information we value, and how to have our students involved with their own logging, without it becoming a chore. Even with all this said about our way of logging the reading volume, how do we as teachers and school staff actually increase the volume of reading? Moss’s answer is time, access (variety and well stocked classroom libraries), interests, and teacher support (conferring and guidance).

Laura Riemsnider's bolg post #4 Miller (2013), Section 1: Not This: Is There Enough Time? And Is Time Enough to Support Independent Reading

Miller (2013), Section 1:  Not This:  Is There Enough Time?  And Is Time Enough to Support Independent Reading?

I read this book at the beginning of the school year, but I decided to blog on this chapter for the month of November because I felt like it was a good time to reread this chapter. We are in the full swing of the school year and many teachers are exploring independent reading.  This chapter opened my eyes to a great deal of things the first time I read it, but just like any time you rewatch a favorite movie or hear a new song again, you catch new things or something jumps out at you that didn't jump out before. You make new connections. The first thing I realized on my second read was that I had a brand new connection. The first few pages of section 1 of Debbie Miller’s  No More Independent Reading Without Support discusses a visit she had to a school in Baltimore, and some of the epiphanies the staff had were over delicious crab cakes. My personal connection is that I will be flying to Baltimore for the Thanksgiving break and I too will be dining on some delicious crab cakes. I will also be reading through all of my wonderful teachers’ blogs. I wonder if I too might have an epiphany in Baltimore over delicious crab cakes while reading their blogs. The first time I read this chapter I pondered over the small things that we do during the school day that take up a lot of our instructional time. Debbie Miller lists a large number of these “benches” that she says we are guarding, and I agree with her when it comes to this. There has been lots of discussion this year about what we have done in the past, what we are currently doing, and what we would like to see happen. This is been one the most wonderful school years for discussion among professionals and I’m glad to be a part of it. I have had many conversations with teachers about the benches that they are guarding and have heard some wonderful things from them about changes they have made in their classrooms. Looking back on my own teaching I know I could sit down and make a list of benches that I was guarding. I believe that some of the tough parts of the reality of teaching are the benches that we are told to guard. I feel compassion for the soldier who guards the bench in the anecdote, because he was actually guarding it because someone ordered him to. I have seen reading programs come and go. And most are put into place under wonderful intentions. However, within the first year of adoption they find themselves subjected to limits and changes that take away from the validity of those programs. Those programs sometimes become benches that are guarded. They might be guarded because they are bought and paid for, because they help to fulfill the requirements for a law or other legal requirements, or because we're in the middle of rolling those programs or starting of programs and it's just what we do. I hope that the conversations we have this year lead to having more teacher input to determine what's best within their classrooms. Many times we look at a school and say we need this or we need that to help solve a problem such as low test scores or an area in which the school is struggling. I feel like that is a one-size-fits-all band-aid placed on everybody's wound. When in reality I feel we need an educational triage by which teachers, very much like your emergency room nurses, can take a look at what student needs are coming in and then figure out what we need to address their needs. After that, we can start to figure out as a whole, any programs our school might need. When it comes to extra programs outside the traditional classroom, such as after school, summer school, tutorials, volunteers, and clubs, having a program put in place by the administration or district level can be very successful, but within our classrooms where our highly educated teachers spend months with the students, we have the luxury to find out who our children are, what their specific needs are, and then to design curriculum around them.

Knox's Blog Post Collaborative Inquiry: From Kidwatching to Responsive Teaching

According to Tim O'Keefe and Mills, I learned that responsive teaching begins but does not end with kidwatching. Kidwatching is a process that the teacher begins with the students and it is on-going in the classroom. When students have conversations that the teachers have with the students make a difference in what they are learning throughout the time in the class. Having these one-to-one conversations helps the teacher understand the student's thoughts and can add to their responses to keep them engaged in the story. Another growth that is developed during this time is the literacy aspect. When the students have a comfortable feeling about what they are reading and how to explain their understanding, makes them express themselves more. This reminds of what I do in the class with conferencing with my students during independent reading time.

Each week I try to conference with majority of my students even if it's between classwork time. As you noticed I did not say instructional time, classwork time. This is when the students are at the table working and I call a student over to read to me within 10 minutes. As they are reading I have padlet pulled up on the computer, so we can go straight into the responses. (See examples below) I love recording what they are learning because it shows me how they are reading, what they are learning, and how they are explaining what is going on in the book. To make them think about what they are reading, I would ask them a question like "What do you think will happen next?" or "What would you do if you were one of those characters in this book?"

As we continue to read each day and there reading levels increase, by knowing their sight words and understanding their letters and sounds makes me want to take them up to the next level and increase their level of thinking. I love keeping them on their toes cause they keep me one mine!

Independent Reading Link
http://padlet.com/wall/kbgtleacwls7

Krystal's Ch.5 Routman Blog Post

Chapter 5 Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library focused on having a well-balanced/organized library and how it is aligned with a successful independent reading experience for your students.  Having a classroom library that focuses on providing material/books that are engaging for all students, will help support and foster independent reading.  In order to achieve this, teachers need to find out students’ interests, favorite authors, and/or series.  According to the chapter, “While levels can be a helpful guide for teaching students, we need to be careful to factor in the quality of the text and students’ interests. ( Routman, 2003).  Currently as I reflect on my classroom library, one would see books arranged by lexile levels.  After reading this article, I now see how that can hinder independent reading time.  Struggling readers can easily become discouraged because a fellow student may be selecting a book from a higher level that seems to peak their interest, but is not in the “correct bucket.”  Furthermore, I have decided that grouping books by a series or genre may present itself useful.  This will also allow for me more time to discuss with students how to choose just right books for them.  After all, when going to the local book store, books are not grouped by lexile numbers, but by authors and series.  It leaves me to question why I decided to arrange my classroom library differently.  The answer was clear, because that it what I have seen from other educators.  A goal I am going to work on is reorganizing my classroom library to appeal to my students. 

Looking at the questions in the Take a Critical Look at Your Classroom Library section, one stuck out to me the most.  The question: Can children find books in which their language and culture appear, or are they unlikely to “see themselves” in the collection?, really left me in deep thought.  As all reading educators do, I teach students how to make meaningful connections to books.  How truly can they make connections, if there are none to be made?  It almost would seem to be forced if a connection is made.  It would be nice to incorporate more cultural books inside of my classroom library. 

As discussed in a previous blog, I have incorporated independent reading time into the reading block.  I am still searching for more time to allot to independent reading time and modeling what it is.  What I would also like to create is a share time for students to engage in small talk about the books they are reading with their peers. 

November Blog Post: Routman's Chapter 6 Young

Chapter 6 in Routman’s Book Reading Essentials is entitled “Plan for and Monitor Independent Reading”.  Routman states that a well monitored independent reading program is the most important part of a teacher’s instructional program, but ironically it is the part that is most often dropped due to time constraints.  Routman writes about another irony that I can relate to.  The students that need the most independent reading time are the struggling readers.  And very often it’s the struggling readers who get the least amount of independent reading time because they are often in structured remedial reading programs.

Routman strongly advocates that students need to do more independent reading, but through a “carefully designed, structured reading program that includes demonstrating, teaching, guiding, monitoring, evaluating, and goal setting.”     Routman details what independent reading time should look like.  Some suggestions include matching the right level book with a child, helping them find enjoyable texts, have students use strategies taught in class, and demonstrating goal setting with students.  Teachers are encouraged to have one-to-one student-teacher conferences, model strategies for the students, and keep well-maintained reading records.  Routman writes about teaching students classroom procedures during independent reading time such as:  students must be able to understand the book they are reading, read quietly, and maintain a reading record. 

Routman writes about using partner reading as part of a teacher’s reading instruction.  She writes that partner reading helps students “become more self-sufficent and less reliant on the teacher for assistance.” 

Routman writes how to teach students to select “just-right books.”  That is so important to teach students because many students may choose a book based on what their friends are reading, or what the cover looks like instead of the readability of the book.  Routman also writes about teaching students that just because they can read all the words, it does not mean the book is necessarily a “just-right book.” 

Lastly, Routman emphasizes the importance of letting students be able to choose what they want during independent reading time.  She states that “growth contributes greatly to their growth as readers.”  

November Blog-Ferguson

November Blog

Chapter Reflection: Share your Reading Life

          This chapter discussed the importance of sharing your reading life with your students. This is so true! I would not have even thought about his until I began teaching and having “reading” conversations with my students.

          The chapter begins discussing how Routman begins her school year getting kids to think about reading for fun, or because they simply like a book. An activity I have done in the past is have the students label the paper “The last three things I read:”. I then tell them, that they have homework for their parents. They take this sheet home and get their parents to record the last three things they read. We bring them back and make a list. We talk about why our parents might have been reading those things. The activity then leads me into letting my students know about my passion for reading.

          The next section in the chapter gave an activity where the teacher bring in her books to share with the class. She goes through and simply talks about each book in her pile. I plan to do this activity with my class. I want to do this because I always start my reading conference off by asking them to show me a few books in  their basket and tell me why they have them. I have slowly realized that some continue to say, “I liked the cover so I picked it.” I want to model how to share our reading, and love for certain books.

          We all have those student who just simply don’t like reading. However we have to be the one to put the spark in their heart for reading. I believe classrooms libraries (or libraries in general are where they can happen. When I think about putting that spark in a child’s heart, I think about the movie Matilde. I love the scene when she goes to the library and finds books she can lay and read for hours. I smile each time I see her laying in that chair and giggling at the book. I want each of my students to find this passion for reading. If we have diverse libraries, and our students understand where our books are in our libraries they are more likely to find books to interest them.

          The next section discussed favorite authors and books. This school year we have done a lot of author studies and this has really helped our readers jump into reading this year. We have kids still searching the books by the authors we have read. We have kids re-reading, reading the pictures, etc. of books/authors we have read.

          The strategy we use in my classroom to pick books, is “IPICK” form the daily 5. I like how this chapter encourages using book reviews. I try to encourage my students to talk about books, make suggestions to a friend. The next thing I might try is have them find best-sellers on book store websites. I think this would be a neat way for students to find books that will interest them!

          Reading records seem to be the hardest for me. I don’t want kids to feel bogged down in recording the book they read. I just want them reading. After reading this section and idea I thought about was, having have their own padlet, and allow them to take a picture of the book, and then type the date. This would be a place they could look back and see what books they have read.

          Overall, I want to continue to demonstrate my love for reading to my students. I want each of them to find that passion and spark in their heart (just like Matilde). 

Skipper Post #4

Routman Chapter 10: Examine Guided Reading
I was eager to read this chapter because I feel that my guided reading time needs some help.  The first point that is was important to me was that you should be cautious about how you group children.  I feel that most of my guided reading groups are based on reading levels but Routman points out that once children can read, maybe this isn't the best way to group them.  Flexible grouping is suggested and this is something that I would like to work towards with my guided reading.  I also liked the rules that were suggested for the students who are not working with the teacher during that Guided Reading time.  One area of my reading time that I have tried to monitor and adjust this year is limiting the amount of writing that I am requiring my students to do during my reading block.  I have tried to make sure that students are mostly reading during that time.  This is another suggestion in the book.  I also liked looking over the excerpts from Guided Reading groups because sometimes just reading about something doesn't help me with what that would look like in my classroom, but these excerpts really gave me an idea of how this should work in my classroom.  These excerpts were also broken down on the readers that would be in the groups to help know what to do with all students.  This is also a struggle for me sometimes because not all ideas work with all students.  I really feel like this chapter will be very helpful in the future as I plan lessons for my guided reading groups.

Chapter 9: Examine Shared Reading

I agree that shared reading is a powerful teaching tool for all ages. We use shared reading constantly in my classroom. When we are working on a novel in my classroom, we sometimes do not need an entire set of texts, because we can use what we have and share the books. We also use photocopied chapters of our books for mini lessons on things such as figurative language.

My 5th grade students seem to pay better attention and get more from the reading when we use shared reading. I have used shared reading with whole-class to demonstrate and discuss almost all of the examples on page 133. Just yesterday, my students were having trouble with writing conclusions for their Thanksgiving writings. The students were able to share their endings and we discussed summarizing. I was also able to use another text to share with our class in order to show how to summarize.

In my 5^th grade ELA group, we chose a “challenging” book for our novel study. Shared reading and discussion between students is helpful and improved their reading comprehension during our novel. I love the idea of pairing and sharing and as the chapter discusses in the framework for shared reading on page 134, that when students respond orally as a class after talking in small groups, everyone gets the benefit from hearing each other’s thinking.

The framework for shared reading was also helpful in providing information about the advantages and procedures. I love the way the Chapter gives you a walk through of how to do shared reading with a class.

Barone Post #4

Routman Chapter 8: Teach Comprehension

                I really took a lot away from this chapter and enjoyed reading it. It is very important for teachers to show students that reading is more than just words! I find, especially with our low level readers, who get direct instruction that this isn’t always done. Students need to understand the meaning of the words that they are reading so that they can apply the words outside of text and in their own vocabulary. Teachers need to use interesting and appropriately challenging texts to engage readers and have them thinking critically. Teachers need to demonstrate comprehension strategies for students to use while they are reading. The best way to do this is with a read aloud and actually show students how to reread, highlight, write comments, survey, predict, connect, and monitor the story. This will help students do this when they are reading, sometimes without even thinking about it. I found it very interesting that most important strategies for comprehension all require the students to really take extra time like to reread, review, and write. As teachers we know that this helps tremendously but when it comes to the unreasonably time standardized tests, which involve a heavy amount of reading, how is this possible? The best way for teachers to try and achieve this is constant practice and modeling, so that students may naturally use the strategies while they read. I liked the possible charts that Routman suggested for teachers to use in the classroom. Students cannot read for meaning until they can monitor the strategies that they use to make sense of the text before, during, and after. Students can ask themselves questions as they read such as: Does this make sense? You can start a class chart that says: I know I understand what I am reading when I can... Have students talk to themselves about the text. Teachers can post these suggestions in the room and model them while reading aloud: I wonder why he is doing that? Okay, I get it now. I’ve seen this word before. This doesn’t make sense. I better reread this part. Teachers need to create an environment where reading for meaning is achievable. Students should be talking about what they are reading, reading texts easy enough but meaningful enough to support comprehension, practicing fluency with familiar texts, and having exposure to a variety of texts. Then once the students have seen and learned how to make reading meaningful, students should successfully involve all the strategies while they are reading. This is so beneficial for the students because it helps them actually understand what they are reading which helps them connect and relate to books. This is what can ignite the passion and need for reading in their lives outside of what’s required in the classroom!