MWP Summer institute 2006

This last section charged me up some. The questions to encourage a personal response to the text and to encourage reflection about the plot were refreshingly comfortable. I say that because the institute has given me so much to process. The questions for response I WILL use.

Another reason I got charged up was because of the political nature of literacy education. Beers comments that phonics alone won't cut it. Phonics has to be pared with semantics if kids are going to make any advances in their learning and automaticity. There is a generation of kids lost in the whole language wasteland--where a panacea approach bankrupted many kids. This is frustrating. Of course, there is the joke about kids being "hookd on fonix." So I liked the point about the necessity of pairing the two. Beers: "But none of that will matter if we fail to give them plenty of opportunity to read at their instructional and independent levels, give them repeated chances to hear us read aloud while they follow along, and teach them how to cross-check cueing systems so that as they sound out words (phonics), they are asking themselves, 'Does this make sense?' (semantics)." Indeed.

Even after taking linguistics for language teachers, I don't remember going into such great detail about how sounds go together in words. To be reminded about the need for one vowel sound per syllable was great. Something that I'd like to try to do (because I'm a geeky terminology person) would be to teach explicitly the terms that Beers describes as a common vocabulary for word recognition strategies. Also, I've never taught rules about syllables. That is knowledge I depend on for pronunciation. It would be a wonderful set of skills for my students to take with them for the rest of their lives.

Reading this part also brought me back to linguistics and graphemes. When I was in elementary school the teachers were very patient with me. I made progress, but I remember making it more slowly than the other kids. In fact, the book we used was called Gateways, which seems rather euphemistical at this point in my life. Anyway, we had to read words that the teacher had on flashcards. I remember being frustrated about not being able to read some of the words. A smart teacher had a box of the same words that we were working on, but they were printed differently on the cards...a different font. Something about the typography was different. I had much greater success with the clearer text, for some reason. I've always remembered that and realized that with students the smallest, seemingly insignificant change can make a huge difference. Go figure!

Beers' book will have a permanent spot on my desk from now on!

Posted by Kendrick Davies at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I finally finished WHEN KIDS CAN'T READ, and I am having the same reaction that I do when I read any outstanidng educational text. Where has it been all my life? And, why didn't someone give me this years ago? And, what have I been doing with my students? I can feel overwhelmed by these kinds of texts, and I don't know how to start incorporating her work into my classroom. I do wish she had done more to address issues related to second language learners. I've noticed that, for example, many of my Hmong students struggles with plurals and subject-verb agreement, and late in the year, I learned something about the Hmong language and its grammar that could explain those issues. If I had to pick a fight with Beers, it would be how she argues on p.260 for teachers to maintain high expectations and tells a great story about a class that demanded to read HUCK FINN (262-3), she argues for the use of Young Adult Fiction (275). I have no problem with handing an individual student a piece of YAF or having plenty of it available in the classroom library, but I haven't read much that's teachable - save A LESSON BEFORE DYING and THE CHOCOLATE WAR. Suggestions would be appreciated.

Posted by Charles Ellenbogen at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

At the end of the book, Beers includes in the Appendices all of the spelling and word building rules that I should have picked up along the way. I didn't know that there was a rule about when to add -ible instead of -able. I learned "when two vowels go walking...." at some point, but I didn't "know" the rule enough to demonstrate it until I saw another K teacher doing it.
For so many things in the English language, I've heard teachers say "It just sounds right." Well, guess what - to our ELLs, it doesn't just "sound right."
I plan to study and learn (enough to be able to explain and teach) the advanced phonemic principles. Many of my students need these tools.

Posted by Erica Schatzlein at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm going to try collecting words students have questions about (p. 191) during a reading selection instead of me always trying to "guess" which ones my students will stumble with while they read.

I can see the students writing the words on index cards and or writing them with marker on easel paper. During the lesson, I could see us stopping to figure out the definitions. Maybe some students already know what the word means, so it can be shared with the whole group.

Maybe other times I can reinforce using context clues and we can get to the meaning by using the text. Othertimes, I can maybe type the word into Google Images and a definition can be found out that way too. And if all else fails, the dictionary is always an option.

Do any of you use this approach? Does it work for you? Or is it too open-ended and chaotic?

Posted by Kristine Martens at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

In my teacher prep program there was a lot of work on before reading strategies and during reading strategies. I certainly appreciate all that Beers has to offer in this section of the book (especially the inferences because I don't know I've every been shown a graphic organizer of an inference--page 64), but the chapter on extending meaning and after-reading strategies seems exceptional not only for struggling readers but for the high flyers who may be challenged to remember more details or change the text into another form. Even though these are reading strategies, nearly all of them require writing (some minimal and some extensive).

I've found that when students have to do something with the text (put it in another form, memorize a section, write in response to a character) they take much more ownership and care more about what they do. This is affirmed in Beers when she writes about what after reading strategies could accomplish. She says students will be encouraged to connect what they are reading to other texts or personal experiences. A typical post-reading strategy for me is having a class discussion about teacher posed questions. I think I've had some success with my discussion techniques and I try as hard as I can to move to relevancy and authenticity for my students. I want to try scales, SWBS (p 144), retellings, reformulations, It Says--I Say, and Most Important Word in my classroom. My plan is to use these as discussion starters because they all sound more interesting than the questions that I usually come up with. I've often culminated a novel unit with a thematic discussion, but now I want to try these strategies.

Posted by Kendrick Davies at 9:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

I got all excited this afternoon and was giving myself a big pat on the back for stressing high-frequency words so much with my students. Our text states,

"Of the approximately 600,00+ words in English... only 13 words account for over 25% of the words in print and 100 words account for approximately 50%."

And I thought, I know this! I teach this! I have great sight-word games for my first graders, and my reading coach has told me my kids know them backwards and forwards. But then I took a step back and thought, wait a minute - do ALL my students know them? I spend lots of time in first grade with sight words, but what about my very low, struggling sixth graders? I guess I assumed that because they are sixth graders, they know these "easy" words. But immediately, I was able to identify two or three of my most struggling kids, and you know what? I'll bet they struggle with a lot of them beyond the basic 13 (and, for, he, the, etc...). And these are the same kids that lack almost any kind of fluency. This has never once crossed my mind, even though I'm sure I have heard them struggle to decode the most basic words.

Posted by Erica Schatzlein at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes the easiest thing in teaching is overlooked by me -- having students retell a story (or chapter) from memory. I liked the easy format the Beers used to set up a graphic organizer. My students use them all of them time to organize their thoughts and break down large assignments into more manageable ones.

I can see myself typing up a Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then chart and using it right away this fall.

Hopefully they can transfer this retelling skill into their other classes and in examining movies, tv shows, etc.

Posted by Kristine Martens at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I was very interested in suggestion #5 on p. 217 about what to do when students are struggling to read out loud. I struggle with this issue, especially in two areas. First, at Harding, I often have difficulty getting any students to volunteer to read, so I hesitate to slow them down once they get going. I also am reluctant to slow students down when they are trying to read Shakespeare. That's already a challenge. I like Beers' suggested prompts and will try to incorporate them. I try not to let students just bleep over a word, and I try to make sure that my classmates know that I am the only one who should help a struggling student in a whole class situation. I will face the issue this year because students have to read a portion of their assigned passage out loud prior to doing an IB commentary. What do the rest of you do?

Posted by Charles Ellenbogen at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I need to make a comment that seems superficial, but I'm finding it very important to my respect for the book and my willingness to "buy into" the strategies and ideas: this is one of the first books I've seen that lists student interactions with a HUGE RANGE of abilities and reactions. So many times I read a teaching book, or we do one together in a study group, and our only reaction to the student conversations and writings is, "There's no way in hell that could happen in our classroom" with our low achieving students and overpacked classrooms and kids who are just learning English. I appreciate how Dr. Beers takes us into AP classes where the kids automatically provide perfect exemplars for how things "should" work, but she also takes us into rooms with dependent readers who simply respond, "I don't get it." Then she models for us how to move these kids along.
I say this because I'm finding myself much, much more willing to try a number of strategies from this book, much more so than with other texts I have read. I'm excited by that, and I wish she had an edition for K-3, since I'm finding these strategies will be perfect for my 6th graders, but not so transferable to my 1st graders with reading problems. I still have so much to learn!

Posted by Erica Schatzlein at 6:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Greeting and salutations from the land of When Kids Can't Read.

Beers' comments about the kid who says "I don't get it" reminds me of the idea of the helpless handraiser in the work of Fred Jones. It is so easy as Kate the student teacher learns to do the hard work of interpreting for the students in the service of moving on or keeping the agenda moving.

I liked Beers' reflection about getting her first teaching position and realizing that she was more interested in what kids were sayinbg about the topic at hand that what they were actully studying. This comes down to politics for me and makes me think to the imporant of the affective piece in the learning. Recently, I heard an education policy wonk pontificate about how we don't actually teach history and literature anymore. We teach the love of learning and the appreciation of the content. This made me think also about the confidences readers need. Of course, one of those has to be social and emotional confidence.

Beers writes that improving the cognitive aspects of reading does not ensure that the affective aspects of reading will automatically improve. This challenged my beliefs because in my idealistic mind I see students enjoying reading if they have several cognitively successful reading experiences.

Struggle was another important idea for me. Beers thinks that anyone can struggle with the right text and there is value in teaching how to struggle.

There are other pieces of the section that inspired me.

1. I've never made an instructional plan for a student. I like the one for "George."
2. Strategies and skill are not the same thing. Strategies lead to skills.
3. Strategies need monitoring and modeling. I like how Beers indicated to remodel the strategy with a new genre. Lightbulb!
4. Beers encouraged extensive rather than intensive reading. The movement in my school currently seems to be more intensive.
5. Education is not a Nike commercial. Neat quote.

Lastly, I've taught "Eleven" and my lesson looked a lot like the initiate, respond, and evaluate model. There are several strategies I will try modeling with it the next time I do it.

Posted by Kendrick Davies at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Her point in chapter 4 about not having the teacher answer her own question stood out to me. I really like how she structured a set of basic questions for almost any given text on page 53.
- First, ask a student to give a summary of the work.
- Then, ask another student to expand on the summary.
- Next, ask two questions about things you're still wondering about in the text.
- Then, look at a quotation from the text to examine what it means.
- Then, ask a connection question.
- Next, ask a visualizing question.
- Finally, wrap up with question(s) about that they have and/or confusing parts.

I see this format as being helpful in a large group discussion or a small group discussion. Because the questions are general enough for almost any text, the students will become easily familiar with the format and expect how they can answer them. This could replace a lot of prescribed questions that I tend to ask about texts, but then have to reword them. Even as ELLs, they should be able grasp these questions.

Posted by Kristine Martens at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

As I was reading Chapter 2, I found myself nodding at the differentiation between independent readers and dependent readers. But here's the difficulty with that differentiation in my sixth graders. In Beers' examples, the kids she labels as "dependent readers" are all "Georges." She shows students who lack ALL the 3 forms of confidence (cognitive, social and emotional, and text), and who say things like "I don't get it," or "I can't read that." What I find most difficult in my sixth graders is that they HAVE text confidence (to choose books) and the Social and Emotional confidence (they are willing participants, etc), but they fly through a book without the cognitive confidence. In that sense, they are dependent readers: they fit into the category of "read on through when text gets tough." By sixth grade, they have learned for FAKE IT really well. They don't self-identify as struggling readers. So, being an ELL resource teacher who only sees them for 40 minutes each day, I find it takes me a LONG time to identify my dependent readers, which becomes a lot of lost teachable moments. I know who the kids in CRISIS are, but I feel (fear) that there are many who are just barely getting by, and we aren't as good at identifying their needs. Does this resonate with anyone else's experience?

Continue reading "Identifying Dependent Readers" »

Posted by Erica Schatzlein at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

As I read the book, I liked how the author kept threading her messages to George. I have many "Georges" with whom I have changed my teaching styles because of them. They keep me fresh and curious to how I can reach them better when I teach lessons to my class. They are my true teaching prompts!

Posted by Kristine Martens at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I've read 10 chapters of Kylene Beers' book. I first encountered her at the NCTE Conference last year, and I thought her presentation on vocabulary was very impressive. She even offered to answer questions via email, and when I began to organize my A Tale of Two Cities vocabulary approach, I sent her a note and she responded promptly. Anyway, I love the format of the book - the letters to George (who hasn't got a George in their career?) that open and close each chapter. I think the book is very practical, but it is more grounded in research than Inside Out. I like the FAQ section, and I am eager to try many of her activities. I think some of the activities don't seem quite appropriate for high school, but I am willing to try them. I am also concerned (here and elsewhere) with the emphasis on narrative or creative writing. I teach in the IB program and have to work on more formal writing. Inside Out seems to argue that the skills magically transfer. I am skeptical.

Posted by Charles Ellenbogen at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I haven't started reading this book yet. I'm proud that I've finished over half of Inside Out, and I'm more than ready to discuss it on Friday. But I need to get my butt in gear with the Beers book. Today, today, today!

For your viewing pleasure, here's a picture of the breed of cat I have. It's not actually my cat, but the resemblence is striking!

Posted by Erica Schatzlein at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)