Teacher Tech: The Bad Boy:What Say to Parents

Jeremy was bad.  He stole a pencil box from Margaret, broke it, refused to apologize and denied everything despite being caught in the act.  Furthermore, he started cussing at me when I confronted him with the evidence.

After I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere with him, I called home. His dad answered.  I told Jeremy’s father what happened and asked him to have a talk with his angry son.

The following day, Jeremy came to school with facial bruising.  He told me he fell off his bike then started crying.  I think his dad hit him.  

Now who's bad?  His dad?  Or is it me?  After calling Child Services to report suspected abuse, they said they would put Jeremy on their watch list, but there was not enough information to pursue the matter any farther.

A week later, Jeremy stole and broke something from another student’s desk.  It was my second year of teaching, and I didn’t know what to do.  I didn't want to be the bad guy.

If I called home, Jeremy might get beaten.  If I didn’t, his parents would not be aware of problems Jeremy was having at school. 

I discussed it with Jeremy.  Without admitting his father abused him, he asked if I could call his mom at her work instead.  When I got his mother on the phone I explained to her that Jeremy was punished at a school and didn’t need any further disciplining.  What her son needed, I explained, was a chance to say his piece at home and then receive advice for future situations.  He needs to know that their family doesn’t approve of stealing, but that they love their son – not his actions.

It was a tough year for Jeremy.  His fragile family eventually broke up, and he moved away.  However, I learned that whenever I called a parent to report misbehavior, I would begin the call with an explanation that the child had already been punished, so the parents didn’t need to do any more.  I told them they were free to offer guidance to their wayward child.  It's not a perfect solution, but it's not bad.

Policy: Teach For America

There was a time when underfunded urban school districts needed teachers.  Partly as a response to this need, Teach For America (TFA) was established by Wendy Kopp in 1989 to fill those vacancies.  By selecting high-performing college graduates and giving them 5 weeks of training, many of these openings were filled with America’s best and brightest.

A poorly performing economy and tax cuts have put thousands of fully trained teachers out of work.  Our country is awash in unemployed teachers: mostly recent college graduates.  One might think TFA would wither away when its teachers are competing with fully trained, credentialed teachers.  Not so.

TFA has become the poster-child of the current high-stakes testing strategy towards improving education.  In the past 18 months, TFA has received over $200 million dollars from the US Department of Education, the ultra-conservative Walton Family Foundation and several other sources.  When a district hires a graduate of the 5-week training program, the district pays the TFA teacher a starting salary, and TFA gets $5,000.  TFA is not withering.

TFA claims that its teachers are superior to traditionally trained teachers. However, the nation’s top educational researchers challenge these claims.  All this has created a loud din that has drowned out the real needs of the country’s poorest students: to be elevated from poverty.

If the topic of conversation is to be which system, TFA or college credential programs, produces the best teachers, perhaps we should look abroad.  In countries where students are out-performing US children, the teaching profession is an honored and respected career choice.  Teachers typically have masters degrees and rarely leave the profession.  Here, 50% of teachers leave the profession within the first 5 years.

Maybe we should ask ourselves if TFA improves the teaching profession and brings more honor to teachers, or if it does the opposite?

Teacher Tech: 5 Must-Do Activities for the First Week of School

1.            Relationships.

The relationships you build on the first week will make it much easier to work through behavior and academic problems later on.  It’s especially critical to  start out well with your most difficult students whether it’s the shy girl who can’t write to the behaviorally-challenged undiagnosed ADHD boy.

One of the most effective methods to build relationships include doing an interest survey.  (See Secret Scroll below) Once you know that your main behavior problem likes his hamster and Nike shoes, you can bring that up with him every day as a neutral and safe topic.  If you know about an especially difficult student, call home on the first day to say something nice about that student and ask for suggestions to make the year go well.  This will make future calls easier. 

Establish a habit of having something for your students to do when they first enter the class, so you can greet them by name each day.

2.             Routines

It turns out that teaching your students how to do everything from sharpening their pencil, to lining up for lunch, to turning in a paper to the correct place, will save hours and hours of instructional time though the school year.  Sometimes it’s helpful to ask a student or students to demonstrate a new routine before asking the class to do it.  Spend time to point out models and praise students who follow the routine.  If you realize a routine is not quite right, change the name of it and re-teach it.  For example, “Now it’s the second week of school, and this is when we turn in our papers the Mountain Way.   We put our papers in the top basket.”

3.            Assessment

Most rookies do not realize that they are assessing their students every day.  It’s pretty easy to find out who gets work done, who loses things and who can pay attention to stories.  Use a roll sheet to jot down notes and observations.  This will come in handy during parent conferences and report-card time.

You don’t need to do technical, published assessment to get a general idea of how your students perform.  During Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), you can ask each student to read to you for 2 minutes from a student-selected text.  This should give you enough information to know what your students are capable of as a class to know where to go next.  Be sure to take notes about these meetings.

4.            Attention
You can teach your students not to pay attention.  This is especially true of high ability and ELL students.   If you don’t grab the attention of your highest ability students right away, they will learn to tune you out since they will unconsciously decide they don’t need you.  I have two tried-and-true ways to do this.

            a.            Don’t tell your students anything they already know.  For example, instead of saying something like, “In our class we have three ways of using math to decide what’s average.”  Instead say, “ Who can tell me a way to use math to decide what’s average.”

            b.            For Storytime, pick a book that is age-appropriate for your students, but on the upper end of readability.  Have extra copies of the book available for students to read along or read ahead.  Also, have other books by that same author or on the same topic for students to read during their SSR time.


Why mention ELL in the same breath as your gifted?  They share the same problem: establishing a habit of not paying attention.  Often these ELL students are quiet and compliant so they don’t demand extra attention, but it’s vital to get them engaged right off. 

The best way to do this is to pair them with a buddy who is constantly checking for understanding.  Change these buddies frequently to reduce impact on the rest of your class.

5.            Last Day of School Preparation

During the first week, you can set up a powerful and effective last day of school.  Decide what activities on that last day would help your students feel proud of their progress and feel confident for the next year.  One thing I like to do is the Secret Scroll.  This is actually an interest inventory of what the student likes and dislikes.  You can include questions on this about your students’ concerns and hopes for the year.  Some students do not know what their favorite color is, so I tell them it’s ok to leave some of the questions blank.

I tell the class it’s secret because it’s not shared with other students.  Do not imply that you won’t share the information with parents or law enforcement, because you might become a liar if students reveal abuse.

If you can start out the year well, it will give you much more room to make mistakes and still be an effective teacher.

Procedure: Instant Reader's Theater

When you read this procedure, ask yourself these questions:

1. Will my lowest ability readers be successful?

2. Will my highest ability readers be engaged?

3.  If my goal is to have my students read 3,000 words a day, will this help achieve this goal?

4.  While students are reading aloud, can I circulate with a clip board taking notes on fluency or other assessment activites?

Readers Theater in Threes

Objective

Students read a literature selection orally three times to gain fluency and comprehension.  Since they each have different parts to read, they must follow along while their peers are reading in order to contribute.

Materials

NOTE:  You do not need specialized materials for this procedure.  That's why I call it Instant Reader's Theater.

•   section of text for students to read.  This text should have at least three “voices”.  For example, words spoken by male characters, words spoken by female characters, and the rest of the text (narrator’s words)

Procedure

After the teacher reads a chapter from the class novel or text while students follow in their own, students are told to read the selection silently to prepare for Readers Theater.  High readers are told that re-reading the selection is optional.  They can read something else.  Low readers read this with a partner or the teacher.

Students are then grouped into triads.  This works best if you avoid putting more than one low student in each group.  Students are assigned parts to read aloud.  High students start with the narrator’s words since this part is nearly always the most difficult.  Low students are given the part with the fewest words for the first run through.  The groups begin reading at a signal.  They continue reading while the teacher checks in with each group.  At a signal, the groups rotate parts.  Arrange this so the lowest readers do not have the narrators’ part until after they’ve heard it read by the other group members.

The teacher roams through the groups helping out and making narrative comments on an assessment clipboard. 

A motivational follow-up could be that three students are chosen to read the selection for the class gathered on the rug, or recorded for the class web site.

Policy: High Stakes Testing and Blindness

The Himba tribe in Namibia have only one word for the colors blue and green: zuzu. Some researchers, notably Jules Davidoff of University of London, claim tribal members cannot distinguish between color swatches of blue and green.

When older deaf people were first taught the American Sign Language, there existed no word for simultaneous.  As a result, this group of people consistently failed a graphic test that any typical first grader would pass.  The test results were so startling, that several researchers wanted to rerun all these assessments.  In the interim, many of the subjects had been exposed to a younger deaf population, who had acquired the word for simultaneous.  Those subjects passed the test.

What does this have to do with teaching?

It might mean that if people are not exposed to an idea, they are unable to perceive it on their own.   If ideas like blue and simultaneous do not exist for people who have never been taught them, then what does it mean when our curriculum shrinks due to the pressures of high stakes testing?

Schools are under enormous pressure to produce higher and higher reading and math scores.  Teachers are being told by their administrators to skip teaching writing, social studies, geography, art, science, civics, foreign languages and other non-tested subjects, in order to boost the teaching time for the tested subjects. 

Some of this loss might be mitigated with a rich and diverse reading curriculum, but most schools are demanding teachers stick with skill-based reading programs where the subject being taught is actually a technical analysis of reading—not literature.  As a result, students in lower grades read one story a week and spend the rest of their instructional time studying skills like hard and soft g.

What does this mean for a nation that has led the world in scientific and literary innovation?  Are we rising a generation of children who will not have the tools to continue to break new ground or solve the complex problems that they will face?

By basing teacher salaries, principals’ jobs and even the existence of schools on student test scores, our policy makers are causing a collapse of our formally rich curriculum and simultaneously hobbling our children’s minds.  These policy makers just can’t see what they are doing.

Teacher Tech: The ADHD Stategies

Chris always showed remorse when he caused a problem.  And he caused a lot of problems.  That first day of school he looked up at me, pale eyes full of self-doubt, and asked me if he did OK on his first paper.  He hadn't.  Chris wasn’t timid or stupid, he just expected to disappoint the people he loved.  Chris was ADHD.

Despite Chris’s heart of gold, he could not control his attention problems or hyperactivity.  As a result, he entered my fifth grade fully expecting to be a bad boy, yet yearning to please.

After the first day, I realized I had made more behavior corrections for Chris than all other students combined.  By the end of the first week, he probably had many times the behavior corrections of all my other students.  This wasn’t sustainable, either for Chris or for me.

Talking with other teachers and reading up on the subject, I came up with five strategies to make sure Chris and I had a great year.

I’m going to talk about one of the strategies in this blog post and the other four in a future blog entry.

Strategy One: 5:1

My goal became to give Chris five positive affirmations for every correction he received. This strategy would become the most important and effective of anything Chris and I did to make his fifth grade year a good one. 

Since Chris was nearly powerless to control his impulsivity, I had to become creative to make sure he was constantly successful in other areas and try to figure out ways to lower the number of behavior corrections.  I also spent a great deal of time watching Chris to catch him being good.  It’s a powerful thing when a teacher is looking for positive in a student.

Put yourself in Chris’s place for a moment.  How would you feel if, in the course of a day,  your supervisor told you dozens of times that you were making mistakes, being rude or not paying attention?  It would wear on you, right?  Some teachers might be crushed with just one critical comment.  What could I do to make sure Chris received lots of affirmations? 

As often as Chris would interrupt someone, it would have been easy to think he didn’t care about others’ feelings.  In fact, the opposite was true.  When I made him the “super buddy” of Greg, the handicapped student, who came in for certain activities, Chris showed a degree of empathy and tenderness that brought confidence to both himself and Greg.  I could use time-helping-in-Greg’s-class as a reward for Chris.

I also put Chris in charge of our classroom fish tank.   I trained him in the secret arts of tank maintenance and fish care.  He became the fish boss, rising in social rank among his less-knowledgeable peers.  Keeping the feeding and maintenance schedule might have also made Chris more aware of dates and times.  Like many ADHD sufferers, Chris was horribly disorganized.  Also, fish bosses must  be out of their seat to check on the fish, so I didn't need to tell him to go back to his seat so often. 

Chris and I came up with codes for me to tell him he was doing well or if he needed to knock it off.  If I touched his paper, book or desk, it that meant I liked what I was seeing.  If I shook my head at him, he knew to stop doing something.  If I needed a student to model something, I tried to find was to use Chris as a demonstrator or helper.  This got him out of his seat and often out of trouble.

Finding out that he was a valued member of the class gave Chris a new confidence.  His classmates saw him as the loveable clown he had been in previous grades, but also as a successful and respected class member.  With his classmates providing some of the positive encounters for Chris, it boosted him even more.

Chris and I had our good days and bad.  Sometimes, he seemed to need 10 positives for every correction, other times, he got along great with the 5:1 ratio.  Overall, he and I developed a close working relationship built on trust and respect based on the 5:1 plan.  There were four other strategies that helped Chris and me to have a great year, one which came from a completely unexpected source.

Teacher Tech: 5 Ways to Build a Relationship With A Disruptive Student

I’ll never forget Slade.  He walked into a room ready to fight and tried hard to figure out what the teacher wanted so he could do the opposite.  For years I would listen to his teachers tell stories about his behavior problems in class.  Then, in fifth grade, he appeared on my attendance sheet.

We got though the year with no suspensions from what he did in class.  He was suspended based on incidents in the cafeteria, on the bus and on the playground, but he and I made it through the year.

Part of the reason he was so successful in my class was a sense of trust we built up between us.  If you have a student who is difficult to manage, I suggest you will find it worthwhile to build a relationship with that student by using or adapting these five techniques.

1.            Notice something.  On the first day of class, Slade walked in with new shoes.  I asked him about them.  I wanted to know where he got them and joked that he might want to loan them to me some time.  It became a running joke that his obviously smaller shoes might fit on my big feet.  I shared this joke with no other students; it was just for Slade and me. 

Boys like to discuss objects, so with Slade, I picked shoes.  Girls like to discuss relationships, so if Slade were a girl, I’d discuss a pet, family member, former teacher or fictional character to talk about.  Look for opportunities to lightly chat about non-threatening issues with your Slade.

2.            Point out success.  This takes vigilance.   You need to watch your own Slade like a hawk to catch him being good.  When passing out papers, Slade would take first what he wanted then dump the rest on someone else’s desk.  Then one day I put a stack of papers on his desk, and he passed them out nicely.  I came up behind him and whispered to him that I noticed he was passing out papers nicely, and that I was proud of his growth.  Slade did not like public praise, so the whisper also let him know I didn’t want to embarrass him.  Also, he tended to repeat the good behaviors I pointed out.

3.            Do an interest inventory.  Early in the year, I had my students tell me what they liked, how they spent their time, and what their wishes were for fifth grade.  Ostensibly this was for a graphing unit, but I pulled Slade’s paper aside and photocopied it.  I could refer to one of his favorite shows, sports or songs when using an example for the class.  He, of course, was interested and tended to participate more in the discussions.  It gave me more chances to offer whispered praise and use him as an expert.

I found out Slade like cats, so I often drew a cat on his papers: no one else got a cat drawing.

4.            Be consistent.   The rule in music class was no pencil sharpening when the teacher was talking.  When sweet Emily left her seat to sharpen, the music teacher told her nicely to go back to her seat.  When Slade tried it, he got a detention.  This set Slade off in a tantrum about how the teacher liked Emily better.  If the teacher had said something like, “Emily, are you forgetting we can’t sharpen right now?  That’s strike one.”  Then when Slade tried it, “Slade, are you forgetting again you can’t sharpen right now.  That’s your third strike.”  Slade would better understand why he got a different consequence than Emily.

Consistency, even if it means consequences for Slade, gave him a sense of comfort.  He knew the rules and understood they will always be the same.  In Slade’s chaotic home life, he had very little stability, so he liked knowing where the boundaries were.  He still tested the limits whenever he felt insecure.

5.            Develop non-verbal signals.  I would tell Slade that if I showed him the bathroom pass, he was to take a cool-down walk to the bathroom and get a drink.  This signal was only for Slade and as far as I know, he told none of his buddies about it.  It gave everyone in the class a three-minute break from whatever Slade was doing.

Non-verbal signals did not count as a behavior correction in Slade’s mind, probably because he figured no one else in the class knew he was being corrected.

There are lots of ways to form a relationship with students, but the most fragile students need extra attention that causes minimal impact to the class.

Not long ago, I was working late in my classroom when Slade rode up on his bike and pounded on the window.  I opened it to see a teenaged-Slade smiling there.  “Yo, Mr. Hansen.  Still have Jolly Ranchers hidden in your desk?  It’s why I came here.”

I asked him if his favorite was still the purple color, and as he unwrapped the candy, he told me that I was the only teacher who never suspended him. 

Teacher Tech: Art Project

Why Study Art?

We study art with our students, not because it helps them with math or science, but because, in order to be a literate person, children need to know about art.

The first project of the year should focus on quality.  If you allow your students to turn in junk that first project, that’s what they think they’re supposed to do.  Your art-covered bulletin board could end up a testament to mediocrity. 

On the other hand, if your display is impressive, it tells students and parents that you are an effective educator.  It can actually boost staff and parental perceptions of you and your effectiveness as an educator. 

To Boost Quality

•            Spend time your first project teaching procedures like: Where to put their paper when done.  How to manage supplies.  How to do clean-up.  Supporting classmates by offering kind comments and observations.  Put these procedures on posters so you don’t have to spend much time explaining them the next time you teach art.

•            Make sure students put their name on their paper before starting a project.  You will get better quality if they know their name will be on the front of their paper and that you are going to put the artwork on your bulletin board to show everyone in the school what good artists they are.  Putting papers in a place accessible to others is Publishing.  Publishing includes putting the art on their class web page, gathering them into a class book, or entering an art contest.

•            If a student is stressed by the idea of doing art for public display, you can lower their concerns by asking them to do a “rough draft” first.  When a student spends nearly no time on a sloppy piece of art, tell them it’s a great start and you can hardly wait until they finish it.  Make sure every student is successful.

•            Idle hands are the devil’s tools.  Make sure students know what to do when finished. Clear instructions about what-to-do-when-done should be on your procedure poster to you can just point to if Suzie decides to attempt mischief when her art is done.

•            Quality will go up if you make sure that students get 5 or more minutes of SILENT time to work on their art.  Some teachers do this by putting on some music (not too bouncy or they will start dancing) or reading a story once all students have started their project.  Be sure to tell them why they are having the quiet time so they understand they are to focus on their work and not socializing.

•            Become an expert at efficiently distributing materials.  If students are spending time waiting for materials, there’s more chances for misbehavior.

•            Have early finishers be your helpers to clean the sink, arrange supplies or tidy up.

Family Connections: Ask and Ye Shall . . .

Sometimes parents need to encourage their children to be assertive learners.  Here's a note that you can adapt to your situation and include in a newsletter:

Kelly, my seventeen year old daughter, was taking calculus at Westview High School.  When she got stuck at a place in her homework, her daddy, who only got as far as algebra II, was unable to help her much.  Sweetly, Kelly would tell me, “It’s OK, Daddy.”

This is a situation that you may have run across already with your child.  What’s a parent to do?

Kelly found a solution for her situation.  She asks the teacher to explain things until she’s pretty sure she understands.  When she does homework, she makes notes about problems she doesn’t understand and brings her questions up to her teacher.

I am grateful that her teachers will take time to explain things to a student whose parents are eager but unable to help.  I want to be that kind of teacher for my students.

You can encourage your child to ask me repeatedly until she understands.  I promise to think about my daughter and be patient with your child.  

If your little Kelly is content to leave school with a vague understanding of a concept, she will be dependent upon her parents for clarification.  This may hurt when your child hits harder classes.  This is a good year for your child to learn to ask questions and expect to understand the material.

Teacher Tech: Three Ways Your Feet Determine Your Effectiveness

You might wonder what your feet have to do with your effectiveness as a teacher.  The truth is, where you put your feet has an enormous influence on your success.

The Doorway

If you put your feet by the door as students enter your classroom, you have a chance to greet each student.  This goes a long way in establishing an emotional relationship or bond with your students.  It gives you an opportunity to say something nice to each child and receive their greetings. 

For fragile children, this relationship will help them exert self-control when in danger of yielding to a negative impulse.  This bond can give confidence to a timid student who desperately needs to take some academic risks in order to move forward. 

One way to manage this greeting is to establish a routine whereby students have an independent task to complete each time they enter the class.  Maybe there’s a question on the board to answer, a worksheet on their desk, or assignments to copy down.  This way, you can remain at the door for the greetings and your already-greeted students have something constructive to do.

The Powerspot

Teachers may not know it, but they tend to have a place in the class where they deliver information or carry out discussions.  Typically this is near the document camera, white board or lectern.  When the teacher approaches this power spot, students are hard-wired into expecting to listen and learn.

Teachers should avoid standing in this spot unless they are delivering information to help keep its integrity.  To foster novelty in the your class, you can tell the class that today’s discussion will be held in the back on the floor, and students will enjoy the freshness of the venue change.

The Roam

I watched this happen: Mrs. Brown completed her instruction, verified that students knew what to do, then asked the class to begin their practice.  At that point, the elderly teacher could have gone to her desk to take a load off her feet.  Instead, she wandered past every student desk making sure students were on task and understood their assignment.  She often stooped and whispered encouragement or advice to students throughout the entire practice period.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more on-task class. 

Would this have happened if Mrs. Brown had sat down to correct papers or called a small group back for instruction?  Not likely.  Sometimes teachers need to perform small group instruction during class independent time and risk the decay of attention that happens when teachers don’t roam. 

Next time your students begin to enter the class, prepare to participate in instruction or begin independent practice, pay attention to where your feet are.

Teacher Tech:4 Steps to Boosting Reading Performance

It was my last third grade class before leaving the elementary classroom.  Like any class of lively third graders, they couldn’t be more different from each other.  Abby, my strongest reader, always had a book with her.  Carl, a bit on the immature side of the scale, barely registered at grade level when he entered third grade.  Douglas, having been enrolled at five different schools by the time he came to my class was nearly two years behind the rest of the class.  What kind of reading program should I have for these students?  How could I challenge Abby yet remediate Douglas?

 

Based on 36 years of teaching, I decided that my principal approach would be quantity.  I wanted my students to read a lot.

Our school district had just adopted a reading program with a stunning array of components including a basal reader, small sets of booklets for readers of varying abilities, workbooks to challenge, remediate and move along students.  If I read Volume I of the teacher’s edition correctly, our class should read one story a week, and we would work on skills using the supplementary materials throughout the week.  

It surprised me that publishers were still producing skill-based reading programs that suggested we group our students by ability.  This is exactly what was being provided teachers my first year of teaching.   Both skill-based reading approaches and ability grouping have been shown to be ineffective or even harmful to students.

I knew if I used that program, Abby would be bored (one story a week), Carl would probably do all right, but Douglas would be reading the fewest words of anyone in the class due to the remedial materials provided by the publisher.  The fewest!  Douglas needed to read as much or more in order to catch up.

This is the story of these three students and how a whole class reading program met the diverse needs of all of my students.

In order to make certain that my students did a great deal of reading, I knew my program needed four components: Sustained Silent Reading, Storytime, Home Reading and Whole Class Reading Instruction (RI).   I think most teachers understand how the first three components can meet the needs of students like Abby, Carl and Douglas.  The part that’s not so intuitive is how the RI part of class can be set up to help Carl and Douglas grow to the best readers they can be and still stimulate Abby.  This can be done in 4 quantity-boosting steps.

 Same Book

1.            Put your students in the same piece of literature.  I like to use novels for most of the RI time because they have more words than most other types of literature.  Still, we read essays, poems, plays and stories because we are trying to produce literate citizens.   Reading is not only about quantity.  And since most of the direct instruction given during RI is designed to make students more skillful writers, we need to use a variety of literature. 

What about Douglas?  He can’t keep up with Carl and Abby.  What about Abby?  Would she get bored in a class where everyone reads the same book?

First Douglas’s needs.  It’s unlikely that he could read the material without a great deal of support.  However, if I pick an age-appropriate novel for the class, the story will be developmentally perfect for everyone.  Abby and Douglass are far apart when reading ability is measured, but, like matching tuning forks, their brains both vibrate when a third grade story is told.

When my students’ minds are humming with the magic of a great story, I can use this interest as leverage to get them to read more.  Also, most students like Douglas, who are behind the rest of the class, are acutely aware of their shortcomings and are happy to be placed with the rest of the class.  Lower skilled students will want to be with the rest of the class.  Douglas will have greater interest in reading and motivation if I keep him in the same book with the rest of the class.

Abby bored?  I don’t think so.  She’s a third grader developmentally and will respond to great literature that is written for her age group.  When you yourself read a Robert Frost poem, like Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, you are not thinking that it only has a second grade vocabulary in it.  You appreciate the beauty of it.  Use good literature and your high ability students will be interested and motivated as well.

Prereading

2.            Typically, my goal when teaching a whole-class reading lesson is to prepare students to understand the material.  I give students the necessary vocabulary and background information to foster curiosity and allow them to connect the story to their lives and experiences.  For a Beverly Cleary novel, I’ve brought in 1950’s style bikes, balls of bubble gum, milk bottles and twirling batons.

Read Aloud

3.            Read the book aloud to the class while they follow along in their own copy.  You will need to train your students to track with you.  Many teachers play the “Next Word” game where the teacher stops reading and asks the class what the next word will be.  Once most of the class has their hand up, a student is called on, the next word given and the entire class is at the right spot.  The teacher can continue drawing the class through the story.

Initially, Douglas had problems with this, but I had him read with Carl for a few days, and he caught on.  In fact, by the end of the year, he proudly became one of the best in the class at keeping up with me.

Read it Again

4.            When enough of the story has been read aloud, I think of a reason for the students to read the material again. A list of sample reasons to reread the section is posted at the end of this article.   If you do it right, your students will be motivated to reread.  If you just tell them to read it again, all interest and motivation will drain out of them.

Remember our goal here is quantity—raising word count.  I tell my students that they need to find a different chair in the room to sit at for this silent rereading.  I want to get them out of their seats to increase their blood flow and raise their energy level. 

I suggest you have all students find the exact spot in the text to begin reading and start them together.  Once the class is on correct page, I make a show with a timer, a starting signal and I tell them that they have only X number of minutes to do their reading.  If they finish early, they can read it again, read ahead or read something else.

Abby.  She likes our story, but she doesn’t want to read this material again.  Nor should she.  Abby doesn’t need to practice; she needs to read materials more suited to her abilities.  I tell my students that anyone who reads the whole book and passes the test, is excused from most of the re-reading.  Sometimes I’ll just kneel next to Abby and whisper to skip the rereading and read something else.

While your students are reading the material again, you can monitor their progress.  You can see who’s actually reading and who’s not.  Who’s skipping ahead, and who needs you to refocus them with a little guided reading.  If you are attempting to teach reading using groups, you will be unable to do this precious monitoring.

Now think about how many words your students have read during RI so far.  Let’s say your reading text is an Amber Brown book by Paula Danzinger.  You read a chapter with the class as they follow.  They’ve read about 1,000 words.  When your students read it again, it’s another 1,000 words.  If the follow up activity is pairing up and reading the book to a buddy (so you can hear each student read aloud), they’ll get another 1,000 words.  This is 3,000 words in a single lesson vs. the reading program that doesn’t have any real reading until the fourth day of the week. 

My students and I truly love RI.  There is no sense of drudgery present as if we were all doing skill sheets (which I would need to manage, correct and record).  It’s lively, fun and rigorous—3,000 words. 

Think about your students reading 3,000 words, and they haven’t even had their Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) period yet.

I continue to boost word count by displaying other books by the same author, an award for reading two or more books by that author (with stars for books beyond the first two).  I assign Douglas a reading buddy during SSR to make sure he and his buddy get the Paula Danzinger Award.  Douglas and his classmates become amazingly enthusiastic about whichever author we are reading at time.  We view ourselves as readers.

What about Abby’s mom?  She might have concerns.  Of course she’ll be happy that Abby loves reading, but if she’s used to Abby being in the high group, she may ask me about why Abby is not in an advanced book.  I would have previously explained in a class newsletter that students like Abby are seldom required to do the rereading and that she can try for a star-studded award. I also explain that Paula Danziner is a brilliant author, and that Abby and the rest of the class are studying how to be a better writer by examining Danzinger’s style and imitating it.

What about reading scores?  Having fun with reading is fine.   Avoiding the humiliation of being in a low group is fine.  What about those scores at the end of the year?

My last year of teaching, every student, Abby, Carl and Douglas, all exceeded state standards on our reading test.  The exception were two special education students who were pulled out of class for special classes during parts of my reading time.

Teacher Tech: Re-Reading

Picture this, you’ve just read a story to your class as they followed along with you in their copy of the book.  Knowing that, with all the concept and vocabulary development you did prior to reading and having them read along with you, they are completely ready to read the material independently.  So you put down your book and ask them to read it again.

What happens next?  They complain and resist reading.  Wouldn’t you if you were a student in your class?  What about Kendra, the avid reader who already could read the material without any vocabulary preparation?  What about Gerard, one of your low readers who is shaky on grade-level material?

These issues can be dealt with if you build into your reading lessons an expectation that they will re-read after the class reading.  However, not only should they expect to re-read, but they should have a very special purpose for re-reading. 

An example of this might be to explain that their eventual class project will be to write 100 words that sound just like the author of the class story.  To do this well, they are to collect the author’s action words in their writing journal as they re-read.  That way, when they begin their author-write-alike, they will have some of her actual words in their collection.

This has an added benefit of making the study of parts-of-speech actually useful to your students.  Instead of teaching a dry grammar lesson on verbs, students learn about how verbs can be useful in their writing.  They are motivated to learn and understand parts-of-speech.

You still have the problem of Kendra and Gerard.  What I do is to whisper to Kendra, that she can skip the re-read if she reads another book by the class author during that time to build her action word collection.  She’s happy. 

As for Gerard, I have him re-read with me, a partner, a volunteer, a recorded book or some other support.  Sometimes this re-read session is done with several students who need extra support.

Research has told us that students who read the most, make the most reading progress.  Putting everyone into a developmentally appropriate book captures the attention of all students.  Thinking up excuses for students to re-read a story should be part of every reading teacher’s job.  Watch this blog for other excuses to have your students re-read.

Teacher Tech: Six Elements of a Highly Effective Reading Program

There are any number of publishers who claim that if their materials are used with fidelity, the result will be a student who will make adequate progress in reading. 

When my first child was a toddler, one of her favorite activities was story time.  She loved to hear her stories over and over as well as explore new books.  Without explicit reading instruction, we found her able to read these books based on memorization and picture clues.  Then something wondrous happened; she began to read new books as well.

When kindergarten started, she entered as a reader.  Then came the reading program.  She was given a workbook and told to sound out unfamiliar words.  This slowed her down and her comprehension and confidence plummeted.  It wasn’t until fourth grade that she began to view herself as a competent reader despite keeping up with grade level expectations from first grade onward.

Sometimes students progress in reading because of what we teachers do and sometime they learn despite our actions. 

Now in America we are at a place where teachers are under pressure to close the achievement gap between middle class and impoverished children.  No Child Left Behind imposes severe and ineffective sanctions on schools which fail to produce adequate yearly progress.  The response by many policy makers is to buy a packaged reading program and insist teachers implement it with fidelity.  Nearly all these programs treat reading instruction as a series of skill lessons. 

When teachers see all the skills, recognizing hard and soft g for example, they respond by pretesting the class to see who already knows the skill.  Then students are broken into groups for instruction.  This system often degrades down to abilty grouping.  This may sound reasonable, but we need to ask: Is a skill-based reading program the best approach?

Studies are showing highly effective reading teachers do six things well: provide opportunities for children to select their reading materials, teach children to read accurately, make sure the children can understand what they read, insist that children write about something that is meaningful to them, make sure students talk to peers about their reading and listen to an adult model fluent reading.

I’m not a fan of skill-based reading instruction.  It clogs up what should be a nearly magical process for children and often results in the highly destructive practice of ablity grouping.  To find out more about the six elements of highly effective reading teachers, check out this article:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar12/vol69/num06/Every-Child,-Every-Day.aspx