Learning to Read Starts with Your Ears (Part One)

I entered the teaching profession fresh out of college in 1984. I graduated from a four-year program with a bachelor’s degree in Education and an added endorsement as a reading specialist for grades K-9. Sadly, looking back now, I left my program knowing very little about how to teach reading. At that time, the nation was deeply steeped in the “whole language” approach to teaching reading. Whole language is based on constructivism learning theory and means students have an active role in their learning (Fauzi & Basikin, 2020). In the whole language approach, the teacher is the facilitator of students learning foundational skills (phonological awareness, phonics, and syllabication) within the context of authentic language. What this meant for me as a new teacher was a bookroom full of whole class novels, no teacher’s manual, and no idea how to teach reading. On top of that, I was teaching a class of students who had been identified as being at risk for dyslexia. Let’s add to that challenge. More than half my students were also English Language Learners! (To this day, I continue to wonder if the screener inaccurately identified students with limited English language skills as being at risk for dyslexia). Sadly, I was not alone in this scenario. Surveys conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality revealed that only 29% of the colleges that offer courses in reading instruction require coursework in the five elements of reading instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) (Greenberg, et al., 2013). My reading instruction looked like a lot of arts and crafts book projects. Students created posters, dioramas, cereal box covers, and other “cute” projects and learned very little about how to accurately decode and read with fluency and comprehension.

This is what my classroom looked like in 1985.

To my credit, I built beautiful classroom libraries, read aloud to students every day, taught comprehension strategies like making predictions, making connections, visualizing, and summarizing. I gave students time to read books of choice during “Drop Everything and Read” (DEAR) time every day. As my instruction slowly morphed into what we now refer to as “balanced literacy” I worked even harder at fostering a love of reading for my students as well as teaching them how to use comprehension strategies. But, as my friend and colleague, Dr. Katherine Casey Spengler likes to say, “It doesn’t matter how much we teach our students to love to read if we are not teaching them how to read.” (Dr. Casey Spengler is a licensed reading clinician in San Diego, California. In her practice, she works with students who have severe difficulties learning to read and write, which she says negatively affects nearly every other aspect of their academics as well as their self-concept.)

Fast-forward 37 years and thank goodness I now know better, and thus can do better. (By the way, try out the hashtag: #knowbetterdobetter on social media to connect with a ton of content on the science of teaching reading. What I really wish I had known then, that I do know now, is the importance of phonological awareness as a foundational building block in learning to read. Moats and Tolman (2019) define phonological awareness as, “Conscious awareness of all levels of the speech sound system, including word boundaries, stress patterns, syllables, onset-rime units, and phonemes” (p. 87).

(Reading Rockets, 2021.)

Start With Assessment

Phonological awareness assessment should begin prior to kindergarten and continue for those students for whom it is indicated throughout the early elementary grades. If students have low decoding or phonics skills, it is advised to start the assessment with phonological awareness. AIM Institute for Learning and Research published this nifty flowchart to help guide teachers in their decision-making process when determining what reading assessments to administer. For some students, there may be a need for speech articulation therapy or screening for hearing loss. For the most part though, gaps in phonological awareness can be closed with intense intervention in as little as 11-15 hours spread out over time (Blevins, 2017).

Begin Instruction with Rhyming Lessons

Rhyming is a joyful activity for young readers, and it also allows for students to enter phonological awareness simply by noticing the sounds in language separate from meaning (Honig et al., 2018). Start by sharing that words rhyme if the last part (i.e. the vowel and what follows) of each word sounds the same. Model with explicit word pair examples, asking students what makes the words rhyme. Follow up with clarifying with non-examples and asking students why the word pairs do not rhyme. Try engaging students in generating rhymes by showing a picture (avoid using print, because again we are focusing on the sounds in language) of an object and naming the object.

Wordless rhyming cards like these are great for phonological awareness activities.

Then ask students what part of the word rhymes. For example, if the picture is of a nut, students should answer /ut/. Then ask students to think of a word that ends in the /ut/ sound. If students respond incorrectly, be sure to give corrective feedback promptly and model the correct response with explanation. There are many rhyming games available to make rhyming practice fun. This is also something we can share and partner with parents to help practice at home for students who need extra support.

Word Level Lessons: Compound Words

Compound words are a good entry point for phonological awareness at the word level. Two-syllable compound words are a great starting place for work in blending, segmentation, and deletion. Be sure to work with words that are familiar to students to avoid confusion and allow for the focus to be on phonological awareness. If unsure, explicitly teach the meaning of the word before using it for phonological awareness instruction. To teach and practice blending word parts, use two picture cards to introduce the word parts. For example, if blending doghouse, use a picture card of a dog and separate card with a picture of a house. Start with telling the student that the first card is a picture of a dog, and the second card is a picture of a house. Then, tell the student when you say the two words together without a break in between, they make a new word, “doghouse.” This game can be played whole group, small group, or with individual students with other picture cards.

To segment words, say the word aloud to the student using one picture card for the word. For example, hold up a picture card of a cupcake and tell students the picture is a “cupcake.” Then tell students that there are two word parts in the word “cupcake” and ask them to listen carefully as you say and clap the word parts.

Wordless picture cards like these are great for compound word activities.

Finally, to teach and practice deletion of word parts, use two picture cards again as if you were blending word parts. Only this time, practice putting the word parts together (blending) and then remove one of the parts and ask students to say the word that remains. There are many games available online and in professional texts such as CORE’s Teaching Reading Sourcebook (2018).

Word Level Lessons: Syllable Segmentation and Blending

Segmenting syllables is a skill that typically precedes the ability to individually segment phonemes. If you are worried about the word syllable being too challenging for your young readers, know that it isn’t necessarily important for student to know the term. Instead, focus on the concept of syllables and the ability to manipulate them. Again, try to work with familiar words so that students can focus on the phonological awareness part of the lesson and not struggle with word meaning. Teaching and practicing syllable segmentation is similar to the lesson described above with word part segmentation using compound words, only this time students are practicing hearing the individual syllables in words that are not compound words. Tell the students you are going to say a word with more than one word part, and you want them to listen carefully for the word part and clap the parts with you. For example, say the word “carrot” and clap the two syllables. Then ask students how many word parts are in the word “carrot.” Think of blending the word by saying the word parts separately and asking students to “put the parts together” to say one word. Later, show students picture cards and practice segmenting and blending the syllables, sorting into stacks of one, two, and three syllable

words.

Sorting picture cards by syllables provides a visual component to these lessons.

Decoding x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension (The Simple View of Reading)  

I hope this post was helpful in sparking some thought around reconsidering early reading instruction. Reading is a complex act comprised of multiple skills. While I was steeped in balanced literacy, I was only attending to the “language comprehension” strand of Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001). Our students need explicit, systematic, and sequential instruction in both strands to become skilled readers. Come back next week for a post on phonemic awareness; the next stage in phonological awareness!

References

AIM Institute for Learning and Research. (2019). Quick guide for reading assessment [Flowchart]. https://media.ride.ri.gov/EEIE/GuidanceSY20-21/ELA-AIM-Tool-Flowchart.pdf

Blevins, W. (2017). A closer look at phonics: Common Causes of failure and 7 ingredients for success. Corwin Literacy.

Fauzi, C., & Basikin. (2020). The impact of the whole language approach towards children early reading and writing in English. JPUD – Jurnal Pendidikan Usia Dini, 14(1), 87–101. https://doi.org/10.21009/jpud.141.07

Greenberg, J., McKee, A., & Walsh, K. (2013). Teacher prep review: A review of the nation’s teacher preparation programs. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2353894

Honig, B., Beard El-Dinary, P., Hudson, R. F., Lane, H. B., Mahler, J., & Pullen, P. C. (2018). Teaching reading sourcebook (3rd ed.). Arena Press.

International Dyslexia Association. (2018). Scarborough’s reading rope: A groundbreaking infographic. https://dyslexiaida.org/scarboroughs-reading-rope-a-groundbreaking-infographic/

Moats, L., & Tolman, C. (2019). LETRS: Units 1-4 (3rd ed.). Voyager Sopris Learning.

Phonological and phonemic awareness. (n.d.). Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonemic

Reed, D. K. (2012). Why teach spelling? RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction.

10 Steps that Don’t Involve Points, Pizza, or Prizes to Create a School Wide Culture of Reading

 

 

I was recently approached by a school that I partner with in consultancy and asked for advice about how I might lead for developing a school culture of independent reading. Let’s start with the elephant in the room. When I talk about a school wide culture of reading, what I’m NOT talking about are reading programs that require students to read leveled books, take computerized tests for points, and get rewarded with pizza, parties, or prizes for the most points earned. This isn’t a practice that I believe in. I won’t go into that here though. That’s for another day and another blog post. The purpose of this post is to offer advice based on practices I do believe in and recommend to schools and districts where I consult.

Creating a school wide culture of reading requires an intentional plan for taking several actionable steps. But first let’s ask, with limited resources, why should schools invest time and finances in taking the steps I’m about to recommend? Simply stated, volume matters. Survey results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed that in reading for eighth and twelfth graders, students who read become better readers than students who don’t (U.S. Department of Education 2009b). Additionally, students that reported having time in school to talk about reading also scored higher on state achievement tests.

High stakes tests certainly shouldn’t be our only reason for working towards a culture of reading. The act of reading has many benefits far greater than academic achievement measured by a state test. For one, readers are more empathetic towards their fellow man and more willing to be curious and open toward others that may look or live differently than themselves. Additionally, readers are better able to cope with stress and trauma by finding stories similar to their own in the pages of a book. There are many life long benefits to reading, too many to list here. You get the point. Reading matters. 

So let’s get started. How do we go about creating a school culture in which more students are reading by choice? Here are ten actions schools can take to develop a climate and culture of reading. These steps are not necessarily in order, however building diverse and enticing classroom libraries is typically where I recommend starting.

 

Sacramento, CA Teacher, Amy Heno’s Classroom Library
Amy has over 1000 titles in her library that she keeps organized into a variety of categories.

1. Create Diverse and Enticing Classroom Libraries If we want students to read, we must literally wrap them in books that they will actually want to read. Sacramento, CA teacher, Amy Heno, used a variety of resources to put together her extensive library. She’s gotten two Donor’s Choose grants, three mini-grants from local organizations, she’s used her an annual $100 classroom supply budget, and she often frequents places where she knows she can pick up books for a fraction of their original cost. Amy labels her books using Avery labels and keeps track of check-in and out with the Book Buddy app. When I asked Amy what makes her library so successful in terms of students checking out books and reading, she had this to say, “Diversity of books and organization keep my library working. Every year I need to add new titles based on popularity, new releases, and the kind of readers in my room. A wide variety of genres allow me to meet the needs of each unique class of readers. One year it might be YA, then sports and poetry books the next. This year it’s books with social justice themes and mystery thrillers. I cannot just buy what I like to read, I have to buy what I know will get my readers excited to read.”

2. Give Book Talks Book talks are like a movie trailer for a book. And I would say they are just as effective in getting students to want to read a book. When first launching a shift toward more independent reading in a school, teachers and other adults should give book talks. Notice I didn’t just say teachers, I said other adults too. Book talks shouldn’t be limited to the ELA teachers. School leaders and other adults in the building should visit classrooms and give book talks as well. Book talks create a sense of excitement and FOMO (fear of missing out) around reading. If you want to know more about the guidelines and procedures for book talks, here’s a great website.

3. Make Reading Visible Create classroom and school displays that feature books and reading. With the help of AP art students, Woodland, CA teacher, Janice Rose, created this beautiful tree from To Kill a Mockingbird, outside her classroom. She adds pictures of books that students have read on a regular basis. Keeping reading visible sends an unspoken message that reading is important and valued in a school. Many schools I visit display photos of books teachers have read on classroom doors or bulletin boards in the school. Jane Addams Middle School in Seattle, WA has baskets of books in the front office where students and parents wait to meet with staff. They also have bulletin boards featuring the newest award winners and a little lending library in one of their hallways. Yes, you read that right. A little lending library. In addition to a beautiful school library and rich classroom libraries, JAMS doesn’t miss a chance for a student to meet a just right book by having books easily accessible all over the school.

         The Little Lending Library at Jane Addams Middle School in Seattle

4. Get to Know Students and Their Interests It won’t matter how many books are in a classroom library if they aren’t books that match the interests of students. There are many ways to survey readers. It can be in the form of written or online surveys, asking students to take a quick genre poll, or taking data from an activity such as speed dating with books. (More on that to come.) The important thing is to get to know your readers and what they want to read. It’s also important to note that students may not be able to tell you what they like until you start giving book talks and they actually start reading. Be vigilant in watching and listening to what students say about the books they love and don’t love.

5. Be a Teacher or Leader that Reads When I visit schools (actually where ever I go), I carry at least two to three books with me. I carry the book I’m reading, the book I’ve just finished, and the book I’m going to read next. In the book 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Question to Engage and Empower Adolescents, Kelly Gallagher says, ” Modeling the range of reading we do honors the diversity of texts and the purposes for reading that, of course, vary by reader. Students enjoy recommending books to us, sometimes stacking them next to our whiteboards. We often read what students recommend to us. Why? It deepens conversations we have with them and helps us know new titles to recommend to others.” I can’t count how many times I’ve had teachers and leaders message me and thank me for reigniting their reading life by the sheer act of carrying around my current books and giving spontaneous book talks. Walking our talk is powerful.

Here’s the stack I’m taking with me this week. I just finished The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni. (SOOO GOOD!) 

6. Provide Opportunities for Students to Recommend Books In addition to teachers giving book talks, students should also pitch books to each other. At Grant Jr. High School, in Central Louisiana, students sign up to travel to core classes every Friday and give book talks. Because there’s a climate and culture around reading, the math, science, and SS teachers don’t mind giving up five to seven minutes of class time once a week for book talks. In other schools, I’ve seen a variety of ways students can recommend books. Ideas include writing a review on a sticky and leaving it inside the front cover or putting a book on a special shelf with a recommendation. This practice is similar to what Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon does.

7. Feature Specific Authors in Your Classroom Displays and Book Talks Many authors have their own websites that make it easy to quickly access background information that will add to the excitement of reading a particular author’s works. I found this to be true when I was giving book talks all over the country on Jason Reynolds’ book Long Way Down . When I shared that Jason Reynolds found inspiration in rap and started writing poetry at nine years old, but didn’t read his first book until he was seventeen, students were shocked. By visiting Reynolds’s website and showing students a photo of the author and other works he’s written, students became excited to check out his books. Of course I recommend you have a stack of an author’s work on hand to check out immediately while enthusiasm is aflame.

Jason Reynolds has recently been named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

8. Allow Students to Explore Books Before Choosing I first read about book speed dating on the School Library Connection website. It’s just what it sounds like. Book speed dating is easy to prepare for and is an expedient way of exposing students to multiple titles within a short amount of time. In short, set up by putting out stacks of books on each table, either give students something to write on, or I prefer they use their reader’s notebook, and set a timer for browsing. If the student shows an interest in wanting to read the book, he/she writes the title and author in their “Want to Read” section of the reader’s notebook.

 

10. Provide Time to Read  My pastor, Adam Smith, once said that we must quit saying we don’t have time for certain things. He pointed out that we all in fact have the same amount of time, twenty-four hours every day,  and what we care about is what we make time for. At the time, this struck me as being so simple and yet such a revolutionary idea. So if we care about reading and we want our students to read more, we have to make time for it. It’s that simple. I recommend that upper elementary, middle school, and high school students have at least one hour a week, across the school week, reserved for independent reading. That could include listening to an audio book while holding the book. It could be reading on a phone. It could be holding an actual book and reading the old fashioned way. Whatever it looks like, make time and protect it. Hold it a sacred. In the professional text The Book Whisperer, by Donalyn Miller,  Miller says, “I express to my students that reading is not an add-on to the class. It is the cornerstone.” I would agree. If we really want to develop a culture of reading at our schools, we have to provide time to read and not see that time as wasted. It is perhaps the most important use of time we have.

Setting Up Reader’s/Writer’s Notebooks

I have always loved notebooks. I buy them like the end of printing actual paper notebooks is an inevitable apocalyptic event sure to happen in the near future. I’ve had some of my notebooks for years and haven’t written a thing in them because they are just too beautiful to use! Have you ever felt this way? This isn’t the case however, when it comes to reader’s/writer’s notebooks. I love the beginning of a new school year and the promise of a brand new composition notebook. When I first started with RW notebooks it wasn’t all that clear to me how to set them up and more importantly, how to use them to serve an authentic purpose in my students’ lives. (For more on how to nurture authentic writing about reading check out this blog on Two Writing Teachers. I’ll also be posting more about this in the coming weeks.)

First: A RW Notebook is NOT…

Let’s be clear before we get into setting up a RW notebook and possible sections, about what a RW notebook is and isn’t. I was leading a professional learning session one day and as I normally do, had my RW notebook sitting out on the table where I was presenting. A teacher approached me during the break to share that she had found an amazing resource on TPT for notebooks that turned out to be all she needed for a year of notebook work! She was really excited. I wasn’t. I understand that when something is new and we’re just trying to figure it out, as well as how to implement it, it’s always a huge relief to find a resource that will save us time and mistakes. However, those resources rarely exist. Further more, making mistakes is part of refining our practice. What this teacher had found was a packet of what boiled down to being “cute worksheets” to cut out and glue into a notebook. They were designed with chevron borders, cute fonts, and hip graphics for coloring. This is NOT what I’m talking about when I talk about RW notebooks as an authentic tool for students to capture their thinking and create a record of their reading and writing life across a period of time.

A RW Notebook is: Decorated

Secondary teachers especially, will roll their eyes at me (if not in actuality, I know they’re doing it mentally!), when I recommend they take the time to have students decorate their notebooks. They think that decorating is artsy craftsy, or elementary, and not a good use of their time. They also don’t want to deal with the mess. I get this. Trust me, I do. I was a skeptic before I became such a strong proponent of decorating. Here’s why you should decorate the notebook. When students personalize their notebooks, they own them. They take pride in them and the importance of the notebook to that student has now increased exponentially. When students decorate their notebooks with clippings, photos, and quotes that hold meaning for them, community is built quickly. I used to think decorating should always have to a reflection of reading and writing as a theme. I’ve since changed my thinking. I think it’s more important that students decorate to express their interests and identity. It’s far more important that the student feel pride and ownership of their notebook. And besides, can’t we read and write about anything? As long as it’s appropriate for school, anything goes.

Here’s some tips for minimizing mess:

• Ask a few of your students to take home some magazines and cut out photos and quotes ahead of time.
• On decorating day, put out glue sticks and clippings for students to decorate without the mess of cutting!
• Of course, let students know ahead of time that they will be decorating so they can bring in their own clippings as well.
• Teacher, Janice Rose, in Sacramento, lets her students create their collage electronically and then print them out as a single word document to be trimmed and glued to the notebook. However you choose to do it, decorate the notebooks.

Jessica Horton, HS ELA teacher is Louisiana, decorated her model notebook.

A RW Notebook is: Sometimes More than One Notebook

If you are going to use more than one notebook, I recommend that you tape or hot glue them together. It’s just too hard for students to keep up with more than one notebook. This year, I’m trying something new by taping THREE notebooks together. I have a reading notebook, a writing notebook, and new this year, a notebook dedicated to word study (spelling), grammar, and vocabulary. I used clear packing tape to tape the covers of the notebook together and then went around the back and front cover of the two outer notebooks to secure the bindings together.

I’m using three notebooks taped together this year, Reading, Writing, and a third for Word Study, Grammar, and Vocabulary.

A RW Notebook is: Divided into Sections

The Reader’s Notebook

Over the years, I have tried many different ways of dividing and sectioning RW notebooks. By trial and error, more error than anything, I’ve landed on just four sections. When there are too many sections, it’s too easy for students to put things in the wrong place which leads to frustration on your part and your students’. There are many different options out there for tabs. I’ve used sticky notes attached with packing tape in the past, but this year I’m trying Post-It brand filing tabs.

Here are my recommended sections from front to back:

• Books I Want to Read I’ve created this section after reading and agreeing with Donalyn Miller’s advise in her iconic book, The Book Whisperer. Readers should always have a TBR (To be Read), pile. They should have a list of books waiting to be considered as soon as he/she has finished a book. I should confess here that my TBR list will far outlive me! When students give booktalks, I require the class to get out their RW notebook just in case the book ends up being something they want to read. There’s nothing worse than having heard about a book and not being able to remember it. And no, the librarian doesn’t know what book you’re asking about with the blue cover!

Here’a my TBR list in the front of my new RW notebook for the school year.

• Reading Response This section should make up the bulk of the notebook. I don’t number pages because I think doing so takes away from the authentic nature of the notebook. I just eyeball a section that accounts for about 80% of the pages. In this section, students make entries in response to the texts they are reading together as a class (I call this the anchor or core text), and their independent reading texts. I’ll blog more on strategies for writing in response to reading in the coming weeks. For now, check out this article on the Choice Literacy website for ideas to get your started.

HS ELA Teacher, Amy Heno from San Juan Unified, shared this example of an entry from a students’ notebook.

Value progress and process over perfection! If you place too much emphasis on perfection your notebook work will lose the purpose of being an authentic tool in improving a reader/writer’s literacy.

• Reading Toolbox In this section, students do glue in some handouts for quick reference. I recommend against handing students a stack of handouts on the first day to trim and glue in. Be selective and intentional about what goes in this section. Model using the tool with students so that they understand it’s value and they will be much more likely to actually use it! An example of what might go in this section is Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher’s “Tracking Your Thinking” handout.
• My Reading Life In this final section, students reflect on their life as a reader. They can use Penny Kittle and Teri Lesesne’s idea for creating a reading ladder out of the books they’ve read, reflect on volume read over a quarter, reflect on time spent reading, or even stretching out of their comfort zone as a reader. (I’ll post more about this too in the upcoming weeks.) In the pages from the end of the notebook working backwards, is where students should keep a book log of books read throughout the year. THIS IS NOT the same as a more traditional book log signed by parents! I’ll say that again for those in the back. I’m against having parents sign book logs. Here’s why. Instead, this is an authentic log kept by the reader. I ask students to write the date they finished the book, the title and author, and total pages. We keep track of total pages as part of tracking volume. I’ll post about assessment and volume as well in coming posts.

The Writer’s Notebook

• Collection This first section is where students collect short snippets of writing that may or may not be developed into longer pieces later on. I model this work, being explicit about writing and thinking in front of my students. Collection is a way to build a bank of writing to be drawn on later and perhaps more importantly, it’s a way to build confidence and fluency in writing. I love Linda Rief’s new book, The Quickwrite Handbook. It’s full of excerpts and short pieces of text with practical strategies for students to use to springboard their short writes. I also like Nancy Atwell’s work with writing territories. Here’s a blog post from Heinemann publishers by Nancy on how to use writing territories.

My writing territories. I modeled writing this in front of students and added to it as they shared their territories. This shows students that writers get their best ideas from their own lives. If you’ve lived, you have ideas for writing.

• The Next Three Sections in the Writer’s Notebook: Narrative, Expository, and Argument The next three sections should be the bulk of the pages in the writer’s notebook, again about 80% of the total pages. I divide this section into thirds and use the Post-it Note brand file tabs to label because they are moveable should the student need more room in one section. In these sections, students write in the first few stages of the writer’s process in any one of the three domains. Once students move to a formal draft, I recommend they come out of the notebook.

This photo was originally published on the San Marcos Writing Project FB page.

• The Writer’s Toolbox This section is not unlike the toolbox section in the reader’s notebook. Be strategic and judicious about what you give students for this section. I recommend tools like the They Say, I Say stems for academic writing, graphic organizers, checklists, or word lists. Again, don’t just hand students a packet of handouts to glue into their notebooks, model, model, model before giving them the actual handout for their notebook.

The Third Notebook: Vocabulary, Grammar, and Word Study (Spelling) This is a new notebook for me this year. Teaching each of these elements of literacy is something that should be done explicitly and in its own context as well as in the context of reading and writing. Sprinkling in bits of these elements randomly across a school year will result in students lacking basic literacy skills that will eventually lock them out of succeeding in more challenging classes and life. I recommend several resources for this work, Bringing Words to Life , Mechanically Inclined, and Teaching Phonics and Word Study in the Intermediate Grades are just a few of many available.

Final Note about Notebooks Value progress and process over perfection! If you place too much emphasis on perfection your notebook work will lose the purpose of being an authentic tool in improving a reader/writer’s literacy, and worse, take the joy out of using them. Our thinking about anything is messy, so notebooks should be messy too. Model and encourage students to change their thinking and scratch things out. Expect the quality of entries to improve and grow over time. As you get more comfortable with using a RW notebook, your students will as well and their entries will surpass your original expectations. Come back here later for more ideas on entries, feedback vs. assessment, and trouble shooting challenges.

100 Books Every Middle School Classroom Library Should Have

Coming out this fall.

Teachers ask me all the time if I have a list of recommended books for their classroom libraries. This question normally comes up when I’m giving a book talk on one of the books I carry with me to all the professional development sessions I lead. Because there’s nothing that sells reading like a teacher that reads; teachers have to be voracious readers of the literature they want to recommend to their students. I love sharing new titles with teachers at my sessions.

I try to keep up on the latest books published and share beautiful and important books that I think represent windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors for the readers in our care. In other words, books in which students are able to see themselves, see others in the world that are different than them, and allow readers to walk into a variety of worlds simply by reading. The notion around the importance of making diverse literature available to our students, specifically the language, “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors,” first appeared in an essay by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop in 1990.

This book is newly published in 2019. It’s critical to keep classroom libraries current with the newest books to nurture student enthusiasm around your collection.

I am passionate about providing students access to rich and diverse texts. Because of this passion, I’ve started with middle school readers and compiled a list of 100 books I think every MS classroom library should have. By no means is this an exhaustive list. There are soooo many books out there worthy of putting on our classroom shelves! But 100 books on one list seemed like a good start. I tried to categorize the books by headings that I might create on the classroom library shelves to help students navigate the collection. The headings are also designed to entice middle school readers into picking out a book. I didn’t include titles that I thought most teachers would already know and have on their shelves. Finally, thank you to the ELA teachers at Jane Addams MS in Seattle, WA and ELA teachers at Pioneer MS in Wenatchee, WA. While working with these two groups of teachers this summer, I was able to ask them for titles that their students love to add to my list. They graciously and enthusiastically shared some of the titles you’ll find on the document. Let me know if you find my list helpful and what you and your students have read and loved! Watch for my list of 100 Books Every High School Classroom Library Should Have coming soon. Visit my Facebook Lifetime Literacy Consulting.

100-books-every-middle-school-classroom-should-haveDownload

ALONE TOGETHER a book review

After reading this brilliant novel, my prediction is that many kids will carry this book around in their backpacks, unable to let it go, long after they finish reading Alone Together, by  Sarah J. Donovan . If they don’t see themselves, they’ll see someone they know in the pages of this all at once both heartbreaking and hopeful novel. I devoured my ARC this morning in one sitting, unable to put it down. Donovan has captured so many struggles our teens are facing, struggles that many of us adults fail to recognize beneath the surface of what they allow us to see.

The main character and narrator, Sadie, a sophomore in high school is one of so many siblings that at first they’re revealed only by number. #1 is marrying a Jehovah’s Witness abandoning the family’s Catholic faith,  #8 works at the bakery, saving for her escape, #3 is gay and exiled from the family, and # 10 is…

Sadie’s family is far from perfect, in fact, far from even functional. The very real social issues are woven into the story with masterful authenticity, nothing about this book is forced or contrived. If you think all our teens are worried about is prom or how many likes they’re getting on Instagram, you’re sadly mistaken. Sadie struggles to fill an emptiness inside that only she knows exists. I predict Alone Together will be the new Elenor and Park of YAL. Written in verse, the language is so beautiful it reads like a piece of art. Congratulations Sarah, I cannot wait to hold my own copy and even more, I cannot wait to give copies away to schools I work with

 

Scaffolding: Five Ways to Temporarily Support Students to Independence

For Christmas this year, we sent our little granddaughter  a walker. Wrenley will  turn a year old shortly and is almost walking. She’s not quite ready to let go of the coffee tables, the couch, the dog’s back, etc. and take those first wobbly steps on her own. She needs temporary help to get to independence, that’s what scaffolding is. It is a temporary support that allows the student to reach independence with a cognitive task, thinking, that is of appropriate challenge. And by the way, here’s my beautiful granddaughter, Wrenley. Of course I’m going to find a way to sneak a picture of my darling girl in!

I’ve been thinking about scaffolding lately for a number of reasons. First off, because I think making the decision about what scaffolding is and how to use it is tricky. It’s easy to confuse changing the task, or the cognition involved with the task, with scaffolding. Scaffolding should allow access to the task, like real scaffolding allows temporary access to the building. Here’s an easy way to think about it. When we scaffold, we’re not changing the task itself, we’re helping a student find a path to success. We’re bridging the barrier that is keeping the student from being successful independently. Let’s use Wrenley’s walker as an example. We didn’t keep her from walking, we gave her temporary help with balance, the barrier that was keeping her from walking.

So what does scaffolding in the classroom look like? Here are five ways that we can think about scaffolding student learning when a task is new or especially challenging.

1. Model 

It’s easy to forget that modeling is in fact scaffolding. Thinking aloud and showing students what the cognitive process looks like is the most important scaffolding we can provide. Don’t confuse showing students a finished work sample with modeling. While students benefit from seeing anchor works, it’s not the same as seeing the thinking. They need to see what goes on inside the proficient reader/writer’s brain in order to build the same, or similar habits of thinking.

Here’s middle school teacher,  Gabe Herbison, modeling his thinking about characters in front of his students. He’s teaching students how to look for patterns that reveal feelings and traits that allow the reader to draw inferences about characters.

2. Use a Less Complex Text 

When the task is new and especially challenging, it’s ok to use a less complex text. Often times we forget that the text itself provides a cognitive challenge. So if students are struggling to make meaning of the text, and at the same time we’re asking them to think in a new and challenging way about the text, the text itself can act as a barrier to the student becoming independent with the task. A good rule of thumb is to use less complex text when the task is new and especially challenging. Then later, practice the task again with more challenging text. Remember, scaffolds are temporary bridges to success.

Picture books can often serve as appropriate text when teaching a new and challenging task. The right picture book can provide engaging,  big ideas to talk about with students. Eve Bunting is one of my favorite authors for this kind of work. Don’t forget short stories as well.  Reading and talking about the text more than once before teaching the task can be another effective scaffold. Then students are familiar with the text before being asked to think in a new and challenging way.

3. Provide Language Banks 

Charting language that students might use when engaging in the task can be a highly effective scaffold as well. Many times our students lack the language required to be successful at the task. A good example of this is being able to analyze and describe characters. Standard three in the Common Core  State Standards calls for sixth grade students to be able to describe in depth how characters change and develop over time.  What we’ve noticed is that students can do this kind of thinking, when and if, they have the language to do so. So a temporary scaffold is to provide a chart with describing words as a bank for them reference in their talk and writing. Providing language banks is a critical scaffold for ESL students and also important for general education students who may or may not, have the language necessary to be successful with the task.

Here’s a chart we used in Gabe’s room when he taught the lesson on analyzing characters in order to draw inferences about them based on text evidence.

4. Collaborative Talk 

When learning is new, talking with another learner can be a powerful scaffold. Just talking about one’s thinking provides oral rehearsal that can be a bridge to independence. When students have the opportunity to try out their thinking and organize their thoughts orally before committing to paper, they are more likely to be successful and confident when they are asked to write. Talking also provides the opportunity to grow new thinking or possibly revise thinking if the student finds that he/she is off track or misunderstanding something. Talk also helps to build language and vocabulary that will improve the quality of the student’s writing. When teachers express concerns that allowing students to talk  isn’t preparing them for high stakes testing or college, where they won’t be allowed to talk, my answer is that talk in the classroom now is teaching the habits of mind I want for students later. Carefully and intentionally group students and give them stems or prompts to guide their talk as a scaffold to success with the task.

5. Provide Language Frames for Writing 

When students are asked to write as a part of the task they often struggle with getting started. Temporarily providing a language frame can be the scaffold that acts as a bridge to the “getting started” barrier. Later, when students are ready, take away the frame and let them form their own language.  I’ve seen teachers, that with good intentions, keep the frames or stems too long or require students to always use them when talking or writing. Unfortunately, then the focus becomes more about the frame and less about the task. Remember, scaffolds are temporary and only useful if really needed. I wouldn’t expect Wrenley to use her walker when she is gleefully running about the house on her own, except maybe to chase the dog with the added glitz of blinking lights and music!

This is a great example of a language frame template that Gabe Herbison used with his middle school readers to help them get started with writing about the inferences they were making about characters. Notice how Gabe skillfully layered the task, beginning with identifying a character to study, landing on key details that revealed something important about the character (text evidence), using those details to find patterns, and finally, drawing an inference about the character.

 

Remember, scaffolding should be a temporary bridge to independence with a rigorous grade level task. Scaffolding does not mean changing the task nor lowering expectations. Scaffolding provides a way for students to be successful and gain independence over time and with practice.

I know, it was cheap to slip another pic in, but I couldn’t resist! She’s so darn cute!

Learning Targets: Three Key Understandings for Teachers

“Before I started writing learning targets, I don’t think I was really teaching lessons that were actually aligned with standards. In fact, I think a lot of my lessons were more activities than lessons. Now that I use learning targets, I know exactly what it is that I’m teaching and  more importantly, my students know exactly what they are learning!”             -Sarah, First Grade Teacher

Many teachers can probably relate to Sarah’s experience with learning targets. I can remember back when we first began to think about making objectives visible. I often walked classrooms with principals and school leaders and saw lists of “SWBAT’s” posted. (It seemed as if these objectives were more for the principal than they were for the student, or the teacher for that matter.) Later, we moved from posting objectives to posting purpose statements. We changed our language from “SWBAT” to “I can______ by_______.”  Purpose statements helped us begin to think more about students and their learning, as opposed to teacher centered instructional outcomes.

 

Now, we’ve gotten even smarter about making the path to daily learning visible for students. We’ve moved from purpose statements to learning targets. Here are three key understandings I think are helpful when beginning to use learning targets effectively:

Key Understanding One: Not to be confused with objectives, learning targets are written to guide learning. Well crafted learning targets describe three key elements of a lesson:

I like to think about  the three elements of a learning target as the skill, the strategy or reasoning needed for the lesson, and why the skill should be learned. Learning targets ensure that both the teacher and student have laser sharp clarity of the learning for a daily lesson. When teachers and students both use the learning target as part of the lesson, they know what they are aiming for, how they will get there, and why it’s relevant.  The teacher should not only have the learning target posted, he/she should refer to it when opening the lesson, while guiding students through the lesson, and while closing the lesson.

Key Understanding Two: Writing learning targets involves multiple steps. In order to write a clear learning target, the teacher must first determine the essential knowledge or skill  for the lesson. Next, the teacher must ask what thought-demanding processes or cognition is required? And finally, why would someone need to learn this? In order to insure the lesson is appropriate in challenge and rigor, it is essential to align the target with grade level standards. Learning targets are not synonymous with standards, rather learning targets are the  intended learning based on the standard. Since learning targets also include the cognition or thinking necessary for the learning, it may be helpful to use a tool, such as the Depth of Knowledge Wheel (DOK), developed by Norman Webb, when writing LT’s.

KEY Understanding Three: Both the teacher and the student should also know what it will look like when the learning target has been mastered. For this reason we also include strong criteria for success. To be effective, the success criteria must be specific to the learning target. Success criteria answers the question from the student’s perspective: “How will I know when I’ve mastered the learning target?” Success criteria makes meaningful learning visible to the teacher and the student.

Strong criteria precisely describes what good work looks like for the specific performance of understanding in the lesson (Brookhart & Moss, 2012).

Here’s an example of a learning target written for a sixth grade literacy lesson. 

Engaging Resistant, Adolescent Male Readers: Four Ideas That Matter Most

I’ve been a literacy specialist for many years. And yet when it came to engaging my own son as a reader, especially an adolescent reader, I was an epic failure. It wasn’t until last year in the presence of one very new and yet very smart high school English teacher, was he engaged as a reader. I have reflected on this phenomenon a number of hours. What made her successful, when I wasn’t? What did she do that made the difference? Zion is like many adolescent males in our classrooms. He didn’t struggle to read. On the contrary, he was in an honors class. Zion didn’t want to read. After much research and thinking about this remarkable young teacher, Miss Gomes, here’s four ideas I’ve come to conclude that make the difference.

1. Text Matters: In Wilhelm and Smith’s study, “Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys”   they found that when boys were given meaningful choices and a way to exert their individuality, it directly impacted their level of engagement. We have to know our students and know text in order to put the right books into the hands of readers that will make them want to read. To go even further, readers have to have what I call a “reader’s identity,” they have to know what it is that they like to read! For my son, it was biography. He loves books, that in his words, “the character has really bad things happen and somehow they survive.” Lucky enough for Zion, Miss Gomes was able to help him figure this out and put the right book in his hands. Text matters.

2.Talking About Text Matters: Learning is relational. We’ve all experienced finishing a book and enjoying it so much that we want someone else to read it so that we can talk about it. Talking about learning makes learning more engaging and richer than learning alone. Too many times, in the name of rigor, we expect adolescent readers to read in isolation. For some reason there’s a myth that if we allow students to talk about their reading and thinking with others, this is somehow cheating. When in fact, what we are really doing is denying students the opportunity to build an important twenty-first century skill: seeking the opinions and thoughts of others. The Common Core State Standards for Listening and Speaking specifically call this skill out in Standard One: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. Talking matters.

3. Feedback Matters: A few years ago I had the pleasure of supporting Amy Matt, a High School English teacher in Sacramento, who was implementing Independent Reading in her classroom.  She had been a part of a summer institute I lead in her district in which we used Penny Kittle’s book, Book Love  as a guide for our work. I specifically remember one of my visits to Amy’s class that year. She was especially excited about one boy in her class that had taken off as a reader. She shared that he had been in her class the previous year and not read a single book. He admitted to using online notes to pass the tests, listening to what others said to fake class discussion, writing essays with little to no effort, or just not writing the essay at all. This year  was completely different, he was an engaged and eager reader. He sat down with me to share his reader’s notebook and the book he had just finished, Silver Linings Playbook  by Matthew Quick. He showed me all the entries in his reader’s notebook for the year, including what he was most proud of, his reader’s log where he recorded the titles of all the books he had read and the page numbers. (Amy had students tracking their volume, reflecting on their reading and setting goals.) After our conference, I took off my glasses, sat back and looked at this boy. “Be straight with me, what turned you into a reader this year?” I asked. He smiled like I should already know the obvious answer. “Miss Matt,” he said. He went on to show me, as if offering much needed proof, that when he wrote in his notebook, Amy read his entries and responded with comments that were real. She answered his entries authentically from the place of a fellow reader, not a teacher casting judgement or marking a grade. She encouraged him, she asked real questions, she showed surprise, she agreed, she cared. That was the bottom line, what he wanted me to know that made the difference, what turned him into a reader. She cared. Feedback matters.

Amy Matt, High School English Teacher in Sacramento CA

4. The Task Matters: Students want to do what they want to do. That may sound silly, but it’s true and powerful. Where else in the world do we finish a book and write an essay in which we analyze it to death, besides in a high school English class? Ok, a college English class. While I’m not proposing that we throw out having students write analytical essays, that would be ridiculous, I am proposing that we widen the scope of our traditional tasks, i.e. assignments. What if we also included a way for students to have choice in the task? Could some of the assignments include something other than an essay? Students would be more likely to be engaged if the task felt more authentic and that it mattered. Consider asking students to write a book review for an actual literary magazine or online website such as GoodReads. Consider giving students the choice to blog about their reading, or lead a book club, or give a book talk in another classroom, or debate a central message with another group that’s read the same book or another book with a similar topic or theme. When students feel like the task matters and they have choice they are much more likely to be engaged. Task matters.

What have you found to be effective in engaging resistant adolescent male readers? I’d love to know your ideas and share them with others. Leave me a comment on the blog.

5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Help Students Build Intrinsic Motivation to Read

I love to run. In fact, I run almost every day. Not surprisingly, when I finish my nightly run there isn’t anyone waiting with a medal, a pizza, or a cash prize. Yet everyday, I look forward to lacing up my running shoes and hitting the road. Why? Because I enjoy it. I like the way I feel while I’m running. I enjoy the sensation of stress leaving my body as I get into a rhythm. I set my own goals and adjust them when necessary. I have favorite routes and sights along the way I’ve come to use as markers for my progress. I have developed an intrinsic motivation for running. Not dissimilar to the intrinsic motivation we wish our students had for reading…

In many schools I visit, teachers continue to offer students extrinsic rewards for reading. They do this with the best of intentions. They want their students to read. Yet, when we rely on using prizes, food, parties, the principal on the roof, etc. to encourage students to read, we’re not fostering what we really want for our students, self-engaged reading. Using prizes or other external rewards may work at first, but it isn’t sustainable. Eventually, students are no longer motivated by the prizes and we are left trying to figure out the next new and bigger thing to use to entice them back into reading. So if we know what we really want is for students to have an intrinsic love for reading, how do we create this for them? Here are five things you can do to help students develop their own reader’s identity and an intrinsic love for reading.

1. Give Book Talks Book talks are a short commercial for a book. Remember the children’s television show, “Reading Rainbow”?  That’s a book talk. Read books that you think your students will love and then book talk them. Show the actual book to your students and then tell them a little bit about the plot without giving it away. Read an excerpt aloud that you think will make students want to read the book. Then tell them what kind of reader will love that book. In the beginning, do two to three book talks a day. Be a salesman! Your enthusiasm will be contagious. (I recently book talked A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness in a middle school classroom and was practically swarmed by students wanting to read the book when I was done!) Then, when students are ready, get them giving book talks. Have a special place in the classroom to display books that have been book talked. 
2. Create a Classroom Library Surround your students with great books!  Wrap the room with books that can’t help but entice even the most reluctant reader to want to read. In order to do this, you have to find out what genres, authors, themes, and topics are appealing to your students. You have to be abreast of what’s popular and new in literature for the age group you teach. You have to read voraciously. Then, display your books in a way that will make them appealing. If possible, shelve books face out for easier access. Organize the library by genres, authors, topics, and other more creative categories. Try tubs like “Banned Books” or “Books Where Someone Dies”. Ask students what categories they would like to see. There’s an abundance of research that supports the benefit of having a classroom library. Students with books in their classrooms read more frequently. It’s that simple. 
3. Give Students Choice While there is value in experiencing a shared class text, there is greater value in giving students choice. Until we let kids read what they want to read, they won’t read. That being said, we also may have to help many students find and develop their reading identity. Many students have little, to no experience choosing a book for themselves. Teach mini-lessons on how readers choose books as well as how to preview and become invested in a book. Then, get to know your students so you can make book recommendations. Expect it to take longer for some students. Don’t give up. This matters more than anything else you can do for a student. You’re helping him/her “catch the reading bug” as Donalyn Miller says in The Book Whisperer. Once students have found success with a book, be ready to recommend another book. Sort of like what Amazon does, “If you liked this book, you may like…” I’ve found Teri Lesesne’s book Making the Match: The Right Book for the Right Reader at the Right Time  to be a useful tool for this purpose.
4. Use Reader’s Notebooks Writing about your reading and keeping an authentic record of your reading life also helps build intrinsic motivation. Standard composition notebooks are an inexpensive and durable notebook for this purpose. I recommend decorating the notebook as a way to increase ownership and pride as well as build community and that culture that supports intrinsic motivation. Model strategies for writing about reading. Then, give students choice in how and what they write. Give them feedback and provide opportunities for them to share their notebooks with each other. (Check back here later for a future blog about notebooks.) 
5. Confer With Readers Meet every chance you get and talk with students about their reading. Notice I said “talk” as in conversation  not interrogation! Ask the student how he or she chose or found the book. Ask what he or she thinks of the book so far. What they think the character wants and what’s getting in the way. Ask what they think the character is willing to do to get it. Most of all, listen. Let the student have your undivided attention for seven to ten minutes and tell you about their book and what they think. Be fully present. Write down some notes. Write the title of the book in your own reader’s notebook if it’s a book you haven’t read and want to read. Students will love that you care enough to read their book.  Give the student a compliment about something he/she is doing well as a reader and just leave it at that to start with. There will be plenty of time later to teach something. For now, use these conferences to help students build enthusiasm and INTRINSIC MOTIVATION FOR READING.