Classroom structure: Organizing Literature

Know that we are equipped with multiple methods and ways to teach reading, how do we pull it all together? How do we make sure that, as teachers, we are conducting reading activities in an organized, non confusing, instructional way?

First, just as discussed in Classrooms That Work, an efficient teacher has a schedule daily of what her students are doing. Successful teachers also have plans on how they are going to accomplish lessons and activities in class.  "Expert teachers also use a four-part process to scaffold student understanding during small-group guided instruction," according to Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher. This requires that the teacher be more knowledgable on the subject than the student so that the student may receive proper answers. Thus, in an organized classroom the teacher not only has a plan, but is appropriately equipped with the right answers. (*An example of this can be found to the right.)

Another way to create an organized classroom is to understand that there are many ways one can conduct a reading activity. But a successful teacher would consider his or her's particular class and students. As discussed in Allington's piece, The Schools We Have. The Schools We Need., too many schools practice generic plans of reading rather than thinking of personal ways to help students excel.

In conclusion, while there are many ways to create and organize how you teach reading, a daily schedule and a personal plan will contribute heavily to a successful classroom.

1. What are some things you deem necessary to include in a daily schedule?
2. How do you know how to modify an assignment to student's personal needs?

Assessment

"The more different ways I teach, the more children I reach."

Teaching reading is as simple as discussed in chapter eleven of Classrooms that Work by Cunningham and Allington. To accommodate for the multiple different types of learners in a classroom, it is important to consider how different teaching methods can help improve each students learning experience of reading.

One way to do this is by using a variety of collaborative groupings. You can divide the class up into partners and have students take turns talking, reading, or writing.

You can also divide the class into literature circles, selecting in advance four to six books that are related in some way and assigning one to each group. Within each group, just as we did in our reading education book clubs, each student can be assigned a weekly role of a discussion direction, passage master, vocabulary enricher, connector, and illustrator. As the teacher, you can even personalize these too the books, giving them more appealing names and duties to your students.

Another way to practice a different approach to reading is through coaching groups. This is a great method if, as the teacher, you realize that your students are having a hard time pronouncing unfamiliar words. Through this approach, you can teach students word identification strategies.

Other ideas to consider as you plan a reading activity are partnering older struggling readers to tutor younger struggling readers, find and train a tutor for your most needly child, use the latest technology, and finally, use other resources such a reading specialist and programs.

To the right is an exercise that involves making connections from a book onto sticky notes. This is a great way to discover what intrigues your students, and where they are confused! 

Questions to consider:
1. What is a method that you feel strongly about? One that you will practice in your own classroom?
2. Is there one method this exercise would fit best with? Or, could it be used in multiple methods?

Guided Reading

After reading Anita Iaqunita's article, Guided Reading: A Research-Based Response to the Challenges of Early Reading Instruction, I was enlightened to acquire some new facts on guided reading. Did you know that the early years are the focus for prevention of reading difficulties because those who begin to lag behind demonstrates that children who get off to a poor start in reading rarely catch back up.

It is estimated that one in three children experience significant difficulties in learning to read. Accroding to stats from Iaquinta's article, a child who is a poor reader in first grade is 88% more likely to remain a poor reader in fourth grade.

Guided reading has become what is known as "the best practice" for today's balanced literacy instruction, and is a great tool to help usher young readers into stronger fluency.

According to Iaquinta, guided reading has three different purposes:

1. to meet the varying instructional needs of all the students in the classroom, enabling them to greatly expand their reading powers.
2. to teach students to read increasingly difficult texts with understanding and fluency
3. to construct meaning while using problem-solving strategies to figure out unfamiliar words that deal with complex stench structures, and understand concepts or ideas not previously encountered.

As a teacher, we should consider the level of the child's ability in reading, and make groups accordingly. The teacher's goal in guided reading it to, "Strive to provide the most effective instruction possible and to match the difficulty of the material with the student's current abilities.:

With this said, material should provide a challenge that is just right for the student. A couple questions I will leave you with:

1. How do you balance pushing a student enough, but not too much when it comes to level of guided reading?
2. What are ways you can make sure you are not overlooking the student's personal needs when orchestrating guided reading?

To the right is a great work sheet that the whole class can use and apply to their specific level. This way, kids do not feel as singled out if they are in different groups.

Vocabulary and Read Alouds

"Just as a house needs a strong foundation, so reading comprehension depends on a strong base of oral language and concept development." This statement made by Camille L.Z. Blachowicz and Peter Fisher triggers the truth of why vocabulary is so important to reading.

How do we assist in helping build up our students vocabulary base? Bridget Dalton and Dana L. Grisham discuss possible techniques to help students. Recommendations such as encouraging wide reading, teaching words and word learning strategies, and promoting active learning and interest in words in a new way by integrating technology. These processes can be manifested with the help of digital tools, media, and the internet. Five strategies were discussed to encourage students in a better vocabulary base. These included:

1. Learn from visual displays of word relationships within text.
2. Take a digital vocabulary field trip.
3. Connect fun and learning with online vocabulary games.
4.  Have students express media to express vocabulary knowledge.
5. Take advantage of online word reference tools that are also teaching tools

In the current age we live in, it is increasingly becoming more necessary that teachers incorporate technology into the classroom. I found some great websites in relation to vocabulary on a post by the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning Site on 16 websites that can be used as vocab tools.This is a great source for students in the upper elementary grade levels, all the way up to college! 

Comprehension Strategies

In Anne E. Gregory and Mary Ann Cahill's piece Kindergartners Can Do It, Too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers I was shocked to discover that even children in Kindgergarten understood what a schema was, and that ultimately they were engaging in meaning construction. The teacher mentioned in this article implementing these ideas marvelously to her students, making the ideas accessible to her students.

There must be many things as teachers we think our students are not capable of. But I believe if we simply and modify the ideas, transforming phrases and ideas to fit what they already know, the information will be applicable, just as portrayed here with reading this book to Kindergartners. 

How do we do this though? Sharon Ruth Gill discusses strategies to comprehension in her article, The Comprehension Matrix: A Tool for Designing Comprehension Instruction. 

One way Gill discusses to assist students in comprehension is first, as a teacher, understanding different factors that affect comprehension. The three biggest factors of comprehension are the reader, the text, and the situation. However, your own personal views affect how you perceive comprehension also. For example, I believe learning is similar to a learning theory known as social cognitivism. This view that states the learners environment, behavior, and cognition all influence how they learn. My understanding, as brought up by Gill will be different because of this view I have on learning. So, personally, I believe that relating information back to the student, and making it relevant to them--whether that be to their current place in life, their behavior, or past experience--is a great way to further practice comprehension. 

Overall, as a teacher, it is important to not only form your own ideas about comprehension, but to continually seek new council and opinions on how best to achieve comprehension. One idea I found on Pinterest that I loved and thought was very creative was having students make a retelling bracelet (left). Each color has a specific purpose: the green bead is the beginning of the story, the blue beads are the story components in the middle, and the red bead is the end of the story. To help kids recall the story, have them slide a bead from right to left as they retell what they heard. Another idea is having a story board that is filled out as a class during reading or after reading of the story (upper right corner) to establish comprehension on the topic. 

Compentence

While reading What every teacher needs to know about comprehension by Laura S. Pardo, I found her definition of comprehension very interesting. She made this idea visible in figure one (below). Basically, Pardo believes comprehension is the connection between the reader and the text.

Pardo also discusses the fact that a very important aspect in students achieving comprehension is their world knowledge. It is very interesting to think that the amount a student knows about the world influences how well they can comprehend a particular story, but it makes sense.

This is why, just as it was discussed in Classrooms That Work, it is important to, "Develop thoughtful comprehenders". As teachers, we get the opportunity to open a whole new world to our students, and reading a great way to do this! Comprehending is a very large aspect of reading, as teachers we should encourage our students to engage more in the world around them. The more they know, the more they will discover while they read!

A great way to encourage readers in being conscience and aware of what's happening around them is by creating an activity for them to do where based off of their surroundings, they create and write their own stories, then pass them around to classmates to read. I remember doing this in elementary school and loved it. This is also a great way for readers to discover how reading can be fun and creative! One possible idea that may better engage readers is for students to create a story based off of world surroundings, but pretending they are super heroes. I love this idea because it combines world knowledge and creativity!

Poetry Performance

Poetry Performance:  The purpose is to have students learn the importance of varying the pitch, rate and volume of their voices. Emphasizing different words will alter the meaning of the poem that the students are reading.

Exercise #1:

1. Use the following poem by Bruce Lansky for this exercise.

My Baby Sister

My baby sister’s
really swell.
I love her smile,
but not her smell.

(Note: All poems used in this study guide are copyright by Bruce Lansky.)

2. Have students take turns reading the poem emphasizing one word over the others. For example the first student reads it emphasizing "My" and the second student reads the poem emphasizing "baby," and so on until the last student has read the poem emphasizing the last word "smell."

3. Reading the selected word with emphasis means to say it louder, slower and more dramatically than the other words in the poem. If you emphasize "My" it means my baby sister as opposed to yours. If you emphasize "baby" it may mean your baby sister as opposed to your older sister.

4. Discuss how the meaning of the poem changes as different words are emphasized.

5. Teach your students that as they practice other poems to present in class that they can decide which words to emphasize. They can underline these words so that they can identify these words as they practice their poems.

**This definition and exercise is found at http://www.poetryteachers.com/poetclass/performpoetry.htm 

Word Study

"Word knowledge is highly related to comprehension." This is as told by Yopp and Yopp in their article, Ten Important Words Plus: A Strategy for Building Word Knowledge. Yopp and Yopp believe that the degree of ones vocabulary is affected and built up by three main things:

1. Wide Reading

     2.  Explicit Instruction of words and word-learning strategies


     3.  Establishment of an environment that promotes word consciousness

To know words means to the reader can better understand the text. This seems like common knowledge, but the tricky part is applying this concept to gain an actual result. This is a widely addressed issue, as spoken of also in Cunningham and Cunningham's piece on Making Words.

Also mentioned in Cunningham and Cunningham's piece, it is stated that children's developmental spelling in kindergarten or beginning of first grade to be a strong predictor of their reading achievement by the end of the year. Also mentioned was the study of Nelson did in 1990 that left observers with the result that early exposure to phonics accelerates students development of correct short vowel spelling.

These results once again convince me of the importance teachers play in students education. Especially those who teach elementary education. In my classroom, to help readers achieve this, I would love to have a designated reading corner with a couch or bean bags and a lamp or two. I believe setting apart a space specifically for reading would encourage my students, even those who struggle with reading, to give it a try, thus hopefully creating space for them to widen their vocabulary to expand their word knowledge. The pictures throughout this post are some ideas I have found for inspiration of what that corner could look like.

The Challenge Of Fluency

Distinguishing between the ability to read certain words, but not comprehend them is a tricky place to be. As a student it's frustrating and disheartening, and as a teacher you are left potentially feeling inadequate, not quiet sure how to help that student achieve their goal. However, in Timothy Rasinski's piece, Creating Fluent Readers, a three step guideline is created to better equip teachers in this process. The first tip given by Rasinski is for teachers to help students with their accuracy by decoding words. After students can do this, the second step is automatic processing. Thirdly, after students are able to complete the first two steps, they will begin practicing prosodic reading, which means that, "The reader must parse the text into syntactically and semantically appropriate units."

By following these steps, one can distinguish where the student falls in their deficiency, and can meet the student where they are at--focusing on how to solve the problem rather than just stating they are falling behind.

It is good to keep in mind though, as discussed in Theresa A. Deeney's article on One Minute Fluency Measurements, that some researchers believe fluency is present in students even before they can show its connectedness to the text. This point of view argues that it's manifestation however, is what we see at a later date. This is accomplished when accuracy, automaticity, and many other small parts of reading strategies are combined.

Ultimately, regardless of how fluency happens, I think it is important for students to understand that while reading, balancing words accurately and quickly all the while connecting them to the context is challenging. A lot of time, fear and failure come from a place when students feel like they are the only ones on the planet struggling with something. So, as a teacher, it is important to encourage children in this stage of reading but  also bring to their attention that this knowledge will take time to achieve.

This process can be draining at times, repetitively reading phrases and passages. That is why I found this activity to the right, as fun and silly and a way to help kids enjoy this stage of reading more! Students could each be assigned a character, or we could draw as a class one a day, and one student could read aloud to the rest of his/her peers.

From Teacher To Coach: The Study of Encouraging Your Students

It is a very interesting idea to think about teachers as coaches. I have always found myself wanting to be an encourager to my students, but to call myself a coach? Well, I've never thought of that before.

But the more I read Kathleen F. Clark's article, What Can I say Besides, "Sound it out"? Coaching word recognition in beginning reading, this idea is becoming more of a reality. Clark distinguishes what she believes to be successful techniques to coaching students into using previously learned knowledge to read. By crafting instructional cues for students to pick up, Clark believes every student will have the capacity to excel in reading. By 'coaching' readers, teachers help students reach the five steps that Classrooms That Work by Cunningham and Allington describes. A successful coach helps readers achieve:

1. Recognizing that a word is unfamiliar, one looks at all the letters in order.
2. Searching mental word banks for similar letter patterns andy eh sounds associated with them.
3. Producing pronunciation that matches that of the real world the student knows.
4. Reread the sentence to cross-check the students possible pronunciation with meaning, and if the meaning confirms pronunciation, keep reading. (If not, try again!)
5. Lastly, if the word is unfamiliar, the student would look for familiar morphemes, and chunk the word by putting letters together that usually go together in the words the student knows.

One can achieve these steps as a teacher by applying a coaching technique. In order to complete these steps, a coach provides general cues to promote thought and cues to promote a specific action like producing a pronunciation or searching one's mental word bank.

Overall, one tip for helping students read that I found most helpful through the coaching technique was detecting a smaller word within a large unknown word. This helps students accomplish some ground, and makes the word not as intimidating, and from there, they can begin to use cues and coaching tips. One way to help encourage readers to discover new words, is by speaking them out loud. A great idea of how to do this, yet still manage your classroom volume level, is a whisper phone, pictured to the right and below. This allows students to hear themselves as they read, yet is quieter to their surrounding peers. These can be homemade out of pipes, or store bought, and is a great way to incorporate interactive reading!

You Were Born A Writer

In Donna Bell and Donna Jarvis’ article, “Letting Go of the Letter of The Week” new methods are discussed on how to introduce reading and writing to elementary aged students. One of my favorite topics discussed in this article was to affirm and validate that children are already writers. The example of Mrs. Jarvis with her class was such a great idea of how to incorporate creative writing into a classroom setting at an early age. To conduct this activity the teacher should take the following steps:

1. Explain to students that they are each already writers.
2. Give students the freedom to write whatever they want.
3. Conduct an exercise where the teacher frees students of a narrow-minded idea of what a writer is by discussing different types of writing. (chart to the right)
4. Tell children to write the way they know how to write, using the chart as their guide.
5. This encourages students to practice and accept many different forms of writing communication.             

                                             

The main thing I loved about this approach was freeing students from the growing pressure placed on writing. So often students enter into situations in their later years, believing that they are not ‘good writers’. If, as a teacher I have the ability to teach my students at an early age the importance of creativity, and instill a writer’s confidence in them, I believe it would travel far in their academic life.

This also ties into what IRA NAEYC says in their position paper about teaching children to read and write.  Many topics are taken into consideration, including the increasing diversity in classrooms. As a teacher, we must be aware of this shift and variety. This idea by Jarvis is a great way to incorporate each type of learner, whether highly skilled or in beginning stages, to feel equal and on the same page.

I believe that diversity is a great addition to a classroom, because with it comes many different opinions and life experiences. This would attribute to students learning to think outside the box of their own life, and I believe having students conduct a writing journal as Jarvis has done would be an excellent way to portray this idea, and encourage students that it is okay to be different!

The Role of Influence in Reading

Looking back on my childhood, I would say that my family played a significant role in my literacy development. While I do not particularly remember my parents teaching me how to read, books and imagination were very important things in my house. My dad would read to my two sisters and I every night, sometimes even making up stories.  Grammatically, I specifically remember a day in Kindergarten when I made the mistake of thinking ‘on’ was an ‘a’ sound because the spelling of my name, Anna (which is pronounced Ah-nah). As discussed in chapter three, my background information of this sound led me to incorrectly place it with a letter. After a gentle correction from my teacher, I quickly learned what sound was connected to what letter. This is a leading example that the majority of my learning to read was conducted at school by my teachers, however, my parents helped me continue to succeed at home through practice and assignments.

Similar to the Joneses, there were other primary influences in my life growing up beside my mother. My dad was really involved in daily activities, and while my grandparents did not live in Tennessee, every November, they would come rent a house for a month near us. I would also see them every summer, and periodically throughout the year. Even my grandparents have affected my literacy development, and in fact, a couple of years ago, I received a book series containing ten books for my birthday.

Just as in Pinesville, social factors and the time of events played a crucial role in my reading experience. Going into Kindergarten I do not remember having a complete understanding of sounds and letters, however, today children are expected to start the year with a complete understanding of how to read.  There was also a heavy influence because of the community I came from. In Farragut, my town growing up, the community was very involved, with many middle class to wealthy families who are very involved in their kid’s lives. This contributed to student’s entering into school with more practice. Just as in Farragut, the community of Pinesville played a crucial role in student’s literacy development. How can we as a community encourage students to read? How can we play a part? Here is a chart of questions to ask those young readers around you! Also, these questions can be modified to be more age appropriate for the reader! Enjoy!

Theories Combined Lead to Reading More Lines!

After reading What I’ve learned about effective reading instruction by R.L. Allington, I am finding myself nodding in agreement with what she has painted throughout the pages of her work. It was very helpful for me to focus on her six points of effective elementary literacy instruction: time, text, teaching, talk, task, and testing.  As a student, I am feeling completely overwhelmed by theories, and methods of teaching. Going into this career, my reasons where solely because of the kids I would come in contact with, and how I wish to give them the support and encouragement they need to succeed and excel. Now, however, this desire and goal seems distant, as I am consumed by learning about paper work, methods, lesson plans, and grading guidelines.

I was on the phone with my dad the other day, and he asked me how my classes were this semester. I proceeded by discussing the fact that I was thoroughly enjoying the fact that I was learning things that I would apply to my profession, but at the same time, feeling completely overwhelmed by all the projects and steps in-between before becoming a teacher. He responded by reminding me that those who love children make great teachers. That some people who become teachers are fascinated with theories and what not, but that ultimately, when one is in the classroom, a theory is still a theory, and a successful teacher is one who is for his or her students. For a split second, I was reminded of why I chose this major, and my passion for education flickered once again.

This reading helped fan that flame of wanting to become an excellent teacher. My desire for this is not because I want to receive the highest test scores of the school, but rather because I want to see students succeed. Allington reminded me of that passion through her writing. Allington also assisted in my discovery that theories are needed, and that most theories interwoven, like the six T’s, are stronger when enforced as a whole. I also enjoyed reading from Classrooms That Work, and discovering that effective teachers give their students some kind of choice and responsibility when it comes to reading. Reading is so much more enjoyable when you feel like you had some kind of say in what you choose to read.

As a way to distribute responsibly to my students, I found this form to be a great resource to possibly use in my classroom some day! It encourages students to soak in what they are reading, and presents reading as something they should be proud of, and I love that!

I love to read!