Finding Time for Freedom within a Structured Curriculum

Negotiating the Literacy Block: Constructing Space for Critical Literacy in a High-Stakes Setting, by Paugh, Carey, King-Jackson, and Russell, describes the work of a teacher and literacy coach in developing a curriculum that carefully works within the required Basal reader and literacy standards while still allowing for student innovation and creativity and offers on-point, personalized instruction. The problem with the highly structured curriculums that developed out of a culture of high-stakes testing and (sometimes unfair) processes teacher accountability is not that the curriculum is bad in itself but that it does not address the specific needs of specific students and that it does not allow for innovation; “mandated curricula ignore ‘students’ cultural/linguistic/imaginative capital’” (32). In a world where social and economic success not only requires knowing how to read and write printed texts but also assumes active participation in collaborative community events” (31), a world that increasingly  requires critical and creative thinking, teachers should create space for such learning as well as a space for standard curriculum. (This Ted Talk on Motivation in the Workplace illustrates the importance of creative thinking in the modern workplace.)

Reflecting on the predominately non-white, urban students of this article, their teacher realized that students from non-privileged backgrounds needed explicit instruction in the language of schooling schooling in order to gain access to educational success. Adding “Choice Time” (later changed to “Design Time” because students were so proactive in designing new methods for their own learning) to the Literacy Block gave students a chance to work on what they specifically needed in a way that worked with their style of learning. Choice Time allowed students to choose between a variety of activities for learning vocabulary and spelling, such as Look Say Cover, Spell with a partner, Sentence Strips, Hangman, etc. This time also gave students opportunities to develop social negotiation skills as many students borrowed ideas and encouraged each other.  Over the course of the year, Choice Time grew to incorporate student ideas officially. For instance, “Apple Tree”, a version of Hangman, was developed for a girl whose religious beliefs would not allow her to participate in a violent game. This approach gave children the opportunity to be proactive and self-motivated, to drive their own learning in a very positive way.

To fully understand the implications of their innovation, the teacher and literacy coach used multiple forms of assessment at the end of the year. “These included: 1) the district-mandated reading assessment (the Developmental Reading Assessment) which measures students’ fluency and comprehension, 2) the changing landscape of the classroom (evidence of students’ initiative in creating new rules, social relationships, and investment as they interacted with Choice Time texts); and 3) the Choice Time activities themselves (as) evidence of student innovation, participation, and connection to the state standards for English Language Arts.” (39). Results showed that most students in the class were ending the year at late second-grade or early third-grade levels – right on target.

This article gives me hope that, even if I do accept a job that forces me to work within a highly structured curriculum such as a Basal Reader, there are ways of also finding time to meet specific student needs.

iMovie

Last week for class, we had to make short videos using iMovie. There were a few ways we could proceed. I chose to do a live-action movie. So I got my child - we shall call him Luca - to tell me a story. At first he wanted to tell a story involving a BBgun, but I talked him out of it for two reasons. The first is that, while he is homeschooled, stories about guns and gun use in public school classrooms is frowned upon. The second was that, considering we were going to make a live-action movie, using a BB gun seemed reckless and afforded too many opportunities for a mishap. So we compromised and I allowed him to tell me a story involving a bow and arrow. The story he decided to retell was that of Robin Hood.

It took quite some prompting to get Luca to tell me a full Robin Hood tale. I tried not to add any details myself, but to prompt him with questions: Where does Robin Hood live? Does he live with anyone else? Does his robbing from the rich make anyone angry? (I realize this last one was definitely a leading question, but it helped move the plot along.) After we had the story outlined, we made a voice recording. Luca refused to tell the tale at first, so his sister told the first clip. Then Luca was ready to tell the second two.

Getting the story recorded was all I (and the kids) had time and energy/attention for that day, so I returned a week later to shoot the video clips. We went out into their back yard. It is a beautiful, wooded area with a somewhat run down play house that served as Robin Hoods home. There are a few bloopers - when I didn't notice my finger was covering part of the iPad lens, when Robin Hood dropped an arrow instead of firing it, when the wealthy villain refused to give his gold to Robin Hood (which punched a hole in our plot line). Overall, though, the filming went smoothly.

As much fun as I had preparing the movie, I have to admit that I became obsessed with editing it. I was sick that week and, while I didn't feel up to doing homework that required full cognitive consciousness, I had too much work to condone just lying around all day. So I spent hours tinkering with the movie, getting the credits just right, making sure the music lined up properly, cutting clips and putting them back together. In class I learned how to make clips slow motion, how to add sound effects (the "golf swing" sound effect worked perfectly for firing an arrow), and how to add a clip of the production company (Literacy Playshop Films) to make it look professional. (FYI, I did this by making a trailer in iMovie, which walks you through that step, saving it to my iPad, and then using just the clip of the production company in my movie.)

I think my professor may have opened a Pandora's Box for me - I got so excited about the movie that I neglected other homework. Did I choose the wrong profession?? I think not, but this is definitely something I want to incorporate into my future classroom. I hope my future students have as much fun as the kids and I did, and are as proud with the final product as we were!

The place of technology

“Digital, Hybrid, and Multilingual Literacies in Early Childhood”, by Aria Razfar, begins with a simple question: What counts as literacy in early childhood? Is literacy simply the ability to read and write? Or is it more complex? The decades have shown an unprecedented growth in the variety and proliferation of electronic and digital media and of children’s access to that media. Multimodal activities - activities that semiotic (meaning), digital (technological), and multilingual tools - are therefore crucial to children’s acculturation into the modern world. Of course, at the moment, it seems as though my students are more tech-savvy and adept at navigating this world of informational technology than I am. I suppose this means I need to “up my game” so that I remain a valuable resource.

In addition to he need for students to learn how to use these tools to function in the modern world, these tools are also simply part of their everyday life. Razfar states that literacy development is a “dialectic, collaborative, effort of the community of learners rather than a solitary act,” and that learning should be “natural, purposeful, and appropriate to the child’s environment.” To me, this means that for instruction to be effective, it must be engaging and for it to be engaging, it needs to connect with what children already know, care about, and are interested in- a meeting of minds, so to speak. As much as I may be out of the loop, connecting to students through modern technology and technological practices such as online chatting, film-making, video gaming, etc. If teachers (such as myself) pay attention to this aspect of their students’ lives, “links to school become more viable and cognitive growth is promoted.”

The article went through four anecdotes about mediational tools. The overall consensus is that multimodal instruction, and instruction that values the languages and cultures students bring to the classroom, is in no way detrimental to student learning and that “children can benefit from enriched repertoires of media text.

My one hesitation in regard to this article is that there is a focus on learning and using the technology that students are already familiar with to promote learning, to the detriment, it seems, of other modes of learning. 

"Tech Zombie"

There is an incredibly rich world outside of the world of technology. I love to read. I love studying cultures, past and present, and trying to understand multiple ways of interpreting the world. And I love to take long walks in the woods to reflect. I think that the fast-paced, highly stimulating technological world we live in detracts from these things that take time, that require us to slow down, that require us to think deeply rather than react immediately. So once again, as I have stated in several blog posts now, I think it is about finding balance – in this case, a balance between the need to educate students in and with technology and to share with them the beauty of older traditions (such as reading books…). School should, to my view, teach children multiple ways of interpreting the world, so they can both function in the world and find a way of being that reverberates in their Self. 

Playing to learn: where literacy and play collide

The article I found for this blog post - "Kindergarten as Nexus of Practice: A Mediated Discourse Analysis of Reading, Writing, Play, and Design in an Early Literacy Apprenticeship.", written by my illustrious professor :) -  is about integrating literacy with children’s natural instinct to play. The article states that, “When literacy and play combine, they support and strengthen one another, proliferating the ways for children to “do school” and increasing access for diverse learners.” The reading supports play goals, and the playing supports reading development.

If one considers how children use play to negotiate, imitate, and mediate the “real world”, it seems natural to use play to do the same for reading. Literacy is simply one aspect of the “real world” that children will have to face every day; why not let them play to develop interest and understanding?

According to Vygotsky’s popular theory on learning, learning takes place in a social context. Literacy learning is no exception. Children begin to encounter literacy in mediated settings (mediated by parents, teachers, peers, etc.) and over time  gain more control in a gradual release format. Play illuminates and promotes this social aspect of learning.

In the article, the children in the class being observed divided into three groups for literacy play. One group, composed of boys and girls, “played” school – they reproduced daily routines and imitated the teacher’s behavior (in activities such as a “played” read-aloud.). A second group, comprised of girls, appropriated and revised Disney stories to fit their own social and individual needs. The third group, boys only, enacted college sporting events. This ability to choose what and how to play allowed for learner agency over traditions of child obedience.

In these groups, children used books and multimedia tools. They “negotiated their interpretations of book and film meanings, vied for valued play roles and empowered classroom identities, maintained joint play scenarios, and protected child-controlled space…  (They) determined how Kindergarteners should act as readers and writers, leaders and followers, girls and boys.”

In a sense, combining literacy and play is just another example of integrating curricula. I think that in this, the information age, the need for play is overwhelmed by the need to learn how to use various forms of media and sign systems and by the need to learn so much information. Play is important! School is not just a place to learn stuff, it is a place to be socialized, to gain understanding of one self, one’s peers, and one’s socio-cultural landscape. Play accomplishes this. And if it can be done in a context of practicing literacy skills such as storytelling and story making, so much the better!

Wohlwend, Karen E. "Kindergarten as Nexus of Practice: A Mediated Discourse Analysis of Reading, Writing, Play, and Design in an Early Literacy Apprenticeship." Reading Research Quarterly 43.4 (2008): 332-34. JSTOR. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/20068350?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Kindergarten&searchText=as&searchText=a&searchText=nexus&searchText=of&searchText=practice&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DKindergarten%2Bas%2Ba%2Bnexus%2Bof%2Bpractice%26amp%3Bprq%3DKindergarten%2Bas%2Ba%2Bnexus%26amp%3Bhp%3D25%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bso%3Drel%26amp%3Bracc%3Doff >. 

Teachable Moments

For this blog post, I have reviewed the article Teachable Moments: Linking Assessment and Teaching in Talk about Writing, by Kathryn Glasswell and Katy M. Parr. In this article, the authors observed the writing instruction of a Year 1 and 2 teacher in New Zealand. They observed instructional routines, talked to students, and interviewed teachers about what they did and why. In the course of the article, Glasswell and Parr describe different types of assessment, define that watchword of education, “teachable moments”, and outline three hallmarks of teachable moments. Then they give the example of a teacher-student interaction in a writing conference to exemplify one teachable moment using their hallmarks.

There are basically two types of assessment according to Glasswell and Parr: summative assessment, which shows evidence of learning, and formative assessment, which requires gathering information about  what teachers do and why. In formative assessment, they further break it down into planned and interactive assessment. Planned assessment is, obviously, planned. It is, by nature, much more structured than interactive assessment. Interactive assessment is more dynamic; it is based on teacher-student conversations and on teacher observations of student behavior and progress within the course of a lesson or unit. In this case, it is important to keep quality notes of observations because there is no other proof of assessment. (I, personally, do not see why interactive assessment could not be used summatively as well, but it is not mentioned by the authors of this article.

Teachable moments are “times when we have found a valuable and authentic way to teach something useful.” It is not a split-second opportunity that occurs and passes but is, rather, based on interactive formative assessment, on the teacher knowing through experience exactly where a student is and where they need to go next in any particular moment. The three hallmarks of a teachable moment are the following: a meeting of minds, a knowledge of possible futures, and an application of proper scaffolding.

The “meeting of minds” describes the student-teacher relationship. A teacher cannot force students to learn; no matter how much we may want to, we cannot simply cram information into children’s brains. Students need to be active participants in their own education. They need to question the method of their own learning and be self-motivated and proactive in pursuing it.

The “knowledge of possible futures” refers to the shared goal of the teacher and student. An example was given of Driver’s Ed. Both the young driver and the driving instructor are aware of the planned outcome: that the student will be able to drive independently and safely. Student awareness of goals is incredible important for progression because the student is as important as the teacher in the learning process. If they do not know the end goal, how can they strive for it? This section also discusses the ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) of the student. This simply means, in fancy, scientific terms, that if the lesson being taught is to easy or too difficult, the student will not progress efficiently. Like with Goldilocks, the lesson must be “just right”

The final hallmark of a teachable moment is the application of proper scaffolding. Glasswell and Parr state that students need “the right amount of the right kind of support at the right time, for the right period of time.” They say that “parents, teachers, and more skilled peers create a support system for learner that enable her to perform tasks and be more skillful than if she were attempting to perform independently.” (I was a bit iffy on the “more skilled peers” part – why can all peers not support each other in learning?) Scaffolding should be as-needed, flexible, temporary, and diminishing over time. There should be a transfer of responsibility from the teacher (or parent or peer) to the student.

The example given by Glasswell and Parr of these three hallmarks of a teachable moment was of a student named Charlie and his teacher, Eleanor. It only lasted 1 minute and 47 seconds, but is crammed with useful information. During this short time, the teacher devotes her full attention to the student, compliments his brave use of invented spelling, and gives him one thing to work on: making clear to the audience the sequence of events in the story. The following day, Charlie independently worked on his writing piece and, instead of reciting Eleanor’s suggestion for clarity verbatim, experimented with the idea she was promoting. Thus his story “I hurt my leg because (Eleanor’s suggestion) I fell down in the driveway” became, “This week I was walking on the driveway. Then I fell over.” In a different way, it still communicates causality and a sequence of events to the audience. This independent work shows the results of a well-taught moment, in which the teacher saw where her student was, what he needed to do next, offered guidance, then stepped back to let him take command of his own learning when he was ready.

I would like to conclude, not with my own words, but with the authors’ own concluding remarks.

Teachable moments are more than spontaneous occurrences that happen when gifted teachers are listening carefully to their students and responding intuitively. Rather, we suggest that teachable moments are grounded in a deeper understanding of formative assessment (assessment for learning) and its place in the instructional fabric of classroom interactions. We have proposed that to be effective in teachable moments, teachers need to know where their students are in their learning, where each student needs to go to become more skilled, and how classroom talk can create a meaningful scaffold. Without such foundations, the conversations that take place - no matter if they emerge from the student's own initiative or interests - will be "fleeting" and will not necessarily accumulate to support sustained learning in writing.

An Inquiry of Birds

In addition to reading assigned articles and chapters, my classmates and I are required to read 5 research articles independently and summarize and analyze them on our blogs. For this, the first of my independent research articles, I read The Ties that Bind: Emergent Literacy and Scientific Education, by Phyllis Whitin, published in Language Arts (journal) in 2007. It details the experience of a teacher who switched from teaching fourth grade to teaching kindergarten specifically because the switch from half-day to full-time kindergarten gave her the time necessary to conduct scientific lessons as well as standard reading/writing/math.

For the most part, I think this article was interesting, accessible, and full of valuable ideas. For instance, the incorporation of non-fiction, and of various genres under the umbrella of non-fiction, is important from a young age. Research by Duke in 2000 showed that, “an average of only 3.6 minutes a day were devoted to non-fiction reading” in elementary classrooms (20). I think that this situation has improved and that non-fiction texts are being used increasingly even in the early primary grades. Children are curious about the world they live in and therefore they should have access to material that can teach them about such interests. From what I’ve read and observed, young children love simple non-fiction.

The teacher in this article specifically focused on learning about birds using scientific techniques, specifically “close, sustained observation, collaborative conversations with peers, and purposeful use of a wide range of resources” (20). Through inquiry into a specific topic, students learned about genre types and the value of using multiple resources, how to use different types of resources (i.e. how to read a storybook (continuous text) vs. how to look up a fact in a reference book (non-continuous text)), narrative writing, how to “read” maps, the difference between skimming and reading and the utility of each, the incorporation of numerical data in observational texts, and, what really “blew my mind” as far as what kindergartners are capable of, the ability to infer information based on what is not present in a text!

This is an example of a page from Stoke’s Beginner’s Guide to Birds: Eastern Region, the guide the students were using from the start of the school year. They began by looking at pictures, learned what each of the symbols present on the page meant, and eventually read the accompanying text (often with some help.)

In addition to gaining valid literacy skills, the focus on a “real-world” subject empowered students. They weren't just Kindergartners, they were scientists (participating in Cornell’s Project FeederWatch); they weren't the youngest member of their family, but a valued resource for bird identification at home and on family outings. Bird knowledge also gained a level of social currency; a girl who joined the classroom midway through the year picked up on this and became more accepted after she presented her first bird observations. Because of all these factors, students were motivated to finish literacy projects connected to birds. One boy, with the lowest reading level in the class, persevered the most when journaling about observing a wren nest at his cousin’s house. With teacher help, this journal entry eventually morphed into his “published” book at the end of the year.

Conclusion:

This article shows that there are many benefits to incorporating non-fiction and meaningful inquiry into the classroom. And I am a strong advocate for cross-curricular instruction. Why not use science to teach reading, thus "killing two birds with one stone"? I am not sure that I, personally, would want to study just birds for an entire year, but there is certainly something to be said for it. Any interesting subject, so long as it contains a certain breadth and depth, will become more interesting as it is studied deeply. Additionally, students become experts on a subject and gain confidence in their ability as scientists or scholars. But there is something to be said for the other end of the spectrum too, for a broader approach that introduces a few more topics on a slightly more superficial level. What if a student is completely uninterested in birds? What if one group wants to study space and another is interested in the history of potatoes? I think, perhaps, finding a middle ground might be the answer – maybe three or four inquiry topics per year rather than one. This variety would provide opportunities for different students with different interests to shine and still allow the necessary time for an in-depth inquiry project. I suppose that, as with everything to do with teaching, finding that perfect balance is contingent upon knowing your students and what will work best for them.

The "McDonaldization" of Teaching: efficiency, predictability, control

In their podcast (adapted to written form), Richard Allington and P. David Pearson make some excellent points about the problems that result from what they call “fidelity to a core program” (70). The main program they focus on is DIBEL, but it is obvious from their conversation that the points they make could be applies, in varying degrees, to many mandated programs and basal readers. I identified six main problems they bring up within this article.

1)      These programs have diverted teachers away from using actual research-based programs that are known to be effective. For example, it is mentioned that in Kentucky, teachers were forced to use DIBEL rather than Reading Recovery. DIBEL has no research showing that it is an effective diagnostic tool or that it can be used for shaping instruction, and yet it is required by all. Allington states that, “DIBELS doesn’t accurately predict reading achievement, yet it sits at the cornerstone  of a bottom-up model of reading” (71).

2)      There is a reduction of the amount of time kids read for meaning. DIBEL “focus(es) on nonsense word production and some kind of weekly monitoring,” but the problem with this is that many children are fully capable of reading quickly and accurately without comprehending a thing they read (Allington, 71). Reading is about making meaning, not about decoding syllables!

3)      It fosters a reluctance in teachers to “spend time on rich conversation around textx that engage meaty ideas for young kids to tackle” (Pearson, 72). Children’s books, as Pearson goes on to point out, address many significant issues that children often face; the pressure to “keep up” with a mandated reading program decreases opportunity to discuss such topics as friendship, betrayal, trust, fairness, honesty, etc.

4)      The core programs do not offer good advice to teachers. I have witnessed this first-hand. There is a script for the teacher and a script of what the children should say. But my relatively small amount of experience has showed me that children will often do the unexpected.

5)      Rigidified and scripted curricula belittle the professionalism of teachers. Teachers are often not trusted to do their jobs. Pearson told an anecdote about a person who wondered why institutions of higher education did not simply prepare teachers by showing them how to use the basal reader they would need to use in their career. Unfortunately, basal readers change with disquieting frequency. Pearson argues that, “We need to prepare folks in a broader way, with more transferrable skills, strategies, and practices that they can adapt to the materials they encounter” (73). What a novel idea! Imagine preparing teachers to be flexible and creative professionals.

6)      More institutions and agencies are getting involved in “the teacher education game”. This means that teaching is being commodified, that the field is being increasingly dominated by private, for profit organizations that, in some cases, certify people with virtually no pedagogical preparation.

The sad, somewhat ironic thing is that the teacher feared by the “person” in point five, the teacher who is unqualified to teach and should have their professionalism questioned, is created by exactly the programs that try to mitigate them. Allington goes so far as to say that, “If beginning teachers who go into schools where they are expecting to use core programs with fidelity and are told what to do and how many minutes to teach, all of which is monitored, they end up three years later as lazy, stupid teachers. The solution to this is to have supportive school systems that allow teachers to teach and encourage them (as well as their students) to self-monitor their work. 

The Importance of Ongoing Assessment

Assessment is a crucial part of education. It not only shows the teacher whether or not, or to what extent, a student has understood a given lesson, but also directs what will be taught next. This is called diagnostic assessment. While some assessment can be formal, a great deal of assessment should happen in informal or “authentic” learning settings. One example of this informal assessment is conferencing. For the educational layperson, conferencing is a one-on-one meeting the teacher has with every student once a week. Each conference lasts about 10 minutes and the student tells the teacher what they have been reading, what strategies they’ve been using, what they are struggling with, etc. These conferences should be recorded by the teacher in an organized fashion, so they can assess progress over time. The format of this organization can take many forms. For example:

The format I typically use is a simple chart that records the date, the book currently being read and whether it is fiction or non-fiction, a few notes on what the student is doing well, and a few notes on what we worked on together or what I think they should work on next. Sounds simple, no?

The answer to that question is an emphatic “no!” There is so much to keep in mind during a conference! In Catching Readers before They Fall, Johnson and Keier recommend the teacher asking him- or herself these questions:

·         Is the child comprehending and to what extent?

·         What strategic actions are being used?

·         How are the strategic actions helping the reader understand what he or she is reading?

·         How does the reading sound? Is it smooth or choppy? Is it well paced and phrased? Does the child attend to punctuation?

·         What does the child do when stuck on a word? What sources of information is the child using or neglecting?

·         Is the child enjoying the book?

·         What is his or her attitude toward reading?

This is a large number of broad, open-ended (for the most part) questions to bear in mind, and this is the short list! After gathering data, Johnson and Keier recommend a longer series of more specific questions For example, Can the child predict at the word level? At the text level? Can the child infer information from the text? Is the child flexible in problem-solving? Is the child self-monitoring for voice/print patch? For meaning? Of course, these are just examples of the kinds of questions a teacher should be seeking answers to, but it illustrates the vast array of skills neccesary to meaningful reading. Once the answers to these questions are determined and the teacher knows exactly what a student can and cannot do, they must then decide what the most important next step is for each student.

Conferencing – meeting weekly with each student to discuss their reading - is a simple idea in theory and, I believe, a very good one. I am fortunate enough to have had opportunities to conference with many students at different reading levels and in different grades. While I have always loved books and this makes it easy for me to talk with children about books, I lack experience in language arts instruction and am not yet comfortable with simultaneous assessment and instruction. I am not yet sure what conversational direction is best, what strategy would most help a student progress, or which is a small detail to work on and which evidence of a wide or essential gap in their reading process system.  Since the vast majority of my knowledge about teaching language arts is new, it has not been sorted into a hierarchy of importance. If a kid is struggling with reading fluently, and predicting, and Text-to-Life/World/Text connections, etc., I am not comfortable assessing which to approach first. I suppose that, as I gain experience, conferencing will feel less like I am treading water and more like I am actually swimming. I look forward to that time because it will make learning to read easier for my students as well as making teaching to read easier for me. Ongoing assessment, such as weekly conferencing is an essential skill for teachers to learn and utilize. Good assessment demonstrates to the teacher exactly what each student can and cannot do, determines what lessons will be taught next, shows ongoing student progress, and can also be a very useful tool for talking to anxious parents. 

Leveling: the Shortcomings of a Good Idea

The idea that students should read material that is at their level is a good one. If a text is too easy, the student will not be pushed to the next level and interest in reading could stagnate. If it is too difficult, forcing the student to focus on simple decoding rather than the meaning of the text, interest in reading can be crushed. The problem with leveling, therefore, is not the theory on which leveling is founded, but in its application.

There are a two main problems that I see with the application of leveled reading. The first occurs when levels are strictly adhered despite student needs or interests. In this week's reading, Glaswall and Ford state that, "Readers have the right to be engaged and stimulated and to contribute their thinking to the class community." All to often, however, the students who struggle with reading are provided with predictable and, frankly, boring books that kill enthusiasm. Surely there are books that a struggling child can feasibly read that go beyond "I see the cat, I see the dog, etc." These books do have their place, but they must be supplemented with other reading material and discarded after a time. Paying attention to student interest means not only providing them with interesting books, but also letting them pursue topics and books that interest them. Students should have a say in what they read. If a child has their imagination captured by a book in level D, but is in level C or E, let them read the book! They will still learn from it and their love of reading will be fostered by a text they enjoy. 

One must also consider student needs beyond their level. Glasswall and Ford give the example of a teacher who placed all his lowest readers in the a reading group together without considering the kinds of mistakes they were making or the kinds of instruction they needed. 
"Taylor's oral reading is almost word-perfect, with few errors but poor comprehension. Marita's miscues showed a pattern of using initial letters in words to guess at unknown words, and her attempts at words often resulted in responses that did not make sense in context and sometimes did not sound right in terms of  grammatical structure. Kimber showed a different pattern of problem solving altogether. When she came across a word she did not know, she often predicted from context. As a result, her miscues often made sense and sounded right, but they just didn't 'look right.'" (Glasswell and Ford). 
These students represent entirely different strategies for decoding texts. One uses visual information ("the letters and words. They draw upon their knowledge of phonics as they think about what word looks right"); one uses structural information ("they think about what would sound right (grammatically). They draw upon their knowledge of the spoken language"); and one uses meaningful information ("gained from the picture, sentance context, or story line. They draw upon their background knowledge as they think about what makes sense") (Johnson and Keier, 54). These students would probably be better off in groups of students facing similar challenges as them, even if those readers were on a different level, and kearning alongside them a multitude of strategies for word decoding. 

The second problem with the strict application of reading levels is that it belittles the professionalism and profession of teachers. I understand that the administrators, basal program designers, legislators, and the general populace are concerned about the education of today's youth (and tomorrow's administrators, designers, legislators, etc.). And I agree! Accountability is important and what it means to teach qualitatively is something that should be deeply considered. However, forcing teachers to adhere to strict guidelines is problematic on two levels. It belittles the teacher as a teacher - it shows that they are not trusted to do their job - and it can have a negative impact on their teaching. This is because the teacher will put less of their heart, mind, and soul into teaching if everything is laid out. 
"Commercial materials can contribute to less teacher reflection and a reification of certain reading principles. The design of these materials can contribute to an over-reliance on material and under-utilization of professional judgement… materials become the focus rather than the reader" (Glaswell and Ford, 209). 

 Strict adherence to leveled books can also negatively impact teaching because every moment of instruction is modified by context, and the most successful instruction takes this context into account. This requires the quick judgement of a teacher who is present in the context and aware of its implications, not the theories of a far-off book publisher.
" Leveling systems often ignore that contextual factors play a role in the success of the transaction between the reader and the text. Leveling systems can't assess whether a child is reading in an emotionally safe and comfortable setting or in a high stakes situation" (Glasswell and Ford).

So what to do? 
Leveling books in an excellent idea but, like many excellent ideas, is less successful when taken to the extreme. Do not force teachers to follow prescriptions that ignore the context which surrounds their teaching. Rather, give teachers leveled books as a resource and teach them how to use them! Teach them how to assess not only what level a student is at, but why they are making the mistakes they do and what instruction and texts will push them to the next level. Put the power back in the hands of the teachers, but give them all the help they need.

Comprehension strategies

The readings for this week discussed teaching reading strategies to aid comprehension. Several questions were answered. I will address the following: which students need strategy instruction? Do they need to be metacognitively aware of which strategies they are using? What does integration of strategies mean? How can teachers help students make the leap from guided practice to independence? What is inferring and when is it used?

Who needs strategy instruction? Having access to strategies that help make meaning from text is useful to every reader. However, this does not mean that all students will need the same instruction in using comprehension strategies. I, for example, do not remember hearing about 'strategies' as an elementary student, but I still developed a reading process system to help me decode texts that I find difficult. This is proof that students don't necessarily have to be metacognitively aware of what they're doing in order to be successful. In some cases, asking students to be metacognitively aware of their reading process system will only slow them down! But every reader will, at some point in their lives, encounter texts whose meaning will take effort to decode. The key is to provide students with texts that will push them to use explicit strategies in elementary school, rather than letting them coast until college. They should receive explicit strategy instruction until they no longer need it - this seems obvious, but in actuality requires close monitoring.

What does integration of strategies mean? This simply means that students can move between strategies with ease in order to make meaning. In certain circumstances, using context to decode a word is more useful than making a text to life connection,and visa versa. Students should be fluent in a multitude of strategies, have an instinct about which one to use in which scenario, and be able to move on to another strategy if their first choice did not work. They must also recognize when they need to use a strategy to make meaning from a text (self-monitoring) even if they do not need to recognize when they use strategies automatically.

How can teachers help students move from one guided instruction to independence? Again, this transition must be based on the students' progress. Some students will learn what they need to from modeling, and added instruction will only be boring and pedantic tot hem (the dangers of busy work!!). Other students will need help transitioning. This can take the form of shared demonstration, which is still mostly teacher -guided, or guided practice, which is student initiated with close teacher monitoring and guidance as needed. There is no hard and fast answer to this question. The student must dictate their own progress and the teacher must be ready to assist as needed. Fair does not always mean equal! One quote I found summed this up well: "the teacher's job is not delivering knowledge, but arranging for the problem to be manageable, sustaining the child's problem-solving attempts emphasizing flexibility" (Johnson and Keier, 137).

What is inferring? Inferring is a very broad strategy, which can cause confusion for teachers and students alike. One passage from this reading was particularly useful. "Students can learn to infer at the text level (...new or unusual vocabulary), the text level (predicting what might happen or inferring something about the setting, characters, or plot), and beyond the text level (theme, author's perspective, and so on). Inferring refers to the mulititude of strategies readers can use to "read between the lines"

I would like to conclude with a short anecdote about a student that I was very proud of in Thursday. She's a 6th grader who was reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, an old favorite of mine. I asked her where she was in the book and she told me that Edmund had sneaked away from the Beavers' house and Lucy had just noticed. This was the perfect place for a prediction, one of the. Strategies covered in this week'sreading from 'CatchingReaders Before They Fall'. Predicting is one of the inferring strategies. It allows the reader to take what they know about the characters! He setting, their knowledge of human nature, etc, to predict what will happen next, thereby engaging with the text. Part of the reason I was so happy with this particular experience was that I could see  that working with me really helped. In this class, students are expected to write three responses to their Independant Reading per week. This could be any comprehension strategy that they have practiced so far. His girl had been having trouble getting her responses in, not because she was not engaging with the text but because she struggled with getting ideas to write, getting started, and staying on task with the writing component. By. Talking through her ideas with me first and with me helping her stay on task and remember all the points she made, she wrote not one, but 2 excellent predictions. The first was that Edmund would go the Witch's house, but she would be angry he hadn't brought his siblings and his siblings would have to brave her house to rescue him. The second was that he would go to Aslan and his siblings would join him. They would raise an army of animals and defeat the White Witch. Between the two, she predicted almost exactly what would happen! It was great! All she needed was a little extra guidance before moving on to he Independant stage.

"Sounding Out": NOT the 'Be-all, end-all' of Decoding Words

This week’s post is in response to Compton-Lilly’s article “Sounding Out”: a Pervasive Cultural Model of Reading. I found the article to be written weakly; it was repetitive, added a great deal of new information in the conclusion, and included a lengthy and (I thought) unnecessary tangent about how the study’s parent subjects felt looked down upon because of a difficulty or inability to pronounce things in Standard English. This said, I agree with the thesis of the article and thought it included a number of interesting and edifying points. Therefore, I think it will be of benefit both to others, and to myself in the future, to reorganize and sum up the main points below.

The overarching thesis of this article is that the strategy of decoding an unknown word by “sounding it out” is a cultural model. This means that it is a “taken for granted theory” that pervades our culture of learning to read. It “privileges phonetic decoding over other decoding strategies particularly those that involve the meanings of texts and the structures” despite the fact that it is one of the least effective strategies, especially when it stands alone. Because it is a pervasive cultural model, however, it is the most often cited strategy - by teachers, students, and parents alike - even when other strategies are being utilized more often and more effectively! For example, “Ms. Webster tells (her daughter) Jasmine to ‘sound out’ the word and then immediately directs her attention to the picture to help her successfully solve the word.” Young children see the ability to “sound out” words as the mark of a good reader, and Compton-Lilly encourages teachers to fight the urge to use sounding out not as “an excuse when teachers do not have any other strategy up their sleeve to help the struggling reader."

According to Compton-Lilly’s research, people can mean one of two things by “sounding it out”. The first is what I (and Compton-Lilly) was familiar with – making the individual letter sounds and then putting them together. The second is what I believe I have heard referred to as “chunking”: “finding two or more chunks within the words that they recognize and putting these chunks together (read-ding).” Although I think the latter would be a degree more effective than the former, both have problems. “The tendency to vocalize every letter in a word becomes problematic when words have silent letters and complicated letter-sound relationships.”  And Compton-Lilly quotes Ken Goodman in saying that, “sounding out words ‘can only put me in the neighborhood [of the correct word]. Even if I sounded out every letter in sequence, I wouldn't come close, because there's no one-to-one correspondence and because sounds change with the context.’”

There are, as I mentioned, other strategies that children can –and do! – use. Good word decoding, in fact, draws on three main ways of making meaning, the use of Visual information being one. The other two are Meaning and Structure. “The reader uses understandings of what could happen in the world (meaning), and language knowledge of words, structures and sound sequences, and several approaches to phonological information from oral and written sources. He mediates the appropriateness of possible responses through attention to visual information.”

The solution Compton-Lilly presents is a simple one: get the word out! Teachers and students, parents and politicians need to be made aware that “sounding it out” is only one strategy in an arsenal, and a relatively weak and unreliable one at that. Compton-Lilly states that “parent workshops, community forums, and informative websites are predictable solutions that one might expect to encounter,” adding that this might take a while but that the fact that children (the adults of tomorrow) are already using alternate strategies gives her (him?) hope. Not to rain on his (her?) parade - and I certainly see cracks in this cultural model - but I don’t see the unconscious use of alternate strategies as a big leap forward. After all, parents today also unknowingly use and share other strategies, as evidenced by Ms. Wilson, but continue to tout above all else the strategy of “sounding it out”. 

Perhaps this is an odd and disconnected way to conclude my post, but blog posts are allowed to be informal and, in the midst of scrolling through Google Images to find an appropriate image to head my post I happened upon this cool piece of history that I couldn't resist sharing it. If you haven't seen it before, this is the Cyrus Cylinder. It is written in cuneiform, one of the earliest known writing systems, and dates back to the 6th century BC in Babylonia. It justifies Cyrus the Great as the ruler of Babylonia and establishes his heir (nothing unusual there). But it is also cited as the written declaration of basic human rights! It's a good reminder of the power and value of writing (and reading).

Covering the Basics

For this weeks reading, we had two articles – Every Mark on the Page by Casumano and Phonemic Awareness by Rasinski – as well as Chapter 7 “I Thought I Knew How to Teach Reading, but Whoa!” from Catching Readers before They Fall by Johnson and Keier.  Every Mark on the Page was an article intended to inform parents and interested members of the community on children’s development as writers. Casumano states that “Too often. I have seen the fun go out of writing when family~

get involved, especially when they demand adult writing conventions from six- and seven-year-olds.” Instead, he urges parents to look for signs that the child is working to communicate ideas through a symbol system, which is, after all, the ultimate goal of writing.

Too much focus on spelling and grammar conventions at an early age can take the joy out of writing and actually stunt a child’s growth. Also, it is undoubtedly easy to see first all the mistakes a child has made, from rampant misspelling to forgetting capitalization or punctuation, etc. One must remember to take note of the things a child does well, of the conventions they have learned through simple exposure that we have used for so long that we take them for granted.

In the example given by Casumano, a child began with “once upon a time” based on her love of fairy tales. Her 3^rd person narrative had a beginning, a middle, and an end, was written from left to right and top to bottom. Casumano adds that, “The story is about a flag flying, not about the shape of her letters, the spelling of the words, or the lack of punctuation, yet those last three elements may be the first thing an adult notices about the story” (11).

The latter two readings supported what I suspected from the reading The Donut House (discussed in a previous blog). While situating literacy in topics children find personally interesting and rewarding, there is still value in studying the basics. Phonics is an important part of learning to read! It is not the only part, of course, and the “just sound it out” strategy often falls flat because English is not the most phonetically-friendly language. The trick seems to be to balance basic skills such as phonics, phonemic awareness, and one-to-one voice/print match with analytic skills such as thinking strategically and self-monitoring. Please understand that when I say ‘basic’ I do not mean simplistic. These skills can be challenging for some students, but that should not condemn them! They are simply the building blocks, the foundation of reading, and should be made accessible to every student.

            One part of Rasinski’s article that I found particularly interesting was the usefulness of playing with sound from a young age. This can include nursery rhymes, chants, and songs, especially if they include playing with sounds (like Hey diddle diddle). One exercise I thought would be enjoyable (even for me, because I like word puzzles) is called “Hinky Pinky”.  A clue describes an two word object or idea that rhymes. Here are a few examples:

a bashful insect = shy fly


a bed on fire = hot cot


a better cafe = finer diner


a better knife = nicer slicer

etc.

Without sound and word play, it becomes very difficult for children to differentiate between individual sounds, syllables, and words. There is a child in a 6^th grade class I am working in who was having a great deal of trouble writing Haiku. The literacy coach at his school discovered that this was because he did not really understand what a syllable was! Sometimes certain skills fall through the cracks, especially when a child is below grade level and always working to catch up, and this deficiency is now being corrected. He has one Haiku completed and is working on three more. But how much easier would his education up to this point have been if he had understood this basic skill?
After much reading and reflecting over the past year as I journey toward my teaching certification, it seems to me that teaching is nothing so much as a balancing act: teaching convention and encouraging invention, complimenting organization with controlled chaos, filling the role of both social worker and professor, finding time for the emotive, artistic subjects as well as the standards, etc. It's like trying to walk a tight wire and somehow carry 20-some kids along with you.
On a completely different note, I had my first day doing field experience in a new school today and it was great! Such adorable little 1^st graders J I bonded with one girl over falling asleep during the Super Bowl and with another about my earrings. And just in general, they seemed happy to get to know me and I them. I’m looking forward to a wonderful semester with them and, of course, with their lovely teacher! After some further reflection - not on theory but on the actual experience of being in a classroom - teaching is not just a balancing act. It is also everyday interactions with young, energetic, creative minds. It is also fun.

Skating for Literacy!

This assignment entailed visiting a place in the community that children frequent and observing the literacy skills necessary to get by in such a place. The class went out in teams of 5, and my team went to Western Skateland. In addition to each taking general not of the literary environment around us, we each had a specific task: (a) Observe and record the physical environment, (b) Observe and record the people and activities, (c) observe and record bits of talk, (d) observe and record vocabulary, written and spoken, that is unique to this place, and (e) gather and record evidence of literacy.  After we each gathered individual data, we discussed our impressions of the place and consolidated our data.

My job was to record the physical environment. As per the recommendation on the assignment sheet, I drew a map of Western Skateland.

Alongside this drawing, I want to illustrate the “feeling” of Western Skateland. I hesitated at first to include this because I have been taught that a good ethnographer removes herself from the situation so as not to influence it. But I also know that it is impossible to truly remove myself, so why not admit that I was one of the members of this environment for the time I was there and analyze my own interactions. Western Skateland is a place for easy, relaxed socializing. Most people came in groups (family or friends), but often interacted with people outside their original group. Such was the case with me; I came with my classmates, but spent some time skating with my martial arts student Sam (not his real name) and his mom, and challenged Sam to a game of Air Hockey (which I won by accident…). They patiently taught me to cross over skate, which made it much easier to navigate the corners and encouraged me as my body shakily remembered long-unused skills. I was also approached by an old man who worked there simply because he was curious about our assignment and wanted to help. He told me that he’d been skating since he was 4, about 6 decades! There was certainly some competition in the air, especially during the games, but it was very easy-going and no one was overly excited or disappointed by their wins or losses. A general feeling of friendliness and acceptance pervaded.

Literacy, both spoken and written, certainly played a role in this environment. In some cases, it was assumed that the people present would understand what was meant by skate in the “normal direction” or “select your corners”. The latter was for the game “4 corners” and, as someone who had more or less forgotten the rules, I can say that even without a cultural knowledge, it was easy enough to follow along.

There were a few forms of written literacy, some particular to this environment and others not. For example, the rules and warning signs were specifically written for patrons of Western Skateland to read. One particularly amusing (albeit somewhat frightening) sign was the one outside that told parents not to abandon their children. I suppose, after some consideration, it is sad that this sign was deemed necessary, but we did laugh that such a message was explicitly written down rather than implied.

The concession stand was an example of a type of literacy that extends beyond the rink. Children would likely have encountered concession signs before and have the literacy knowledge to order their food/beverage and pay for it. But it is important to remember that this still belongs to a certain culture, a culture of sports games and consumerism. Other signs, such as “Happy Birthday” and the “Ladies” and “Men” signs, are common across the US, and even the English speaking world. I did, however, find it interesting that it was neither “women” and “men” nor “ladies” and “gentlemen”, but rather “ladies” and “men”. What does this say about the gender beliefs of this place?

                                                               

Arcade games provided another example of written literacy, although I doubt many children actually read the labels or instructions. In fact, suspect this is true about much of the written literature of the place; if I were not examining literacy for an assignment, I doubt I would have taken the time to read the rules and warnings, the concessions I was not eating, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed the difference between the game titles “Clean Sweep” and “Smart Clean Sweep”.

A final example of literacy was the music. At first I was annoyed that the loud music made it difficult for me to eavesdrop on conversations, but then I realized that music is a form of oral literacy in itself. Talking to the old man who worked there, I learned that there are different playlists for different hours. For the late night sessions, they play rap and hip hop, while the early night sessions are more family friendly pop songs. It was interesting to notice, having learned this, that there were still words bleeped out and even one song about a man taking his girl home and watching her take off her little black dress. I guess they thought the children wouldn’t listen to (or understand) the lyrics…

All in all, my impression of Western Skateland was that a cultural literacy – spoken, written, and musical – did exist and would be very helpful in navigating the time and space spent there, but standard “school” literacy was not very prevalent. With the exception of a few warning signs that nobody seemed to read except me and my fellow students, cultural literacy was enough to get by.

The Donut House: the outcomes of situated literacy

The main purpose of this blog is to provide me, a pre-service teacher, the opportunity to reflect and comment upon readings and assignments in my K-3 Reading and Language Arts class. I just completed our first article, titled The Donut House: Real World Literacy in an Urban Classroom, by Rebecca Powell and Nancy Davidson.

Summary:

This article proposes the use of situated literacy over schooled literacy. Schooled literacy is probably what most adults are familiar with. It “treat(s) written language as an object for analysis rather than as a medium for genuine communication (and)… privileges certain language forms over others” (249). Schooled literacy is also institutionalized; it can be “taught using exercises, workbooks, and other prepackaged materials” (249). Situationed literacy, on the other hand, is relevant to students’ experiences and tailored to them. It is more hands on and allows them to use literacy to solve real-world problems. When literacy skills are not taught as ends in themselves, but rather as the means to an end about which the students are passionate, they embrace it rather than resisting (paraphrased from Powell and Davidson). 

After outlining the theory behind their study, Powell and Davidson go on to describe a particular case of situated literacy. Personally, I was blown away by the ambition of the project and by the way not only the students, but also the community, stepped up to accomplish a task together. In a small kindergarten classroom in Kentucky, one inspired teacher took her class on a field trip to a nearby donut shop. They learned the steps to make donuts, were taught about the running of a small business, and took note of the types of literacy in the environment (such as the “Thank you! Come again” sign). The county building inspection helped with construction plan for their shop and approved their building (although apparently this was a miscalculation because the school janitors later deemed it unsafe and deconstructed it.) Two college students from a nearby campus were commissioned to build the Donut House for a construction charge of $15. This led to the realization that a business needs seed money. Two bank Vice Presidents were contacted and came in to discuss the procedures for getting a loan and helped the students fill out a loan application. For collateral, they put up a refrigerator and a rolling pin J. Students then invited faculty and staff from the nearby campus to become stockholders in their business. Each stockholder received a thank you for their check of $3 and an invitation to the Grand Opening.

Through this process, these Kindergarten students wrote letters, labels, signs, business cards, donut-making instructions, and filled out loan applications and building permits! They also created a Big Book with labeled pictures from the various professionals who visited their class. They began to notice and discuss language patterns, such as application beginning the same way as apple, that all sentences end with a period, and that people’s names are capitalized. They were passionate about their project and many wrote about it in their journals.

A 3-point Reflection:

•   I am sure this took more time, effort, and organization on the teacher’s part than printing worksheets would have, but look at the results! It is absolutely worth it.
•  I do not think it is necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Literacy exercises still have their place in the classroom, and I hope to explore this later in the semester. Which exercises are effective and which pedantic? How can one balance the necessary skills and tools of literacy with the big picture of why literacy is important and what it can accomplish.
•    I want to reiterate how impressed I am that the classroom, the teacher, and the community came together for this project. It shows me that if I, as a teacher, reach out to the community for support, the community will respond. Perhaps my first plea will fall upon deaf (or very busy) ears, but there are plenty of professionals who care about education and the future and will be willing to take some time to share their experience with me and my students if my proposed lesson is interesting and beneficial.

Entry 1

I got a bit of a late start for Blog Post 1, but I've finally gotten to it. I even set up a new background template. Looking forward to the blogs with actual content in them - should be up in the next couple of days.