Monday, June 26

We began the morning with Lucy Calkins at 8:00 in the Riverside Church. I felt as if I was on a spiritual journey, rather than PD. I'm not sure if it was because of the serene surroundings or the way Lucy framed our work with such passion... much like a crafty story teller, but I was moved, rejuvenated in my mission to give the gift of literacy to each child given to my charge in Springdale Arkansas. 

Brook Geller

Guided Reading Grades 6-8

Organization of this week:

Content (what), Methods(how), Application

Richard Allington- Teachers say they work with small groups to differentiate, but in reality his research showed that it didn’t look differently  in the small groups than what the teacher was doing with whole group instruction. Otherwise the teachers just teach the same lesson in small groups, not varying instruction based on student needs.

Ways we teach reading

Partnership workshop-one step away from doing something independently

Strategy groups

Book clubs

Shared reading

Digital texts

Interactive read aloud

Whole access

Centers (Elementary)/stations (middle level) (task cards, great way to reteach or jump start a unit)

Content area strategies

Inquiry

Mini-lessons

Guided reading

Small group- 2 to 4 students is more manageable....more like a conversation

Why guided reading:

1. Help students build expectations for reading. Proficient readers have expectations for their reading. They enter text with prior knowledge of text structure/experiences to help them make sense of the reading.
2. Teach the Reader: It is our job to teach the reader, not the text!!!!  prior knowledge of text structure/experiences to help them make sense of the reading. The way in which a child deals with a miscue as they read, is a window into their thinking of how to handle text. Our job as teachers is to analyze their thinking from their behavior (the way in which they respond).
3. Goal is to move up levels: Our job is to match the reader with appropriate text and help them gain competencies to move into higher level texts
4. Always with Independence in Mind- We put the scaffolds in place, but we must PLAN to take it away...for independence. (Reminds me of GRR)

Levels of Scaffolding in planning for independence in guided reading:

1. Most support: Provide a book introduction that addresses Meaning, Structure, and vocabulary.

     2. Less Support: Provide a Gist, preview, structure in the introduction.

     3. Least support: Provide a Gist of the text to help support meaning.

The way you choose to write about your reading is a window into the way you think about your purpose for the reading (example: if you use a venn diagram or a list, etc.)

Janet Steinberg

Supporting Kids with IEPs: Assessment, Data, and Responsive Instruction

Ways to access reading growth

Reading Level Assessment-These are done across the year usually before or mostly after a unit. These assessments measure the work of a reader did within the unit.

Running Records-These were made by Marie Clay. This tool allows us to know the student process of reading and what level the student is on.

Writing about Reading-This allows us to look into what the students have transferred across the year and years. This could be looked at by what the students have flagged, what’s on their post its, how have they annotated or what is in the long writes. Teachers and students can access this work.

Readers Notebooks- Students and teachers access their work to see evidence of their growth. Reader’s notebooks are based on the individual student. The notebooks should be differentiated to match the student, especially for those with IEP’s, etc.

Reading Logs-Reading logs are normally assessed for reading volume and stamina and quality of text they are reading.

Reading Partnerships- Readers work together and you can assess them by the talk and the work they do together.

Reading Clubs- Clubs work together and the assessment comes not only in the talk but the work they do and the progression they take as they work together on their reading.

Talk- Listen into conversations it allows you to see what the students have process and where they are in their own reading and the work at hand.

Conferences- Are based on data. You can assess a conference by the amount of follow up the student has done if the follow-up is used across the year or just in the moment.

Small Group- During the small group you can assess knowledge through the groups work together. After the small group you can assess what the students are following up on and using.

Janet used the Read Aloud of the book, THE BIG BOX by Cistelle Potter and demonstrated how to differentiate by on each group of student’s special needs. I.e. students on the spectrum, etc.

She read it first for us to discuss openly, then read it again and coached our talk.

She demonstrates how to make the read aloud more interactive by tossing a ball and asking a question which gives the students the power to run the discussion. The student with the ball throws it to another student to follow up...this is a really good place to use SST so students could have frames to keep the discussion going like…”I agree with ____, to add on to what ___said, I think___.”

We role played with a piece of text (teacher, student and coach). The teacher teaches the introduction and the read aloud to the student, while the coach, coaches ways to differentiate (teach differently) to meet student’s needs.

She showed us a video allowed (rather than just read aloud always). She used a clip from The Hunger Games-Part 1 “The Hanging Tree.”

Go from video to text...to see if students visualize what the video demonstrates. This makes me really think about teaching toward gardner’s intelligences for different modalities (using both auditory and visual)

SPED Teachers (all teachers) really need to read the rationale for the Unit before hand. Must read the whole unit and understand the unit itself.

Choice Break-out

Janet Steinberg: Keeping Track of Readers across Your School to Make Sure They Move Up Text Levels

She shows us the skill development necessary for each Text Band. She will email me the draft that she has put together.

Often in schools we spend so much time re-teaching to the strugglers that we don’t take the higher kids to progress farther than where they are.

A lot of her work from questioning came from Fountas & Pinnell’s work. Mainly because we are not teaching kids to ask questions that apply to their everyday work and is applicable to their lives. She shows us a template for questioning at fiction/non-fiction to make sure students are matching the same level of complexity on both. Students may be leveled differently in the difference genre.

When planning for read aloud, plan for the “stop and jots” and the “turn and talk.”

We often forget that we are teaching kids because we are teaching “the units.”

Ask for Assessment Pro if you are a TC school. Aligns well with NY Benchmark.

M to N is a huge jump because it goes from interpretative to more analytical  

RTI-Monitoring for Sense template through the text level bands

janet@readingandwritingproject.com