Notes for Words-on-the-move #5
Peter Johnston – Choice Worlds: Helping children build literate worlds worth living in classrooms.
• We as educators array people each day in the classroom through use of language.
• We say we want them to be assertive, independent strong willed people when they are adult but we want submissive students
• Teachers need to say “I just made a big mistake as a reader, I got distracted when someone came into the room, so I’m going to reread this section here. (this statement allows mistakes, errors – and when that happens it becomes no big deal, just try again)
• A phrase to use often in the classroom is “Say more about that”
• Teacher should refer to another child’s point of view or suggestion which then gives that child a place of credence and importance.
• As teachers we teach individual minds as well as collective minds
• “Child’s language reflects the books that he reads.” PJ
• Two children see writing with different definitions:
o One views writing as accuracy, grammar
o The other views it as having something to say
Teacher’s feedback, use of language, feeds the child’s definition of who he is or in this case what writing is about.

Students have implicit questions that they ask during the school day
What are we doing here?
Who am I? Who can I be?
What do people like me do?
How do we relate to one another?
How do we relate to the object of our attention? (reading writing, science, art, math, etc.)

3 necessary dispositions
Toward Resiliency
Tendency to maintain a focus on learning when the going gets tough
Opposite is brittleness – avoidance of challenging tasks
Toward Reciprocity
Engage in joint learning tasks, asking questions,
Take other’s purposes and perspectives into account
Toward Playfulness
Ready and willing to innovate or notice variations in learning situations
Creative in framing problems
Notice unfamiliar
Generate alternatives
Inclinations to play
Opposite – unplayfulness
Inclination to see only in terms of familiar mindlessness
See only familiar uses for objects
Not able to see beyond initial interpretation
Agency – If I act, and act strategically, I can accomplish things.
“What problems did you encounter today?”
Be enthusiastic and celebrate problems – normalize having a problem.
If there is no problem – not learning strategically
Teach looking for options – teach optimism
Problems may be intentional

Build an expectation of change
PJ “Teaching is noticing opportunity and orchestrating change to happen”

Fixed Theorists
Question ability and assign blame for failure
Growth Theorists
Self instruction, self monitoring, don’t see self as failure.
References:
Choice Words by Peter Johston
About the Authors: Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers by
Lisa Cleaveland;
Comprehension Through Conversation: The Power of Purposeful Talk in the Reading Workshop, by Maria Nichols
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck

Music : Revelation IV from Soundzabound by Barry Starlin Britt

Synopsis of four sessions I attended at WSRA 08

The Economy of Words in Action by Linda Kuhaupt, a Reading Recovery Teacher Leader.
The session explored “teacher talk” during a Reading Recovery Lesson. As I listened I realized this would apply to all teachers in all curricular areas and at all levels of education. Teachers like to listen to themselves talk. This session helped me to realize that letting students struggle and not providing those verbal cues may help the student achieve independency sooner. Kids have learned that teachers like to help them by jumping in and telling them the word or a clue. “If I just wait they will tell me the answer” is what I sense goes on in many students thinking. Success is theirs because teachers are “helpers.”

Changing the Friday Spelling Test: Challenges of Spelling Instruction by Robin Umber, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire
This session took a look at the program, book, Words their way: Word Study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction by Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton &Johnston, 2008
Discussion centered on the developmental nature of spelling rather than grade level designation, and the use of the inventory to determine where students were on the continuum. I really like this program from a personal experience aspect in that I have used it with students I tutored and have presented it to classes. With the latest edition there is a disc that has all of the sorts, and games included so printing them out is easy. Students learn words rather than just how to spell a word. This is as much a part of the reading program as the writing instruction. If one has studied the word as to its origin and meaning, it will be beneficial whenever one wants to read a similar word.

Into The Book: Multimedia Reading Comprehension Resources by Kristin M. Leglar, Peggy Garties, Maria-Christina Jackson, Marini Pingel, Cathy Burge.
Into The Book a series of nine programs (15 minutes each) focusing on comprehension strategies: prior knowledge, making connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring, summarizing, evaluating, synthesizing and one program using the strategies together.
Supported with Strategy posters, Bulletin board/desk strips, Into the Book and Behind the Lesson DVDs ($99), and the web site http://www.reading.ecb.org

iPoetry: Encouraging Visual Literacy in the English Classroom by Jen Scott Curwood and Lora Cowell
Provides a way for students to study poetry and add the media component that they are using in everyday life in a meaningful way. By first studying poetry as to form and nature first, the students are then asked to add the media visuals to help support and deepen the meaning of the poem. They use iMovie, iPhoto, and Garageband on the Mac platform but this could be done on the PC platform with similar tools. – A session that was ripe with ideas for my own teaching.
For further resources shared at the convention go to http://www.wsra.org and look under convention. They have several handouts published there for your download. I wish this part was a little more robust.

The music for the podcast was from Soundzabound Revelation IV 1

Notes from WSRA
Building Deeper Readers presented by Kelly Gallagher

http://www.stenhouse.com/html/authorbios_28.htm
itms://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=159885407&ign-mscache=1 (visit this site to access some podcasts by Kelly)

Four Questions:
1. Have I provided my students with a reading purpose?
a. Need to frame and give purpose for all passages
b. Need to read passages many times to find understanding
c. Humpty Dumpty – Not just about an egg
d. Yertle the Turtle – Really about Hitler
e. Strategy – provide students with outline of reading passage but leave out a point. The students need to fill in that point as they read it.
f. When assigning homework – give different groups of student a different focus to look for and report back. (reading through different lenses)
2. Are my students able to embrace confusion?
a. CONFUSION is the “spot” at which people learn.
b. Teachers job is to give students confusion.
c. Writing deepens reading comprehension
d. A first read of a passage is survival mode – just getting from point a to point b.
e. Why write –
i. Find out what students know
ii. The very act of writing generates new thoughts
iii. Writing is the vehicle for deeper thinking
iv. No right or wrong answer – a ballpark of right or a ballpark of wrong
v. With any answer need to infer and defend – this is the power point
f. challenge kids to bring in a difficult passage to stump you
i. model how to think through a think a loud.
ii. Show how good readers attack a difficult text

WE TEACH READING BUT DO NOT TEACH READERS
I find this statement to be most thought provoking. How does it impact my teaching? Can we say the same thing for all curriculum? If we turned it around how would it change the dynamics in our classrooms?

3. Do my students know how to monitor their comprehension?
a. 3 strategies
i. Have students take ownership of confusion and work it out (without the teacher interfering)
1. don’t hide confusion, confusion should be the norm in the classroom
ii. score self on comprehension
1. assigning reading for homework or in class – give 8-10 post-it-notes for students to score themselves. In text whenever there is a confusion point place the post-it-note with question on it. Make it positive to be confused and help students to see that they think deeper in process of clearing up the confusion.
2. there can be a concentration issue
3. color code with highlighters on copied passages. Two-colors – one color for words or sections that are not understood and other color for understood. Every word is colored. Should lead them to understand that we read locally (each word) to understand globally (the whole passage)
iii. On going negotiation with text
1. Bring in a line of text from passage assigned. Have students supply the next line.
2. book mark – follows along right side of page. Mark a line where there is confusion. Add notes at that line when further reading, discussion with peers clears the confusion.
4. Do my students know any fix-it strategies?
a. There are many tools for different problems. Analogy: a plumber does not come to fix your “problem” with one tool. He has a large toolchest of tools because he doesn’t know the problem before he gets to your house.
b. Generate a list of strategies that good readers use.
i. Re-read
ii. Slow down
iii. Visualize
iv. Prior knowledge
v. Authors point of view
vi. Stop and think
vii. Confused and monitor as one continues
viii. Read aloud
ix. Ask questions
x. Mark text – underline
xi. Look at topic sentences and conclusions
xii. Look at context
xiii. Attack words
1. prefix
2. root
3. suffix
4. try a different word

a. Tools for reading during a test are not same as reading for understanding
i. Five strategies for timed tests
i. Skim
ii. Read answers first
iii. Guess
iv. Skip
v. Eliminate leftfield answers

I encourage you to join the Reading Association and receive the Journal Reading Teacher for many helpful articles and tons of help in understanding the reading process.

West Allis – West Milwaukee Public School Reading Continuum – Behavioral Indicators

Prescott-Griffin, Mary Lee and Nancy L. Witherell.  Fluency in Focus: Comprehension Strategies for All Young Readers. Portsmouth: Heinemann. 2004

Page 49 and following

Collaborative Reading
Basically it involves two students sitting next to each other and reading orally to and with each other.

Step 1. From assessment data pair students by equal reading ability.

Step 2. Partners choose book and find a place to sit side by side.

Step 3. Partners read together or alternately

Step 4. Share in larger group strategies or things learned.

Step 5. (optional) draw or write to extend meaning.

Variation 1: mixed-ability pairs

Step 1: the person with the lower reading ability selects text

Step 2: The pair read in unison.

Follow above with changes in

Step 3: The lower reading level person determines a signal for when they do not want to read independently.  The other partner can then read for a while.

Step 4: The higher reading level person offers praise when the partner miscues and self corrects.  The higher reading level person can supply a correct word after 5 seconds for a miscue or struggle.

Step 5. Discuss how the reading went.  ( I think a guide of main points for this discussion would be needed to meet the needs of the pair)

Step 6: A written response in log format may be used.  Some examples were given in text.  However I sense it could be less structured if a general format were used such as difficult words, stumbling blocks, high points of success, things to think about.

I think Collaborative Reading could be used at any grade level 2-12 and in any content area.  In fact I think it would be a great one to use in Science or Social Studies.  It fosters discussion about what they have read and that is the learning tool.  Perhaps even a good reader would miss a nuance or detail that could be crucial for understanding, but through discussion both of the students find meaning and importance to the detail.

Other strategies suggested in book if you are interested…

            Shared Reading

            Choral Reading

            Purposeful Oral Reading

I really like the Fluency Check for students to use as I aim for student independency in regard to their own learning.    My only concern is that requiring them to fill out each part might deter them from using the checklist or requiring this for every book might turn a student off from the value of even thinking one’s way through the checklist.

Name: _____________________________________   Date:____________________

Title of text ______________________________________________

Text type:  _____ fiction     _____ nonfiction    ________other (_______________)

Pages read: _________________  My rating of book:___4  ____3  ____2  ____1  _____0

                                                                                    Great      good        fair           blah          bad
 

1. I remember what I read and can tell about it.   _____     _____       _____       ______

                                                                              Yes                  some          not much         no
 

2.  I read smoothly.    _____       _______      _______          _______

                                    Yes               pretty smooth     a little choppy         really choppy
 

3. I read so that others can understand      ______       _______      _______    ________

                                                                   Yes                    mostly                a little               not much
 

4. I ____ recommend  ______don’t recommend this book because ________________

    ____________________________________________________________________

5. Tricky parts of this book were ___________________________________________

     ____________________________________________________________________

6. Other responses I have to the book (drawings or writing).

 as found in Fluency in Focus: Comprehension Strategies for All Young Readers by Mary Lee Prescott-Griffin and Nancy L. witherell.

Prescott-Griffin, Mary Lee and Nancy L. Witherell.  Fluency in Focus: Comprehension Strategies for All Young Readers. Portsmouth: Heinemann. 2004

In reading this work, I recognize that I have resources that need sharing.  I will post notes as I find value and importance to them.

Oral Reading: Expected Rates (WPM) page 16

I like this chart as it is not one perspective or authority buy several.  One can quickly see there are ranges and you can evaluate which one is workable for you and your students. 

Silent Reading: Expected Rates (WCPM)

The crux of this chart is what the student comprehends as he/she is reading silently and how one assesses this component. 

I also wonder whether some differentiation needs to be made for fiction and non-fiction reading in both of these areas.  One certainly reads faster with less attention to minute details in fiction than if you are reading content area material for a science experiment.  The results of reading fast without comprehension and understanding of purpose could result in dire results.

More tomorrow….