'Tis the season to read and write

Like everyone, we're in for a busy couple of weeks. Our homework and storytime routines sometimes get pushed aside, and at first I was feeling guilty about that. But when I think about how the girls are spending their time, there's plenty of reading, writing, and math going on...it just looks different! Here's how Anna spent her afternoon yesterday on the computer:

Dear Santa,

I have ben a very good girl this yere I wood like moor jump rope and
Samatha and Emily a pegwin that is cold and cuot my onn bitty baby and
My onn jres up close a nothr cabich pach sum moor books that are
Little bear sum moor bitty baby close sum moor crittrs
My onn safty bag that hooks on to my bike
My onn aret araya

While she was doing that, Molly and I were writing our grocery list for chocolate mint wafer cookies. Things got complicated when we decided to double the recipe! A quick tutorial on fractions kept things on track. Between our grocery list and the directions for putting together our Advent calendar (like this one, but I didn't pay that price!) Molly got her share of reading and writing too.

And there's more in our future — reading our Christmas cards and letters, sending out our own (at some point...), writing our letter with Santa's cookies and also thank you notes. So, if your schedule is like ours, it's okay! Step back and see where literacy is really taking place. I'll bet it's there.

Can Santa read this?

We're still reading and writing around our house, with Anna adding to her list each day. Because of this, I'll be busy right up until the last minute trying to figure out what a few of these things might be!

Happy holidays to you — thanks for reading Sound It Out this year, and I look forward to next year! We'll have lots to talk about, including infusing technology into literacy instruction, analyzing student spelling, using text sets to motivate reluctant readers, summer reading, and writing instruction for all students. See you then!

Click to read Anna's letter.

Careful watching and listening during those first few days of school

First day jitters? First week jitters? Assessing kids those first few days and weeks of school probably isn't a great idea. Kids need a chance to settle in to school, to learn the new routine, and generally become more comfortable in the new classroom. Hopefully, by waiting, a child's assessment results more accurately reflect her true skills.

Here in Virginia, kindergarten teachers aren't supposed to use their state-mandated assessment until the kids have been in school for six weeks. Teachers in grades 1-3 begin to assess after two weeks of school. So, what's a teacher to do during those first few days? Some thoughtful planning, watching, and listening can yield some terrific information about student skills.

I love the conversations centered around a child's writing in this clip Spelling as a Diagnostic Tool. It's so important to be able to look at a child's writing and know how to learn from it. Our Looking at Writing module provides just that opportunity using writing samples from kids PreK-3. See if you can gather a writing sample from each student and make some notes on each one regarding strengths and areas of need.

A reading interest inventory is one way to find out how kids feel about reading and books. This Professor Garfield survey (see pages 7-12) is widely used and uses cute pictures to gather the information. There are lots of others out there too, like this one and this one from Scholastic.

Sitting with a child and listening as he reads provides an opportunity to use a fluency rubric to assess reading behaviors such as expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness, and pace. Scores could be given in each of the areas, or the rubric could just be used as a framework for thinking about a child's fluency.

Last, I think it's just useful to sit, watch, and talk to your students, particularly during silent reading time. What sorts of books does a student choose? How much reading stamina does a child have? Are they focused and "getting lost" in books, or distracted and fidgety? Do your students prefer to read in a quiet corner, or together with a friend?

Each little bit of information we can gather can help us provide the best environment and instruction for our students. Happy back to school!

I'd give this report card comment an N (for needs improvement)

A friend in Northern Virginia sent me the text from her son's third grade report card comment. Her e-mail message to me said this: ??????????????????????????????

I've typed the text below, and would love to hear your thoughts. Is it clear? Does it make sense? Are there things parents might need more information about?

Comment in with your suggestions for improvement or with your own experience with report card comments. Next week: I'll combine our ideas to write a revised (interpreted) report card comment for my friend!

Jack's currently reading at a Rigby level 18. At this level with narrative text, Jack's reading is fluent (75 WCPM) and he has adequate comprehension. With expository text, however, Jack's reading becomes disfluent (60 WCPM) and he's unable to answer implicit comprehension questions. We will continue teach strategies such as DRTA and graphic organizers to help assist Jack's comprehension. In spelling, Jack is a within word speller. He's currently studying long vowels and ambiguous vowel patterns. Thank you for your support at home. Daily reading will support the work we're doing here at school.

No more Friday spelling tests!

I think I'll open a can of worms this week and declare that teachers should abandon the age-old practice of Friday spelling tests. You know the routine (because you went to elementary school, and it hasn't changed): students get new words on Monday, "practice" them during the week using various drills; they take a test on Friday, and then on Monday, misspell the words and all the other words that share that spelling feature.

I'm not the only one who advocates abandoning the practice; in fact this blog's title came from a similarly titled 2005 Council for Exceptional Children article. Loeffler, the author, describes how this approach of teaching spelling fails kids who struggle, particularly kids with LD who have poor memory skills. She recommends using a spelling rubric (found within the article) based on student writing as an alternative to Friday tests. I have a few issues with the approach she suggests, but I do think it's a step in the right direction.

Teaching spelling well is a huge topic, one that can't be covered here in a blog post. But it's clear that we need to teach kids to spell in a way that makes sense. We know that spelling supports reading and that accurate spelling of words supports fluent writing. We also know that methods like this just fail our kids.

Let's start a conversation about what we can do to teach spelling well. Is your child a good speller? Do you see the "Friday test, Monday miss" phenomena in your house? How can we make sure each child's spelling words are at the right level of challenge? How can we teach sounds, syllables, morphemes, and something about word origin?

Should I be concerned about mirror writing?

With permission, a question that we received through Ask the Expert:

Question:
Should I worry about mirror writing in my kindergarten son? From my understanding, dyslexia is an auditory problem rather than a visual one, is that true? Is it just that my son hasn't gotten the directionality of print from left to right at this stage rather than it being a major learning disability?

Answer:
Mirror writing by itself is not troubling in a kindergarten student. Beginning writers are mastering several skills, including directionality. There are other factors (weak phonological skill, family history of reading difficulty, speech/language delay) that are considered risk factors for reading difficulty.

Dyslexia is a language-based reading difficulty. As such, if your son has persistent difficulty with several of the language-based behaviors I've listed below, you should talk with his teacher and share your concerns.

* Learning letter names and some letter sounds
* Recognizing words that rhyme
* Retelling simple stories
* Recognizing words that share the same beginning sound
* Understanding simple concepts about print

Here are two readings that you may find useful:

Common Signs of Dyslexia

Dyslexia: Beyond the Myth

Spelling made fun

Within Molly's first-grade class, there is a huge range of spelling and reading skills. Her teacher groups for reading and spelling; usually the kids who read together have the same word study words, but not always. There are four word study groups within the classroom.

Having four spelling groups is great in terms of differentiation, but tough to manage! I came across this fun site for spelling that just might be one answer for Molly's teacher.

Spelling City can be used by teachers, parents, and students to provide practice with spelling words. Teachers can upload spelling lists for their students to access, or parents/students can type in a list. There are also a bunch of lists already on the site (example: 1st grade 's' words).

Once a list of spelling words is entered, students can choose from one of three games to play. Molly really liked the Hang Mouse game. Students can also use the Teach Me feature, which reads the word, then reads each letter, and uses the word in the sentence. Finally, there's a Test Me feature which reads the words. Students type the letters and can have their word checked.

Spelling City seems relatively new, with promises of more features to come. I hope they add some spelling lists by spelling feature, rather than just initial letter. I was trained at UVA, so it's very hard for me to move away from the word study approach. I'd also like to see more games, and an expanded Teach Me feature. I'm not sure what they've got right now really "teaches" anyone how to spell. That said, Spelling City is a fun and easy way to provide individualized practice with spelling words.

Using but confusing, with laundry

I've written before about using a child's writing as a way to understand what she needs from her instruction. This weekend provided me with more insight into Anna's (our 6 year old) development by showing me what she's "using but confusing," a term used by Donald Bear and colleagues in their research in word study.

The girls' Sunday chore was to organize their dresser. Always industrious, Anna took it a step further and labeled each drawer. You can see her work in this photo:

She's trying to figure out this thing called the apostrophe! When to use it, when to leave it out… lots of questions. On her dresser labels, you can see she used the apostrophe twice, but didn't use it to spell the word "pants."

For teachers, this using but confusing (UBC) stage is the zone in which instruction should occur. For Anna, a well planned mini-lesson would help her understand that apostrophes are used to indicate possession and in contractions, but are not used to pluralize (as she did with socks and pajamas). She could use the books she's reading in school to find examples of words with apostrophes and plural words. She could make columns and sort these words into different categories (contraction, possession, plural). And, because she's only six, I'd leave out too much discussion of irregularities and what to do with those pesky words that end with 's' but need a plural.

It's important to recognize what students use but confuse. If something is totally absent from their work (a silent 'e' to mark a long vowel, for example) then it may not be the right time to introduce that spelling feature. If a child consistently uses the silent e marker correctly, you don't need to use your precious instructional moments on that skill. Its when he or she starts marking every word with a silent e (and they will do that, trust me!) that he or she will get the most out of your instruction on that skill.

For now, the labels on Anna's drawer look just fine to me. We'll see what she thinks in a week or two. I'll bet we'll have some new labels up there!