"Level-Mania" and the Identity of the Reader

I read something interesting at the Edge of the Forest about leveled book systems in elementary classrooms. A small snip from the thoughtful piece:

In the name of "just right" books, we may be sacrificing real reading experiences that will last a lifetime.

The author seeks to make the point that leveled systems in classrooms which funnel children into baskets of books that match their reading level deny those students authentic ways to develop the 'behaviors of readers' by building 'their own identity as a reader.' Predetermined reading baskets provide fewer opportunities to explore genre, favorite authors or illustrators and provide greater opportunities to read only with the purpose of getting to the next level basket.

Don't get me wrong — by recognizing this piece I'm not arguing against leveled systems. Leveling systems can maximize the instructional value of a lesson by providing a reliable way to match a young reader with a book. They also provide guidance to teachers who are new to the concept of the reader-text match. But I see the author's point about reading ownership.

So, here's the challenge: have kids read on their instructional level (defined here as 90% accuracy) to help develop their skill as readers and, as teachers, engage in all kinds of other behaviors that help children develop their "reading identity". Some tips for doing that, again from the Edge of the Forest :

• Help children find favorite authors.

• Guide them to choose books with characters they might come to love — books where the same character appears in several books

• Ask them about the kinds of books they like, not the level of book they want

• Organize our books in baskets by author, genre, topic and series, rather than by level

• Allow kids to choose books that are too hard or too easy if it fits their purpose

• Talk to kids about my favorite books, authors, and genres

• Introduce children to new books, authors, and genres

• Have conversations with children about new books that I am excited about

• Share ways that I keep up with new books coming out using internet resources

• Share book reviews with children and talk about the kinds of books that sound good to them.

Arranging your classroom

Our babysitter is starting her first year of teaching this week. She'll be teaching kindergarten at one of our high needs schools. It's an Open Court school, so while most of her curriculum is already prescribed for her, how she arranges her classroom is up to her. And she's filled with questions!

As a teacher, setting up your classroom is one of the most exciting parts of August! Where should the classroom library go? Where should the teacher desk go? How should the student desks be arranged? In my mind, each decision says something about how the classroom will run and what the teacher values.

For desk arrangements, this site, from Huntington College shows various desk arrangements, and the types of learning encouraged from various styles (my classrooms were usually a variation of the horseshoe or the group work plan). Our own article, Classroom Arrangement, provides guidance about some things to consider when setting up all your furniture.

For classroom libraries, I think I've mentioned this site before, but I'll mention it again because of its helpful pictures and labels. A second good site on classroom libraries is here. I like the breadth of topics on this site, including ways to acquire books, labeling the books, and creating a welcoming spot.

We'd love to hear what has worked for you, August is a great month for veteran teachers to share their expertise! What's your classroom arrangement like?

Big trouble, written down

Something I never thought I'd hear...

"Joanne, this is Mrs. Z from school. Anna's bringing home a note today. I thought I'd give you a head's up."

Oh boy. It seems Anna had trouble including someone in a game on the playground yesterday. What a sad "backpack unpack" we had... Anna was distraught to have to show us the letter she wrote describing the incident. Here she was, fresh with new writing powers, needing to use them to write about her trouble at school. Darn it.

I'd show you her letter, but it would break your heart. This morning, after she left for the bus, I found another letter from Anna on my pillow: "Tooda will be a good day. I love you"

I love you too, Anna. And when you get home, let's read about other troubles at school. How about Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse? The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash? Berenstain Bears' Trouble at School?

Are there others you can add that we could read?

Comprehension posters for your classroom

I recently stumbled on a site that promises to consume far too much of my time! But I love the possibilities of Pinterest, a virtual pinboard. Pinterest lets you organize and share all the great things you find on the Web in a very visual way. It's free to join, but there's an invitation process you'll see on the site.

People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, share their favorite recipes, and I'm using it this week to share some ideas about reading comprehension. I created this Reading Rockets Pinterest board on comprehension as a way to share some (mostly teacher made) posters for the classroom. The comprehension board also includes a bookmark and a poster that are more of a produced product, but I liked the content.

Good classrooms have good stuff on the walls. When I wrote What does a good classroom look like? back in 2008, I described what I like to see when I go into a classroom. Without question, I like to see student work and posters that reflect the hard work going on in the room. Many of the comprehension pins I've put on our first Reading Rockets Pinterest board reflect my penchant for interactive displays of the work of reading. Most are teacher-made, with students contributing to the content. Hopefully you'll get an idea or two from this board, with more to come! Just click the image to see the full posting that includes the content I like.

I'll be making other Pinterest boards for Reading Rockets in the future. I'll probably organize them by content (front runner topics include fluency, classroom libraries, and management ideas). If you have something you'd like to share with our readers, let me know and I'll figure out how to pin it!

Desk cleaning, first-year teacher style

Stories from a time when we had "more enthusiasm than commonsense" enable us to share a laugh. As Brenda Powers, editor at Choice Literacy wrote, the most memorable stories often begin with a failure — the bigger the better.

As school begins to wind down for the summer, I always remember one afternoon in May from my first year of teaching. My "classroom," a single-wide trailer behind an old, single-level red brick school, was tiny, cramped and the center of my universe. Twenty-four second graders and I fumbled our way through the year with too few books and 2 reams of paper for copies. By May, we all longed for more space and some fresh air.

Our principal announced that student desks needed to be cleaned, inside and top, before the kids left for summer. As we chatted in the lunchroom one day, a fellow teacher shared her trick for removing the sticky residue nametags and number lines left on desks: menthol shaving cream. "Just have the kids squirt it on and squish it around on their desks. It works like magic!" she said.

A quick trip to the CVS and I was ready. Twenty four cans of menthol shaving cream, twenty four second graders and a young teacher with good intentions. Clean desks were on the way.

You can imagine what happened next. The shaving cream did START on the desks. My kids squirted it on and squished it around. For about 30 seconds. Then, chaos!

It was everywhere! Arms, clothes, hair, floor, books, walls, white foam everywhere. To make matters worse, it turns out that 24 cans of menthol shaving cream is A LOT of menthol in such an enclosed space. And it gets dry. And sticky. And we had no running water, or even a bucket of water with rags (in retrospect, THAT would have been a good idea).

Very quickly, our plans changed. "Hands up!" I cried, "get into line. We're heading to the bathrooms!" Bless their hearts, my twenty-four second graders quickly marched, hands up surgeon-style, through the hall of the school to the group bathrooms. I'm sure I heard more than one teacher snicker as we passed their door.

Lesson learned, and event cemented in my memory! How about you? Care to share a memorable story from a time when your enthusiasm bubbled over?

Estar aqui, estar listo

I had the good fortune to spend a few days in a classroom outside of Chicago. I spent lots of time watching one of those teachers you just hope your child gets. You'll get a chance to see Cathy in action when we add our clips to the classroom strategies section of our website. Until then, trust me when I say that this is a teacher who has created and nurtured a real community of learners. The kids treat each other with respect, they function independently within the classroom, and the lessons the teacher plans are ones the kids don't want to miss.

It's the climate of the school too. As a visitor, I was greeted by a large sign in the front hall: Estar Aqui, Estar Listo. It's been while since my high school Spanish class, but Cathy helped: Be here, be ready. We talked about what it meant, and I've thought about it since. It's great advice to give kids. It's also great advice for teachers.

"Being here, and being ready" as a kid means pretty tangible things. Come to school, eat breakfast, and have a sharp pencil for the day's activities. For teachers, I think it's more about the intangibles: being 'present' with your kids, and seeing them as humans, as individuals. Being ready to change what isn't working, being willing to try something new, or going back to something old. What matters is what works, for each child.

What about you? What does 'being here' and 'being ready' mean to you as a teacher or a parent?

Feeling overwhelmed?

As the new school year starts, the reality of the classroom really sets in. The kids and their personalities, the mounds of paperwork and homework, and all the careful watching and listening easily adds up to a 50 hour day! I clearly remember how overwhelmed I felt during my first year of teaching.

If you're feeling this way, know that you're not alone! Over on the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) blog, Mary Bigelow provides advice to a new middle-school teacher who is feeling overwhelmed. Her guidance is solid, and is applicable to all teachers who may be feeling stressed and overwhelmed.

There are reminders for your physical and mental health, as well as advice about prioritizing your planning time with a focus on what enhances instruction. That translates to not worrying too much about your bulletin boards, pacing yourself when it comes to committee work and establishing classroom routines that take some of the burden off the teacher.

Other advice for new teachers:

• Don't reinvent the wheel but try to use the resources that are available to you, at least for right now. When things settle down, you can go back and create your own.
  
• Stay organized! Use clipboards and checklists to help you keep track of things. Work to plan ahead, even if it's only one day at a time right now.
  
• Ask for help. Seriously. Don't go it alone! Ask for help.
  
• Last, remember what's important! Be there for your students. Clear your head and make a connection with a child. Read a book to your class that you love. Make a child laugh and listen to the sound. You've got all year together, and it will be far more enjoyable for everyone if your classroom is a welcoming, safe place to be.
  

Many, many more First Year Teacher resources available here (they're great for ALL teachers too!).

First day of school activities

As teachers, we know the first few days of school are all about getting to know your kids and settling into a routine. It's too early to do any assessments (except informal observation sorts of things), but it's a great time to engage kids in some fun activities that get them talking, reading, and writing. Here are some ideas I've seen recently that caught my attention.

When I was in the classroom, we always did a school tour on the first day. Here are some school tour directions created by a teacher. With my class, each special person or place we visited (the cafeteria, the library, the clinic, the school secretary, the principal) had a small stuffed animal to give to the class (for example we had Sammy the Secretary, Pippy the Principal). These animals became part of our classroom library and served as reading buddies.

Stacey from Two Writing Teachers suggests some small poems in which kids write about something special from their summer. Stacey recommends this activity sheet to help the kids with their observations.

I love the Guess Who cards from I Love That Teaching Idea. I think second or third graders could fill in with simple information about themselves and do a whole class sharing with filled out cards.

Still wondering what books to read? Scholastic offers this list of read alouds for the first day.

Feeling adventurous? This toilet paper game could be lots of fun! If you use that idea, let me know how it goes! (no pun intended)

Whatever you choose, happy back to school!

How running a reading program is like running a campaign

As I write this blog on Wednesday morning after our historic presidential election, I'm struck by an article I read on msnbc.com. Howard Fineman summarized what he saw as Obama's seven-prong approach to his campaign that served him well.

It was easy for me to see how well these same seven prongs could serve schools and districts well as they consider how they teach reading.

Below are the seven prongs as described by Fineman, with each prong's relationship to reading summarized. See what you think!

1. Be decisive. Make an informed, research-based decision about the reading program you're going to use.

2. Have a tight circle. Listen to the voices of parents, teachers, and administrators. Don't go it alone and expect it to work.

3. Stick with the plan. Too often, schools change gears before giving a program a chance to work. If you have evidence that change is occurring, stay with the plan.

4. Sweat the details. Find out how things are working for all your kids: your ELL population, your kids with LD, and other subgroups. Find out what you can do to improve data collection and implementation.

5. Understand your brand. In reading, I think this means the daily reminder that our goal is creating a population of kids who can (and want to) read well.

6. Go digital. For classrooms, this means developing teachers who know and use technology for assessment and teaching.

7. Use caution. Be wary of programs and interventions that claim to have quick and easy solutions for struggling readers.

As I've said before, it's darn hard work, but we can do it!

How young is too young for cursive?

My friend Cathy called to talk about her daughter's first grade teacher. Lilly, her six year old, started complaining about school a few weeks ago, and over the past two weeks the situation has gotten steadily worse. Cathy finally coaxed it out of Lilly that the problem is all about handwriting. Lilly's teacher requires that all school assignments, including spelling tests, be written in cursive. In cursive! In first grade! Lilly's handwriting is apparently not up to par, and she's had to do lots of extra practice sheets to work on her cursive writing. No wonder she hates school!

When I taught third grade, I taught cursive. My students had handwriting workbooks, and right after recess we'd come in and do a page or two of handwriting. The students LOVED handwriting time; it was definitely the quietest part of our day! I still remember looking across the room to see my students, usually with their tongue stuck out the side of their mouth, really concentrating on those loopy lines and "letter shields."

Third grade seemed like a reasonable age to teach cursive; their fine motor skills were fairly good, and their understanding of locatives (words used for spatial and temporal concepts such as "up" or "next to") was solid. But first grade? C'mon! My first-grader is still working on her letter and word spacing. I can't imagine her trying to link two letters together to write in cursive.

Some folks question whether we should teach cursive at all, given that most students will do most of their writing assignments on the computer anyways. Others suggest that maybe kids' interest in learning cursive should be the deciding factor as to whether and when to teach cursive.

What's your opinion? Should we still teach cursive to kids? And if so, at what age should we begin?

I Do, We Do, You Do

Susan Hall, co-author of Straight Talk About Reading and more recently the editor for Implementing Response to Intervention: A Principal's Guide gave a workshop at the Center for Development and Learning's conference. The topic was on teaching the tough phonological awareness skills, and in it she referred to an instructional procedure she called "I Do, We Do, You Do."

As teachers, we're all familiar with this notion; we model, we work through it with our kids and then we release the responsibility to the students. As a variation of scaffolding, this model represents what we know about good teaching: teachers explicitly teach a new skill, teacher and students practice the skill together, and then student demonstrates the skill through practice activities. Corrective feedback and pacing vary by group and by student.

I like the language of I Do, We Do, You Do; it's simple, short, and clear. I can see the practicality of using it with young students as a guide for work throughout the week. I am sure someone has turned this into a poster or has created a neat graphic for their classroom. If you have something like that, please share!

Managing instruction when kids are sick

Molly went back to school Monday morning after being out sick all last week. She had the double whammy of H1N1 and strep throat. It was a loooong week for her and me! She was miserable, feverish, and missed five days of school.

Flu-related absences present a real instructional challenge for teachers. After all, it's hard to run a reading group with half the group out sick. And what about that new science unit, or the concept in math you planned to teach? Should you hold off new content, or go ahead and teach it and plan to teach it again when the sick kids are back?

The U.S. Department of Education offers some advice in their document Preparing for the Flu: Department of Education Recommendations to Ensure the Continuity of Learning for Schools (K‐12). Included are recommendations that range from sending hard copy packets home to sick kids to recorded class meetings made available online or through podcasts to distance learning courses. Each recommendation seeks to keep the learning going, even when kids are out of school.

Molly's teacher used a simple paper form to communicate missed assignments. Every day she filled out the sections (math, science, social studies), and sent home worksheets and pages to read from the reading group's book. It worked for us, and it's what many teachers do during this time of the year.

For parents, kids under a blanket are a captive audience! Use this opportunity to start a new read aloud at home. Or, check out our booklist called From Book to Film. You can plan a fun day of reading a book and snuggling up for the movie adaptation.

Teachers: What are you doing to keep instruction going in your classroom? Please share your tips and advice!

Parents: What are you doing to occupy your sick child? Got any great tips or advice to share?