Leveled Texts

When I was a Reading Recovery teacher, knowing the level that a child could read was essential.  Marie Clay wanted for the children to be able to have the just right amount of problem solving to do while reading, so that they could be taught and then prompted for reading behaviors for problem solving.  If the children have too many errors, they will lose the meaning of the text.  If they have too few errors, when they are learning to problem solve, they will not become independent and/or fluent problem solvers because they will not have enough practice to develop automaticity.  The levels were quite specific to the immediate instructional needs of the child.
I think that sometimes in education, we take a good thing and then we try to make it work across the board, even when it really doesn't.  When I was trained to be a Literacy Coordinator at The Ohio State University, I learned that children don't always fit into one level.  They can read one level without error, but not read with fluency and phrasing and perhaps not understand the text.  Well, meaning is the WHOLE point to reading, so that becomes the emergency.  But then you have the dilemma of whether the child has enough problem solving opportunities at the same level they are reading for comprehension instruction.
The real issue, I believe, is that we have once again bastardized the good work of some very smart people.  We want to put kids into nice neat groups with nice, neat goals and that can't always work.  We need to remember that the level is just some of the information.  We also have to think about print and layout.  We need to consider background knowledge and interest.  There is so much more to teaching reading than the level.
I think that communicating a level to parents can be good and bad.  It can be good in that the parents should know how their child is progressing compared to the expectations.  I don't think teachers should hide anything from the parents.  I do, however, think educators need to be cautious.  Parents are not trained as we are in the gradient of the levels of texts.  They mean no harm when they tell their children what level they are reading either to praise or inspire hard work.  Children can't understand though that a level means so much more than that letter or number.  They don't know that they are doing GREAT two levels below where we would like them to be.  They only know that they are two levels below where we want them to be.
We don't need children feeling like they have a deficit.  We also don't want children telling the other children that they are the smartest kid in the class.  It's such a fragile thing to have a great community of learners who support one another and encourage growth, no matter where they are at a given point in time.  So I say keep the levels to yourself.  Be open and honest about what you notice about a child as a reader.  Focus on the reading behaviors.  Jump back and forth between the levels with your instruction dependent upon your purpose.  The books are your tools.

Teaching is REALLY hard work!

I am in my 21st year of teaching and have just this year returned to the classroom.  I have never had a class of my own all day in all of my experience until now.  I have to tell you that I secretly couldn't wait for the glorious time I heard all of the teachers call special and all that I would accomplish during this time.  I couldn't wait to teach my own group of kids all day and every single subject that they would learn this year.
If you couldn't tell from WEEKS of silence, I have been BUSY!!!!   Teaching is incredibly hard work!  I had fooled myself into thinking that it wouldn't be much more to teach another half of a day. After all, I had been teaching half of a day and coaching the other half.  While I am having an absolute blast with my kids, I feel like I have been in an intense wind tunnel of information and I am not getting out of it any time soon!  I can't imagine being a brand new teacher these days.
It has been 10 years since I taught 2nd grade and in that time, it has changed quite a bit.  Ten years ago the standards were created by the state and I knew them inside and out.  I had internalized them after three years in the same grade AND I only had to learn the Language Arts Standards.  Now we have the Common Core.  It's good stuff, but it's a LOT.  I have the Language Arts portion pretty well managed, as I went through it over the summer, but math is tricky.  Thank GOODNESS that our math coaches created units to keep me afloat while I am getting my feet under me.
I study curriculum every night because I just won't be happy with myself until I don't have to think so hard about everything.  I am trying to get to a place where I know what the take away is for my students.  I always ask myself, "How are you using their precious time wisely?".  I want to make every bit of their time in my room meaningful and intentional.  I read blogs and watch videos and I think, I want to be just like that.  I want their vocabulary to flow from my mouth in a natural way and I want to prompt children for behaviors with just the right amount of support all of the time.
I know I will get there, because that is who I am.  I will work and work until I know the ins and outs of my kids and of 2nd grade.
I love this hard job and I wouldn't trade it for the world.  I am so lucky to get to work with the GREAT kids in my room and I will keep plugging away until I can see in their work and on their faces that I have arrived to exactly what they need.

Getting to Know my Students

I am returning to the classroom this year and I am SO excited!  :)  This will be the first time in my twenty-one year teaching career that I will have one class all day long, all to myself.  I was a coach for 14 years so I always shared a class and before that, I was a part time Reading Recovery teacher, part time title or part time kindergarten, part time title.
I am starting to think about the space that I will work in with my students this year.  I really want the space to be inviting and very functional.  I want to create an open feeling that is purposeful in every way.  I can not wait to set up the writing area, classroom library and math station tubs.  I love to organize, and it is so much more fun when you know that kids will be walking through your door, ready to learn in only a matter of weeks.  :)
Tonight I began to get to know my students by looking at their spring reading assessments.  We use the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System to determine level, accuracy, comprehension, fluency, self correction rate and sometimes the ability to write about reading.  I have always told the teachers that I worked with that they didn't need to start the year off with assessments.  They should start the year off with teaching from the spring assessments.  So...  being one to try to practice what I preach, I dug into my yellow folders (these cherished things house all of the assessments for a child).  So far, I have looked at the reading levels and behaviors of all of the children.  I have my preliminary groups set up for the beginning of the year.
I know that many of the children will have changed levels over the summer, but I also know that that is why reading groups are flexible.  I can't wait to have the time, early in the year, to sit with my small groups, enjoying books at or near their just right levels and getting to know them as readers and as children!
Next up, I will be looking at their developmental math assessments!  I can't wait!

cyber PD Reflection Week 1

Because I love to teach, I love to learn.  This summer, I am participating in a cyperPD opportunity.  I was invited by my brilliant friend Cathy Mere from Reflect and Refine.  At first I felt a little intimidated.  The people she knows are REALLY smart!  Then I thought about conversations that I have had with Cathy and decided to jump in!  :)  I always learn something new whenever I work with her.  

We are reading and discussing the book Digital Reading: What's Essential in Grades 3-8 by William L Bass II and Franki Sibberson.  I have been a fan of Franki Sibberson for a LOOOOONG time, so I will read anything with her name on it.  I have also been thinking a lot about digital reading and writing for awhile and would love to focus on the reading aspect.  Writing is almost always my go to when I want to read about something new so reading about digital reading will stretch my thinking which I happen to love to do.  

The book begins with "Reading Instruction for all Students:  An NCTE Policy Research Brief".  I felt a sense of comfort since I new that the book I was about to read was based on research and many, many years of good teaching.  Chapter 1 is entitled, "Defining Digital Reading".  Thank goodness!  I love it when authors get all of their readers on the same page from the get go.  I was grateful for the sentence which read, "...merely reading on a computer does not make a digital reader."  I think that all too often, the focus is on the tools and not what is happening on the tools.  This is something that needs to change.  I need to continue to refine my own thinking about this.  

Franki goes on to describe two students and the reading behaviors that they are exhibiting in the classroom.  At first glance, they look very similar, but as Franki goes in to more detail, I am able to notice that they are actually quite different.  I love that she put this section in the book as it illustrates to me the way that I need to look, really look at the reading behaviors of my students.  I am excited to begin to think about what my students are doing as readers, not only in books, but digitally as well.  

I know that I have  a lot of growing to do as a digital reader myself.  I have to admit that I initially thought that I just read using a different genre, but after reading about the four types of digital texts, according to Dalton and Proctor, I know that I need to spend some time thinking about what I really do as I read digitally.  

Franki talks about how we need to have an understanding of digital literacy, but that we also need to remember that this definition will evolve as things change so quickly in the digital world.  I remember, during my Literacy Collaborative training, that I learned that children need to be flexible with their reading.  We can't just teach them how to read Rigby books really well.  We need to teach them how to access meaning from anything that they are reading.  I believe that this is the same for digital literacy.  We need to teach them the basics and then scaffold their thinking about how to approach a new way of reading or a new format so that they can access meaning no matter what.  They need to be intentional about their digital reading.  I know that I need to work on that as well as I tend to be more topic driven than anything right now.  I love how Franki and Bill are making me more aware of myself and the things that I do as a digital reader!  

One challenge that I will face as a teacher is to make sure that I am helping my students to use digital tools with intention for learning and to make them a part of our daily practice.  I was talking to a friend Mandy Robek from Enjoy and Embrace Learning and she shared with me that she would change her daily routine to make sure that they were doing writing workshop or reading workshop when the digital tools were available.  That is so simple yet so brilliant!  I think I get so caught up in my routine that changing my routine didn't really occur to me.  I would fall into the "technology is never available" trap.  Now I am free to work around it so that the technology is available so that we can use it in our daily practice.  Yeah!  

At the end of chapter one, Franki and Bill present a challenge.  They state, " As with any text-based media, our worry remains the same for these transitional readers:   if they continue to read, view, and listen without true understanding, their expectations for meaning are diminished, and they begin to expect that these texts will not always make sense or have meaning.  They become passive consumers who read and view in a very simple way."  THIS.  TERRIFIES.  ME.  I am going to work very hard so that my students do NOT accept surface level reading.  Fortunately, I will teach 2nd grade and will have students who very much still listen to their teacher.  This is no easy task, however, but with the help of Franki and Bill, and many other great teachers and friends, I will continue to grow as a teacher so that I can continue to help my students grow!  

One final, fabulous thought from Chapter 1, "If we are intentional about the connections that we help provide and foster for students, there is a far greater chance that students' experiences will be authentic, meaningful, and influential on their reading lives."  

Chapter 2 talks about the transition from reading workshop to digital reading workshop.  One really good thing that I have going for me is that I have been using a workshop model for teaching for a very long time.  I feel good about it and have internalized a lot of the moves I had to think about early on.  So now I will be able to focus on the transition into the digital piece.  As with the regular reading workshop, I will need to use the digital tools that I want them to be using during my teaching, conferencing and guided practice.  This is going to be a challenge for me as I don't know what is available to me yet.  I have found a few resources online, including Wonderopolis, National Geographic for kids and a few other news sources, but I know that I have barely scratched the surface.  So I will need to spend some time exploring what is out there and determining what I would like to use with my students.  Franki talks about how using the digital tools with her students and how that makes them authentic tools and that her students begin to use them on their own.  This is what I want for my students!!!  

Another thing that stood out to me was how Franki mentioned jotting questions in her plan book to contemplate later.  I LOVE her constant sense of inquiry AND that she writes her thinking down.  I am always thinking of things while working with the children and I record some of my thinking, but I don't write my questions down.  I am going to start doing this.  I love how it sparks the thinking as planning happens!  

One quote that stood out for me was, ""Because the digital tools of the 21st century have expanded what we mean by literacy, workshop must change to remain authentic for our students."  BAM!  There it is... There is no choice.  This needs to happen people.  I don't want to be that teacher that the parents say is the more traditional teacher and that their children will miss out on GREAT opportunities if they are in my room!  I want my students to have EVERY opportunity!  

So now I have that feeling like so many ideas are pushing around in my brain and I'm not certain about any of it.  Well, luckily I have been here before and it all worked out.  I am going to embrace the uncertainty of the unknown and can't wait to continue reading this thought provoking book!  

Just as a Baker Needs to Bake, a Teacher Needs to Write

When I began coaching, I was told that I needed to think about myself as a reader and the moves that I made to tackle unknown words and understand what I was reading so that I could be present with my students as a reader.  I had no problem with this whatsoever.  Meta-cognition as a reader sat very, very well with me.  I read every day, so that was no problem.  I talked to my students about what they were working on as a reader and felt very good about it.
Then Ralph Fletcher visited my district and started making me think about writing.  He prompted writing out of me when working with all of the adults.  I thought, "this is fun!" but didn't know where he was headed next.  When he modeled writing conferences for all of the coaches in the district, I noticed that he took out his notebook and talked to the students writer to writer.  This intrigued me.  I wondered how on earth I was going to do this in an authentic way with a student.  I didn't write!
As with any new learning, I had to contemplate it for awhile.  I wasn't sure how to write.  I didn't write when I was a student myself.  I had only followed formulas and prompts provided by my teachers.
Ralph did something with us that changed my life as a writer forever.  He led us through an exercise where we thought about what mattered to us.  Then he talked us through digging up stories from those things.  I wrote a story about the Sandman and how my mother terrified me into staying in my bed.  Once the writing started, there were so many stories!!! I wasn't done yet though.  As I had done with my reading, I really needed to begin to think about what I did as a writer.
I don't know if this is the RIGHT way to do it, but I began to write in whatever genre I was going to be teaching.  I would think as I wrote, so that I didn't end up with my own writing without teaching.  I found that writing narratives was not as easy as I had always proclaimed to my students.  I had a lot of thinking to do because I wanted my readers to know what I was thinking and how I felt.
My conferences with my students changed.  I was able to talk to them as a writer.
I encourage each of you to grab a notebook, laptop or anything that you can find.  Start writing and then as you get going, think about what you are thinking when you write.  Jot everything down so that you can really get into what you have done as a part of your process so that you have that experience to share with your students.
Let me know in the comments below how your writing helps you to be a teacher of writers!  Share your stories!  :)