By: Harvey Smokey Daniels

The greatest source of tears and heartbreak in our family, over all of our child-raising years, was homework. Like by far. Like 90%. Those unbidden, meaningless assignments, the mechanical worksheets, and odd-numbered math problems constantly led to friction, battles, resistance, weeping, and regret. It felt like the school was sending little hand grenades home with our kids, timed to explode just before a peaceful, playful, or relaxing evening could break out. That relentless assault on our family life still feels fresh, even though our kids are now 39 and 33.

        During this time, Elaine and I were both teaching, researching, and writing about progressive classroom practices – one of which was not worksheets. Nick and Marny knew very well what our professional principles were, so they could have called out our hypocrisy whenever we tried to enforce the evening’s dosage of drivel. But they didn’t often use that leverage; they knew we would marinate in our complicity. And we pretty much quit supporting school homework when they reached high school.

        And then there was the perennial pinch of being teacher-parents. You want to be a loyal employee of the district. You don’t want to accuse your colleagues of doing dumb or harmful things to children. And you recognize (or you should) that teachers get even fewer opportunities than normal parents to complain about things at school. When you are an educator, you simply can’t afford to be labeled, “One of Those Crank Parents.”

        If you resonate with these concerns, you may be fondly recalling Alfie Kohn’s entirely excellent book The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing (2006). Kohn likens homework for kids to the Second Shift for workers at the factory. You come home after eight hard hours and surprise – you have to go back to work! Kohn skillfully deconstructs every official rationale for homework. Decades of careful research studies have shown only negative outcomes for elementary kids and glancing, temporary ones for certain high schoolers. Then he runs through the more likely reasons that homework has been sustained against all evidence: upholding tradition, fostering obedience, providing ritual hazing (we had to go through it, now it’s your turn), developing a tolerance for toxic tasks, keeping kids off the streets, and finally, the redoubt of all scoundrels, the notion that homework “builds character.”

      For all the good work our friend Alfie did a decade ago, unexamined homework is still with us, in arguably more toxic forms. It’s bad enough when homework is menial, meaningless, and repetitive–a mere compliance ritual. But the content of homework sheets can be even more corrupting than the process. We have just lived through another “Black History Month,” during which millions of kids came home with worksheets, mostly focused on Martin Luther King, (apparently the only African American leader of whom worksheet makers are aware.) This year’s assortment included MLK word-finds, matching exercises, fill in the blanks, word searches, and many more. Among the tasks:

1. Crossword puzzle clue for #7 Across:

Martin Luther King was assassinated during the month of __________.

2. A short historical text about MLK, followed by these instructions:

“Circle ten proper nouns and underline ten verbs.”

3. Freedom, peace, march, speech, Atlanta, minister, equal, dream, boycott, leader.
4. “Read these words and place them in alphabetical order.”
5. True-False: “Martin Luther King was a farmer.”
6. For those ready to further explore black heroes, another worksheet confides that Rosa Parks was “a tired seamstress who politely declined to give up her seat on the bus” because of her fatigue. Needless to say, the profile doesn’t mention that Parks had been an activist and leader of the NAACP for two decades and that she was tired of racism, not sewing.

Just in case you’re wondering, I am not making this up. These and hundreds more worksheets are available on the web for teachers to use, reuse, and reuse. And these are not just time-wasters: they are desecrations of history and a pretty good example of how ignorance is engineered.

Just last week, a suburban Chicago teacher whom I follow on Twitter bravely began tweeting out photographs of her own young children suffering over the daily load of second-shift misery.

This is the face of my five-year-old doing useless homework when she would rather be playing. Five-year-olds don’t need homework. #ditchthehw

Tonight’s useless homework: track how many words you can read in 1-minute #ditchthehw

Things my kids could be doing right now instead of useless homework:

-reading

-playing with each other

-drawing

-talking to me about their day

-playing with their toys

-relaxing after 8 hours in school

#ditchthehw

So let’s get real. Let’s say you may work in a district where there is a serious Homework Policy dictating how many after-school minutes or hours kids are supposed to labor after school. So, let’s start by changing the categories of what counts as homework. Then, let’s design a time that’s stress-free, that invites kids’ curiosity and choice, and that doesn’t start battles between parents and kids, ruin whole evenings, and sell more Kleenex. Possible ideas for kids:

–Spend some time reading a book or magazine you have chosen.

–Go online to investigate a question that popped up in your life today.

–Interview family members about their work, interests, family history.

–If you are in a literature circle at school, e-connect with classmates to discuss the book.

–Work on an ongoing “passion project,” something you have decided to look into long-term (animal extinction, volcanoes, the Cold War).

–Watch TV shows with family and talk about them.

–Free write in your personal journal (or work on your novel/poems).

–Pick an adult in the community you want to learn from and apprentice yourself.

Let’s grow this list together. Meet me at #DitchTheHW.

Learn more about Smokey!

Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D.

A few years ago, my four adult children were home for the holidays.   Every evening after the dinner table was cleared and the dishes were done, we’d get out a board game and play for at least an hour.  This was a great time to be together, to talk, to just have some shared fun.  Once the kids had left and my wife and I were putting the games back into the closet, she remarked, “Tim, do you realize every game we played last week was a word game?!”   We had played Scrabble, Boggle, Balderdash, Wheel of Fortune, and a few others.  

As a person who works on helping children learn words, I was stunned!  We had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves as a family as we were examining, manipulating, and talking about words.  If adults enjoy playing games that involve words, why wouldn’t students?   Indeed, children love games and word games may be a wonderful approach for helping children learn words and develop a fascination with words.  Oh, and here’s one more thing about word games — have you ever noticed that if you play a game regularly you tend to get better at it?   We have a special name for it when you become better at something – it’s called learning!  Let’s make at least part of our phonics and vocabulary instruction game-like for students. 

What Games?

            I’d like to share two of my favorite word games with you – Wordo and Word Ladders.   Both are simple and easy to do with students of all ages.  Moreover, students of all ages seem to love playing both of these games.

            Wordo

            Wordo is simply a word study version of Bingo.  It is a great way for students to practice and deepen their understanding of words they may be learning.   In Wordo, every student is given a blank Wordo sheet or grid.   The sheet can consist of 3×3 boxes for younger children, 4×4 or 5×5 for older students, and can easily be made using the “insert table” feature on any word processing program.  See examples below

Of course, each Wordo sheet/grid should cover an entire 8 1/2 x 9 page of paper (Blank Wordo sheets are available at www.timrasinski.com > Resources).  Then, put on display words that you want students to learn or review.    Be sure to put 3-5 more words on display than there are boxes on the Wordo sheet.  Otherwise, multiple students are likely to win at the same time, especially with the 3×3 sheet.  Students choose words from the display to enter onto their Wordo sheet.  

Once all students’ Wordo sheets are filled with words, it’s time to play.   As the teacher you randomly call out words from the display, definitions of the words, or other clues to the words (e.g., “a two-syllable word that begins with a consonant blend”).   If students have the word on their sheet they place a mark or marker on the box containing the word.  Once a student has a row, column, diagonal, or four corners filled with marks they call out “Wordo.”  The student’s sheet is checked for accuracy and the sheets are then cleared for another game. Simple prizes can be awarded to students who win.   

Wordo is a great way to review words from different content areas.   It is also a good way to motivate students to analyze the internal structure of words as well as their meaning.   

            Word Ladders

            Word Ladders are a word-building game in which students are guided to build a series of words where each new word requires some manipulation of the previously made word.  What makes it a game-like activity is that the first word and last word of the ladder are somehow connected.  Here’s an example of a word ladder that starts with the word “Storm” and words down.  Students can either write the words or slide letter tiles around as they move down the ladder.  As the teacher, you guide students in going from one word to the next by providing them with clues for each new word.

1.  Storm          Change 1 letter in “Storm” to make a place to shop.

2.  Store            Change 1 letter in “Store” to make a word that means to look intently at someone or something. 

3.  Stare            Change 1 letter in “Stare” to make a word that means ‘to frighten.”

4.  Scare           Change 1 letter in “Scare” to make a word that is the total number of points in a game. 

5.  Score           Change 1 letter in “Score” to make the land beside an ocean, sea, or lake.

6.  Shore           Take away 1 letter from “Shore” to make something you wear on your foot.

7.  Shoe            Change 1 letter in “Shoe” to make a word that means to display, expose, or uncover.

8.  Show           Change 1 letter in “Show” to make a word that when combined with the first word describes a winter weather event.

9.  Snow

            Students find word ladders fun to engage in as they try to determine what the final word in the ladder will be.   Equally important, as students move down the ladder from one word to the next they must coordinate the structural clues (Change 1 letter) with the meaning clue to write each new word.  In essence, the activity requires students to engage in orthographic analyses or mapping as they make their words.  Yet, because students are only asked to manipulate one or a few letters at a time, the activity is one that allows them to experience success.   Research has demonstrated that this sort of guided word building can lead to significant improvements in students’ phonemic awareness among younger students, word decoding, AND comprehension (McCandliss., Beck, Sandak, & Perfetti, 2003).  If students are able to decode the words they encounter in their reading they are more likely to understand what it is they are reading.  

Word study and wordplay can take a variety of forms.  My hope in this blog is not to suggest to you that any one word study game is the answer to students’ word learning challenges, but to suggest to all of you creative and artful teachers that when we make word study feel like a game we are much more likely to engage students in word learning and analysis and much more likely to develop in students a love for the study of words.  Isn’t that what teaching and learning are all about – not just teaching a set of literacy skills but encouraging students to love our language to be willing and able to engage in the study of our language. 

Sources

Rasinski, T. (2005). Daily Word Ladders-Grades 2-4.  New York:  Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. (2005). Daily Word Ladders- Grades 4-6   New York:  Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. (2008). Daily Word Ladders- Grades 1-2.  New York:  Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. (2012). Daily Word Ladders – Phonics- Grades K-1   New York:  Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. & Cheesman-Smith, M.  (2019). Daily Word Ladders- Content Areas, Grades 2-4   New York:  Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. & Cheesman-Smith, M.  (2019). Daily Word Ladders- Content Areas, Grades 4-6.   New York:  Scholastic.

Rasinski, T. & Cheesman-Smith, M.  (2020). Daily Word Ladders- Idioms. Grades 4+.   New York:  Scholastic.

Reference

McCandliss, B., Beck, I., Sandak, R., & Perfetti, C. (2003).  Focusing attention on decoding for children with poor reading skills: Design and preliminary tests of the word building intervention.  Scientific Studies in Reading, 7, 75-104. 

Young Literacy Learners Take Center Stage

By Mary Jo Fresch

            I began my teaching career as a third-grade teacher in 1974. The district reading program was a synthetic phonics series. I regularly had students required to repeat the second-grade reader because they had failed to keep pace with their peers. These students needed constant support to progress and hopefully “graduate” to the third-grade reader. By the end of my first year, I knew the series was not creating successful readers. The focus seemed to be exposure instead of mastery.

I faced an equity issue for my students. I needed to hone my ability to recognize proficiency differences and address individual “bottlenecks” in literacy learning. And I needed to bring the joy of reading to my students.

Unlocking what students can and cannot yet do

My undergraduate program included one course in teaching reading, just enough to skim the surface of what a primary teacher needed to know.  I realized a reading specialist master’s degree would benefit my students and me. That coursework turned the tables…instead of focusing on materials, flashcards, and games, I focused on students. I discovered ways to peek into the head of a learner struggling to read words, read fluently, comprehend, and build vocabulary. Years later, a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture solidified my belief that teachers must focus on what the student can successfully do and plan engaging, joyful activities to nudge new learning along. While teachers need to address the scope and sequence of reading skills, they must “keep an eye on the child” to strike a balance between teaching and assessing. What are students telling us they almost understand but not yet? The answer to that question is the sweet spot for planning lessons that challenge but do not frustrate them.

From: Fresch, M.J. & Wheaton, A. (2002). Teaching and Assessing Spelling: Striking the Balance Between Whole-class and Individualized Spelling.

Language learning for young readers

            Literacy development in reading, writing, and word knowledge occurs in sync – that is, they are parallel processes. Each informs the other and addressing all of them as students learn is critical. When you think about it, writing is easier than reading. Let’s say a student is trying to write elephant. Knowledge of letter/sound relationships will help students predict the spelling. (My personal campaign is for teachers to not refer to students’ unconventional spellings as invented – rather they are predicting the spelling based on their current operating knowledge of the language. These predictions will change as students experience more print.). So, the student may write lefan or elufint – allowing us to observe current understandings and plan instruction. But, if that same student comes across elephant in text, the work is much harder to lift the print from the page. They need to know something about short vowels, the ph sound, the nasal nt, and multi-syllabic words – and which of these might be the stumbling block is up to the teacher to assess.

Giving students strategies to decode is essential to make them independent readers. They need knowledge in letter/sound relationships and how to consider what might make sense both contextually and semantically. Thus, my work over the years has turned to helping students understand how English works. Power over the language provides independence in reading and writing. “Immediate” word identification aids in fluent reading and allows the reader to focus on comprehension. The need to “mediate,” or pause and consider what a word might be, distracts the reader from understanding the text. Accurate and automatic decoding are fundamental to comprehension. When we assess (by the way, the Latin origin of assess means “to sit by” – exactly what we do when we are “keeping an eye on the child”), we can observe the strategies students can rely on and which they need scaffolded.

Recently David L. Harrison, Tim Rasinski, and I partnered (in press) to write a two-book series for Scholastic. By combining Edward Fry’s list of 38 common, high-frequency phonograms with Wylie and Durrell’s list of 37 we created a powerful list of 52 rime families. David wrote poems, Tim created word ladders (one focused on phonics; one on vocabulary), and I wrote a wide range of language arts lessons. Students can learn hundreds of words through examination of word families and have a powerful strategy to decode words. David and I also partnered (2020) to create a book that focused on fun and engaging aspects of the English language (six types of “nyms” such as acronyms, eponyms, synonyms, retronyms; similes; metaphors; idioms; shades of meaning; and word origins). In all of this, the heart of my work is to make language memorable, rather than memorized.

We pique students’ interest in language when we are curious about words. That interest will have them looking at words in new and memorable ways. This also means they will take what they know into writing. When students ask why the “silent/magic e” doesn’t make the vowel long in words such as love, I often hear teachers say, “that’s an exception.” But there really is a rule…English words do not end in “v.” Over time, the “e” was added to those words, but the pronunciation did not change. Once you tell your students that story they will not only remember to add the “e” but will be digging through print to see if they can prove you are wrong. What a fun way to solidify the “rule” and get them engaged in self-selected print to build confidence!

In sum, you can be assured that I say, systematically follow a scope and sequence, but do it in fun and engaging ways that take the individual learner into consideration.  Give students independence in unlocking the language. We can never memorize every word, so let’s find ways to make language memorable. Texts that play with words and make students want to read and reread builds skills and confidence. Writing self-initiated texts puts their operating knowledge to work (and on display for your formative assessment). Discussing about what we read makes students understand we are about “word recalling” and not “word calling.” And all of these put our young learners at center stage…exactly where they should be in our classrooms.

https://maryjofresch.com

fresch.1@osu.edu

References

Fresch, M.J. & Harrison, D.L. (2020). Empowering Students’ Knowledge of Vocabulary: Learning How Language Works (Grades 3-5). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Fresch, M.J. & Wheaton, A. (2002). Teaching and Assessing Spelling: Striking the Balance Between Whole-class and Individualized Spelling. New York: Scholastic.

Harrison, D.L., Rasinski, T. & Fresch, M.J. (in press) Partner Poems & Word Ladders for Building Foundational Literacy Skills: Fluency, Phonics, Phonograms, Spelling, Vocabulary, Writing, and More (Book 1 – Grades K-2). New York: Scholastic.

Harrison, D.L., Rasinski, T. & Fresch, M.J. (in press) Partner Poems & Word Ladders for Building Foundational Literacy Skills: Fluency, Phonics, Phonograms, Spelling, Vocabulary, Writing, and More (Book 2 – Grades1-32). New York: Scholastic.

Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D. Kent State University

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”

Albert Einstein

“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.”

Plato

“Art has the means of keeping alive the sense of purposes that outrun evidence and of meanings that transcend habit.”

John Dewey

            The impetus for this blog comes from something I have been thinking about for a number of years. I hope that this may be the impetus for more of us sharing our thoughts about the importance of the art as well as the science of teaching reading.

I have a confession to make.  My undergraduate degree is in economics. In my mid-twenties, after encouragement from many of my friends, I decided to become a teacher. To be honest, I thought becoming a teacher would be rather easy.  After all, I went through school and was reasonably successful.  I should know how it’s done.

            Well, I was in for a bit of a shock. Teaching is not easy at all. It is essential for a democratic and productive society, it is enormously satisfying and joyful, but it is definitely not easy.   My respect for teaching and teachers grew exponentially during my first few years of teaching (and it continues to grow). Teaching is one of the most challenging professions into which a person can enter. And, I think a major reason for the challenge of teaching in general, and the teaching of reading in particular, is that effective reading instruction requires teachers to apply what has been learned through scientific study of reading and reading instruction.    However, effective instruction in reading also requires teachers to be artists. Teachers have to be both – artists and scientists.

            Currently, there is a growing recognition of the importance of the science of reading (SOR) for reading instruction. The science of reading directs that successful instruction in reading includes systematic and explicit instruction in the key scientifically determined reading competencies – phonics and phonemic awareness, vocabulary, reading fluency, and comprehension.  

            Publishers and curricula developers have used these scientific competencies to develop reading curricula and materials that are, in many cases, largely scripted.  That is, teachers are directed to implement the program nearly word for word as is stated in the teacher’s guide.   It’s called fidelity. Among the problems that come with such programs are that they do not necessarily meet the individual needs of many students, and teachers can become alienated from their reading instruction and removed from important instructional decision-making in their classrooms.  Moreover, there is a lack of compelling scientific evidence that such scripted and scientific program lead to generalized improvements in reading for students. Note that reading achievement in the United States has barely budged since the report of the National Reading Panel, nearly 20 years ago,  that gave credence to the science of reading. Reading First, a national program for bringing scientific approaches into primary grade reading instruction, had little impact on student reading achievement.  

            Why have we not seen the progress that was anticipated by the science of reading?   I think that a significant concern is that we have not embraced the idea that effective teaching reading is an art as well as a science, and that teachers need to be artists as well as scientists. We need to allow teachers the creative freedom to develop and implement scientifically based reading curriculum that is engaging, playful, authentic, esthetic, and effective. In effect, I propose that we provide teachers with scientifically validated end-of-year benchmarks in phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension and then give teachers the creative license and professional support to achieve those benchmarks.   

Teachers will still teach phonics, but instead of exclusive use of highly scripted and monotonous tasks, drills, and worksheets that often accompany such instruction, students might be regularly engaged in guided word play and not realize that although they are having fun with words, they are also developing mastery over words. For example, have you noticed all the games we play for fun as adults that are, in essence, word games?  And have you noticed that if you are a regular player of Scrabble or Words with Friends or Boggle you generally improve in your playing over time? Improving your game is evidence of learning.   If adults love word games wouldn’t children?   And yet, in many classrooms, games and play are often locked away or reserved only for when the “work” is done.   

Several years ago, I developed a game-like word activity (based on the work of Pat Cunningham and Isabel Beck) called word ladders. In a word ladder students make a series of words by manipulating each previous word (e.g. start with “cat” and change one letter to make a large mouse or rodent – “rat”;  change one letter in ‘rat” to make something a baseball player uses when at the plate – “bat,” and so on). To make it into a game the first and last words in each word ladder are related in some way – base to ball, dog to cat. Although children are playing a game in which they try to determine each new word on the ladder from the clues given, the activity itself requires students to consider deeply how words are encoded, decoded, and have meaning.

For another example, consider reading fluency, also a scientifically validated reading competency. Scientific research tells us that through rereadings (repeated readings) of texts students develop fluency over the passage practiced but also greater fluency (and comprehension) over new passages they have never before seen. That’s the science of fluency.  The art of fluency take this scientific notion and asks, “how do we get students to read a text repeatedly in authentic and meaningful ways?”   One artful answer to that question is found in the notion of theater and performance.   If students know that they will be asked to perform a poem, or a song, or a script for an audience they have an authentic and motivating reason for rereadings, or as they say in the theater – rehearsal. Moreover, not only does rehearsal of this sort lead to automatic recognition of the words in the passage, it also encourages students to read with an expression that reflects the meaning of the text – both are part of the science of reading fluency.

Art and science are not mutually exclusive endeavors.   Indeed, scientists generally have a great appreciation for art; and artists often take inspiration from concepts of science.  The great challenge is for teachers of reading, much like practitioners of medicine, to find ways to make the science of reading come to life in artful and authentic ways in their classrooms.   And the challenge for us who support teachers is to grant permission and provide professional support and encouragement that allows teachers to become the instructional scientists and artists that will create a revolution in literacy achievement.

You can find resources for teaching accurate and automatic word recognition (i.e. fluency) at Tim’s own website – www.timrasinski.com

Daily Word Ladders by Timothy Rasinski

Create positive change with TeamMakers by Laura Robb and Evan Robb

Follow Tim on Twitter @TimRasinski1