WANTED…Words for Readers

by Laura Robb

Years ago, when I asked a seventh-grade student how I could help him with reading his response, “Give me words” replayed in my mind for several days. His reply haunts me to this day because a lack of words not only affects students’ reading, it also impacts their ability to think and communicate ideas through writing and speaking. The time to address students’ need for words starts the day children begin school and should continue through high school.

Each year groups of capable, smart students arrive in Pre-K and kindergarten lacking vocabulary and background knowledge.  Also limited is the number of books read aloud to them by an adult as well as the amount of meaningful talk they hear. You can’t change children’s past experiences. But youcan step-up word learning and close this vocabulary gap by reading aloud, by understanding that volume in reading enlarges vocabulary, and by teaching words in groups. 

A study conducted between 2009 and 2011 by the National Association of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation’s report card, revealed a strong correlation between students’ vocabulary and comprehension scores. By boosting students’ word knowledge and enthusiasm for learning words, we can gradually improve their reading skill and develop lifelong readers and learners.   

Teach Words in Groups

When groups of words have a common connection, it’s easier for students to understand and remember them. If you teach words in groups, you offer students a large palette of related words to reflect on and discuss before, during, and after reading. Write the words students suggest on chart paper or post them on a white board.  Revisit the list often, add new words, and discuss a few each day. The more students meet the word through reading and listening to others use them during discussions, the sooner they’ll absorb the words.

Before Reading invite students to find groups of words:

• Related to a concept they’re learning such as community, devastation, discrimination, or instruments. While studying members of a community, first graders suggested: neighbors, minister, postman, policemen, teachers, principal, doctors, nurses, friends, bankers, lawyers, plumbers, house builders, mom, dads, cats, dogs, people who sell things.
• Associated with a specific genre such as mystery, realistic fiction, fantasy, etc.  Third graders suggested this group of words as they read mysteries: detectives, police, crime, red herring, a hook, suspense, suspects, cliff hangers.

• Connected to themes or topics such as obstacles, relationships, and disasters, or weather. Half-way through their reading unit on natural and man-made disasters seventh graders list included: hurricanes, tornadoes, fire, blizzards, ice storm, thunder and lightening, electrical explosions, divorce, death, epidemics, pandemics, war.

During Reading model and think aloud how to use context clues to figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word while reading aloud to students. Then invite them to practice during a small group guided or strategic reading lesson. Show students that context clues can be in the sentence with the word, or clues can come before or after. Take it a step further and jot all the forms of a word on chart paper.  During guided reading, a fifth grader used context to figure out the meaning of survival. To wrap-up the lesson, I introduced and discussed with the group: survive, survived, surviving, survivor. In addition to related words, it’s also beneficial to teach multiple forms of a word.

After Reading continue to enlarge students’ word knowledge by teaching:

• Word families: “ain” family: brain, chain, gain, main, maintain, rain stain
• Prefixes and sets of related words show how the prefix changes a word’s meaning. Prefix “un,” meaning not: uninterested, unintelligent, uncaring, unmanageable, unexplored, etc.
• Synonyms and antonyms: kind, helpful, compassionate, warm, sympathetic; hurtful, cruel, unhelpful, destructive, cold, distant, etc.
• Words for directions: list, explain, define, compare/contrast, state, express, support, etc.

Closing Thoughts

Be intentional and relentless with enlarging students’ vocabulary by:

• Teaching sets of words, discussing them, and consciously using them in to show students how they work. 
• Having 15-20-minutes of self-selected independent reading daily. Volume in reading matters!
• Increasing the amount of purposeful student talk through partner, small group, and whole class discussions.
• Helping students visualize words, for what they can picture they understand.
• Developing students’ curiosity about the multiple meanings of words.

Teaching words in groups doesn’t require lengthy lessons. You can do this as a transition from one topic or subject to another, or take a few minutes at the start or near the end of class. Spiral back and revisit words.  By keeping in the forefront of your mind the relationship of vocabulary to reading comprehension, you’ll surely take snippets of time to enlarge students’ word knowledge!

Follow Laura on Twitter @LRobbTeacher

Check out Evan’s blog posts on ScholasticEDU!

Learn more about Laura’s ideas on reading- check out- Teaching Reading in Middle School

by Laura Robb

Poetry!  Many teachers avoid including poetry in a reading curriculum. Some teachers don’t use poetry because it’s unfamiliar and wasn’t part of their reading background. Others claim they don’t have time to expose students to poetry. However, I believe poetry is a powerful and important genre that should be integrated into the curriculum in all subjects throughout the school year.

Why poetry? Poems tickle the imagination and cause laughter! They tell stories like “Casey at the Bat” a narrative poem by Ernest Thayer, and “Lord Randall,” a medieval ballad.  Poems capture feelings, a moment in time, and the variety is boundless: short lyrics, conversation poems, Japanese haiku, list poems, sonnets, small poems, and villanelles. They all have rhythm. Some poems rhyme; free verse poems don’t rhyme. Contemporary authors write novels in free verse. Check out Crossover by Kwame Alexander (HMH Books for Children 2014), Witness by Karen Hesse (Scholastic 2003), and Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (Puffin Books 2016).

What’s magical about poems is they beg to be heard! Read poems to students and invite them to read poems to each other. The photographer uses a camera and film to capture a moment or tell a story. The poet uses words and figurative language to help readers “see” through the poet’s eyes, mind, and heart!  

Be a Risk-Taker

You don’t have to know a lot about poetry to bring this genre to your students. Explore together.  Start by checking out dozens of poetry books from your school library. Spread the books out around the classroom and invite students to choose two they want to read. Then, set aside two to three classes for students to read and reread poems and choose a few to read aloud to a partner. Powerful poetic language and imagery can become part of children’s memories when you try some of the ten ways to bring poetry into students’ lives.

• Start the day in self-contained classes by reading a poem. Offer one for dessert after lunch, and close the day by reading a class favorite.
• Open and close middle and high school classes by reading a poem.
• Ask your school librarian to find collections of poems relating to a subject: sports, science, history, math, music, art. Have partners read their poems to each other and discuss what they’ve learned about a specific subject.
• Invite students to read a favorite poem to their group or the entire class.
• Start a “poetry talk” project for an entire semester.  Have students choose a poem to memorize, say it to you and reply back by sharing a poem you memorized.
• Have students choose a favorite poem, illustrate it, and create a display in your classroom and/or the school library.
• Share poems for two voices by Paul Fleishman with students and ask partners to select one they’d like to perform. After practicing, have pairs perform for the class.
• Invite students to silently “do” or act out poems they select or you choose. A great resource is Let’s Do A Poem edited by Nancy Larrick (Delacorte 1991).
• Choral read poems students and/or you select. Divide students into two to three groups that read a section of a poem together.
• Read poems to generate ideas for students’ writers’ notebooks.

Reading Poetry Matters

Poetry tunes students’ ears to figurative language and imagery, all the time showing them how much words matter! For striving readers, it offers an open door into the reading life. Surrounded by lots of white space, the poet’s words invite instead of intimidate.  Moreover, reading poetry builds students’ experiences with literary language, enlarges their background knowledge and vocabulary, and develops the self-confidence needed to tackle longer poetic and prose texts.

By reading, rereading, and listening to poems, students absorb and memorize the poet’s words and images, and the poems become part of their memory forever! Every time I see the sunrise I find myself whispering the first two stanzas of this poem by Emily Dickinson:

I’ll tell you how the sun rose,
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,

The bobolinks begun.

Then I said softly to myself,

That must have been the sun!

I want students to know, love, and be acquainted with so many poems that the words will be imprinted in their memory, ready to surface when an experience calls the poem to the forefront of their minds. When poems become part of students’ DNA, critical thinking develops as they associate a poem’s meaning with a personal experience. I recall Joshua scratching his head in class and shouting, “Fleas./Adam had ‘em,” and students’ reserved giggles transforming into ripples of laughter!  Yes! Words embedded in memory link our experiences to the poet’s and our lives are richer for it!

Follow Laura on Twitter @LRobbTeacher

Check out Evan’s blog posts on ScholasticEDU!

Learn more about Laura’s ideas on reading- check out- Teaching Reading in Middle School

By Laura Robb

Several months ago, I observed reading in three ELA classes in a district not far from Virginia. Students were reading the same novel and completed a packet of worksheets. Teachers sat at their desks grading worksheets students turned in earlier in the week. During my visits to each class, I noticed students always sat in rows and there was no discussion of the book.  The required five whole class novels had been selected by the school district ten years ago, and their relevance to today’s students was questionable. In addition, each ELA class had students complete the same sets of worksheets for each book. The district’s rationale was the worksheets provided grades and showed whether students had read the books.

Scores on state tests dipped each year, and the new director of instruction invited me to work long-term with teachers to develop a student-centered approach.  First, I surveyed students because I hoped to use their responses to initiate a discussion with teachers about best practice and reading workshop. Here are the three survey questions students answered:

What do like about your reading class?

What would you change in your reading class?

How do you feel about reading?

Survey Results

There wasn’t one student who enjoyed completing packets of worksheets for each book. In each class, several students complained that they struggled with reading the book and did poorly on the worksheets. Sometimes, the book was available on a CD and they could listen to it.  Suggestions from students included:

• Find books we can read.
• Find books we enjoy.
• Discuss the books in groups and sit in groups.
• No more worksheets; they make us hate the book.
• We want to choose books.

The students were on the same page as the new director of instruction. It was time to abandon the myth that one novel can be read and comprehended by all students. And while I do just that, I’m also going to bust other myths about reading instruction and what works and doesn’t work for students.

Five Reading Myths That Need Busting

Reading Myth 1: The whole class novel for all students provides the teacher with a common text. Purchasing and using pre-made worksheets students complete reveals their level of understanding and gives teachers the grades they need.

Myth Buster: Since most classes have a wide range of instructional reading levels, one book won’t meet the needs of every child. Use an anchor text—picture book or excerpt from a long book. Use the anchor text for mini-lessons,  think-aloud and make visible your emotional connections, inferences, and knowledge of text structure. Divide the anchor text into short chunks and spread the learning over five to eight days. Now you can create a reading workshop with a common text for teaching and invite students to choose their instructional and independent reading books, ensuring students read every day from books that motivate and engage them.

Reading workshop offers many assessment opportunities: readers’ notebooks entries; journaling; analytical paragraphs, applying literary elements to texts, showing how figurative language links readers to big ideas in a book, small groups discussions, book talks, and book reviews.

Reading Myth 2: Silent, independent reading is not learning. Students aren’t doing anything that can be measured or graded.

Myth Buster: Silent, independent reading of self-selected books leads to students developing literary tastes and a personal reading life. It also enlarges vocabulary and background knowledge and improves reading achievement. Anderson’s 1988 study, published in The Reading Research Quarterly, showed how time spent reading self-selected books correlated with reading achievement. Students who read 65 minutes a day read 4,358,00 words a year and scored in the 98 % on reading tests. Students who read 1.8 minutes a day read 106,000 words and ranked in the 30% on reading tests. Outstanding educators like Steven Krashen, Richard Allington, Dr. Mary Howard, and Donalyn Miller agree that daily independent reading of self-selected books is the best way to develop lifelong readers.

Reading Myth 3: Collaborating is cheating. When I was in school, we sat in rows and had to cover our work so no one could see it.  Completing work became stressful because I worried that if I looked away from my desk I would be accused of getting answers from a peer. This belief is alive and thriving in many schools.

Myth Buster:  Collaboration is a skill students require if they are to be successful in the workplace and college. Large corporations as well as state and federal governments invite groups to collaborate to generate ideas and solve problems. In addition to preparing students for their futures, collaborating has important benefits. Students learn to:

• become active listeners who respond to others’ ideas;

• value the diverse literary interpretations of classmates;
• compromise by negotiating with peers;
• observe that there’s more than one way to tackle a problem;
• generate a wealth of ideas to solve a problem;
• observe alternate analyzing processes;

Collaborating opens learning doors that continually working alone closes.

Reading Myth 4: Teachers reading books aloud that students can’t read is a good accommodation.

Myth Buster: Those who need to read to improve—students—aren’t reading. Moreover, it’s unlikely that students are listening if the teacher reads aloud more than 12 to 15 minutes. Research is clear: volume matters and students need to do the reading in order to build stamina and skill.

Reading Myth 5: Teachers need to assess independent reading by having students summarize in a journal their nightly reading or require students do a project for each completed book.

Myth Buster: First, doing a project for each completed book punishes students who read widely and voluminously, and it also punishes teachers who feel they must grade each project. In fact, I’ve known teachers who wanted to abandon independent reading because grading projects and reading students’ summaries had turned into an onerous job. Considering the research, such a decision would be detrimental to students’ reading progress.

I invite teachers to reflect on their independent reading lives. They don’t write summaries; they don’t complete projects, but they do discuss books in book clubs, share favorites with friends, and read book reviews to discover newly published books they want to read. It’s important to offer students similar, authentic options such as:

• Invite students to do a book talk a month. Model what a short, effective book talk looks like or use a search engine to find examples of what a short, student book talk looks like.
• Organize book club discussions where students share a beloved book with a group of peers, and focus their talk on a literary element or what they learned.
• Have students read book reviews from magazines and/or newspapers or read students’ book reviews posted on the Internet. Basically, a book review opens with a short summary; the bulk of the review is the author’s opinion of the book. Once you and students have developed some guidelines for books reviews appropriate for your grade, invite them to write a review of a beloved book two to three times a year.

 

Closing Thoughts

Keep reading instruction real! To me, this means that if you don’t do worksheets, projects, and summaries for every book you read, then don’t have your students do these “school-made” activities. Trust them to read. Look at the glass half-full. Remember, if students have choice and time to read at school, they will develop a lifelong and joyful habit along with the expertise to apply their reading ability to research and learn as well as find innovative ways to solve problems and share information. Remember, by making reading authentic you are preparing students for their tomorrows!

Follow Laura on Twitter @LRobbTeacher

Check out Evan’s blog posts on ScholasticEDU!

Learn more about Laura’s ideas on reading- check out- Teaching Reading in Middle School

 Laura Robb

Though we are social beings who crave relationships and meaningful interactions with others, we also relish having time alone.  And that’s a good thing. Alone time cultivates reflection, the ability to raise questions and to look back at an experience, think deeply about it, and gain self-knowledge.

Recently, Gracie, a fifth grader, and her group finished reading Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner. Gracie closed her eyes for a few moments, hoping more pages would pop into the book. “There has to be more,” she blurted out. “It can’t end. I want to know what happened after Searchlight died.”   Gently, her teacher reminded Gracie that she could imagine what happened by extending the end of the story in her mind, and she could continue to think about what she had learned from the characters and events.

Gracie and her teacher illustrate what reflecting about reading looks like, and how reflection can boost students’ connections to characters, conflicts, problems, and new information. But it can also do more. Gracie and her group developed empathy for being an orphan and little Willy shouldering adult responsibilities.

Defining Reflection

Reflection is the act of thinking about something and can be a personal experience like planning a vegetable garden, mulling over a book during and after reading or thinking about a movie or play. A powerful learning and imagining tool, reflection enhances experiences by deepening our insights, helping us make sense of new information, and making it possible to use prior knowledge to create new understandings.  Those who reflect experience joy in reading, learning, and daily life. They also develop agency and the capacity for positive change.

A solo activity, reflection is unique to each person’s experiences and prior knowledge. It’s also meta-cognitive, providing a learner with knowledge about processing information, connecting to past experiences, and transferring learning to new situations.  However, reflecting is individualized thinking and learning that requires modeling and practice.

Promoting Reflective Classrooms

Teachers who squarely see the benefits of questions and reflection in their lives can become the intermediary in developing the habit of raising questions and reflecting among students.  When teachers reflect on lessons, observations of and conferences with students, they collect stories and information that can support scaffolding learning and provide insights into students’ behavior and attitudes.  It’s helpful to set aside ten to fifteen minutes each day to think about what worked and what you can do to increase students’ engagement and desire to learn.

Reflecting on Teaching:  For me, the level of success in a class has everything to do with students’ engagement in the work and their motivation to work hard and learn. By cultivating the habit of thinking about each teaching day, you can celebrate successes as well as repair areas that require attention.   The questions that follow encourage reflecting on teaching:

• How can I help students become more involved in their learning?
• Why were most students engaged, and a few disengaged?
• How do I involve students in planning learning experiences?
• Do students offer input and feedback on using technology on the classroom?
• Why is it important to invite students to help decide how to arrange our classroom for project-based learning, book discussions, genius hour, collaborative planning?
• Am I giving students feedback that helps them improve?
• Are students doing most of the talking and work? If not, how can I flip this?
• Is choice a part of independent and instructional reading? Of collaborative projects? Of presentations?
• Does the way I use technology enhance students’ learning?
• Am I effectively modeling how to reflect on reading, on a discussion,  a collaborative project, and on the use of technology?

Nurture your curiosity and ask questions to examine your teaching and students’ learning. Your questions can help you resolve issues independently or more likely, send you to colleagues for suggestions. When you wonder why a student didn’t absorb a lesson or why a child misbehaves or can’t complete a task, you’ve taken the first step to explore ways to scaffold and support.  Be curious. Wonder. Find the path to help yourself and students grow.

Students Reflecting on Learning

To help students actively reflect on a lesson or work they’ve been doing, first invite them to silently think about their work.  To guide students, make your inner voice visible and think aloud to show them how you might consider the task. You can say something like: I wish I had set aside more time to work on projects today because 20 minutes wasn’t enough; I’ll do better tomorrow. Or We don’t seem to get to independent reading every day, I’m considering starting the class with it.  Doing this builds students’ mental model of what reflective thinking is like. Point out that frequently reflection can lead to a decision that improves learning and use of time.

Have pairs generate and share questions, write these on chart paper, and invite students to choose one or two. The goal is for students to integrate reflective questioning while working on a task or project, and after it’s completed.  What follows is a list of some learning experiences for student reflection. You and students will pinpoint many more.

• Writing Tasks
• Reviewing Notebook Entries
• Participating in Small-Group Discussions
• Preparation for Lessons
• Contributions to collaborative learning projects
• Book talks
• Taking notes
• Project-based learning
• Genius Hour
• Active listening during discussions
• Silent reading
• Stamina
• Quarterly review of portfolios

Reflection as a Tool for Change

Reflective questioning deepens understanding and can lead to positive changes.  When you and your students reflect and then express what you learned, thinking moves beyond the experience to self-knowledge and transfer to other learning and life situations.

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Follow Laura on Twitter @LRobbTeacher

Check out Evan’s blog posts on ScholasticEDU!

Learn more about Laura’s ideas on reading- check out- Teaching Reading in Middle School