By: Laura Robb

Most of us view stamina in reading as the ability to concentrate on reading for at least 30 minutes. And indeed, that is part of stamina! But there’s more to it, and I’ll illustrate this additional aspect with a literacy snapshot.

            A student, Jenna, who I tutored for several years, left fifth grade reading a year above grade level. In fifth grade, her teacher had 15 minutes of independent reading of self-selected books every day. In addition, students had modified choice when selecting instructional reading texts, as the teacher offered students a range of texts to choose from with their instructional levels. Total time spent reading for fifth graders was 35 minutes a day in their hour-long ELA class.  By the end of the year, most students were getting the hang of reading longer books and enjoying them. 

In sixth grade, volume in reading stopped. Independent reading of self-selected books was spotty.  Students’ instructional reading was on a computer, and they read six to ten paragraph selections and answered 10 questions for each one. Just as Dick Allington’s research predicted, Jenna and her classmates began losing reading gains because they weren’t reading. Many showed this backward slide on benchmark testing and a criterion-referenced test administered mid-year.

            Recently, Jenna called me. “Will you help me with reading this summer?” she asked.

            “I’d love to read some books together and talk about them, but you’re reading is fine.”

            ‘That’s the thing,” she said. “I’m having trouble reading longer books at home. I get through three chapters, then I can’t remember stuff, so I stop.”

Readers Need This Kind of Stamina!

            Jenna describes a type of stamina that relates to focus and concentration and improves with practice. To read a long novel, students have to remember characters that appear in the beginning and pop up later in the book. They also have to hold in their memories different settings, plot details, conflicts, and decisions made earlier that affect a character in the middle and near the end of the book. Informational texts pose similar problems when learners have to recall names, places, data, and myriad details.  Students on a steady diet of short texts don’t meet or practice these types of reading demands. Reading. Long. Books. Does. Develop. Them.

What Good Readers Do

            Students expected to improve by practicing on computer programs often don’t make progress because they are missing what students who read long books do to continually move forward:

• discuss texts with peers;
• compose their own discussion questions;
• write about reading in notebooks;
• develop analytical and critical thinking skills;
• take time to reflect on their reading;
• connect ideas between and among books;
• confer about their reading with a teacher and peer; and
• explore authors and genres and develop personal literary tastes.

So, over the summer, Jenna and I will read longer and longer texts. We’ll discuss chunks. We’ll make connections. We’ll do some writing and analytical thinking.  Hopefully, she’ll regain her losses and develop both kinds of stamina. It’s interesting to note that in a research study published in ILA’s Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (2000), educators identified indicators for students who scored high in reading on the international PISA test (The Program for International Student Assessment). The top indicator was that students read long texts. The second was that they completed a great deal of independent reading.

A Call to Action

It always amazes me that schools invest in programs that totally ignore the research on how and why students develop reading expertise. Exemplary teachers continually enlarge their knowledge of best practice and their skill set. Teaching skill develops with experience and through ongoing, self-directed professional learning.  Students need skilled teachers who respond to their needs. Students need skilled teachers who read aloud every day and invite students to learn from relevant books representing diverse cultures.

STAMINA…Readers Need It! INVEST in teachers! INVEST in books! And develop the stamina students require to become lifelong readers and critical thinkers.

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: Jim Burke

At a certain point in our lives, it becomes difficult to remember how awful (and, if we stick with it, wonderful) it can feel to learn how to do anything that does not come naturally to us. I was reminded of the feelings that accompany such learning in an unexpected way and when I least expected it.

I was in Wyoming to work with teachers at a high school there over my spring break a couple years back. The teachers wanted to improve their instruction in the areas of reading and writing, a difficult conversation that not every teacher is eager to have in the presence of others. Colby and Carl, the two department heads who had invited me out, told me when I arrived that the workshop would not take place until after school the following day, then continuing on into the evening till about 8 o’clock. Before I could tell them what would happen to the three of us at my school if such demands and schedule were ever imposed, they said, “Since you don’t have to get to work till late afternoon, we thought we would take you fly fishing in the morning.”

“That is such a generous and interesting offer, guys, but I really need to spend the morning preparing for the workshop,” I told them with a smile that was meant to comfort them, assuage their disappointment.

But this was Wyoming. These two guys, who would have looked right at home in a fancy hipster juice bar sipping a wheatgrass latte back in my hometown San Francisco, were driving Ford F-250 trucks with gun racks in Caspar, Wyoming where they taught English and fed their families on the venison and fish they shot and caught throughout the year. They weren’t having my excuses.

“Just be ready when we pick you up at 7 tomorrow morning, Jim. The workshop will go fine. You know your stuff. And besides, we’ll have you back by lunch so you can have some prep time.”

The following day, Carl and Colby drove me out into the meadowlands that skirted the Platte River, a slender stream that snaked its way across the open prairie shimmering with spring green grasses. There, in the first light of the new day, Carl taught me a few quick basics about casting that were enough to allow me to flop a fly line onto the moving water. Then, having set me up, he walked up river to his own station and set to fishing his own water, leaving me to just enjoy the morning.

I caught nothing, of course. Not even a bite. But there was no shame, no embarrassment, no emotional upset. This is because I was not—yet!—trying to learn anything. Once we start down that road, we confront what Tom Newkirk, in his book Embarrassment, calls the “awkwardness principle”:

Any act of learning requires us to suspend a natural tendency to want to appear fully competent. We need to accept the fact that we will be awkward, that our first attempts at a new skill will, at best, be only partial successes. Moreover we need to allow this awkwardness to be viewed by some mentor who can offer feedback as we open ourselves up for instruction. (2017, 10)

There was no cause for embarrassment that fine Wyoming morning on that distant spring day because I was not trying to accomplish anything, did not really care whether I could do it or do it well. It was not even something I had chosen to do. Everything that would come to represent the difficulty of learning—the different knots, the types of line, the different styles of fly rods, the flies, types of water, psychology of the fish, all the different types of bugs they eat, the seasons in which they eat them—was handled by Carl and Colby that morning, thus protecting me from any feelings of incompetence, any aggravation, any anger, any shame.

Only when I returned home later that week did all those feelings begin, for while I may not have caught any fish that day, I did catch a sense of what standing in a river fishing for trout might offer me. Yet from the moment I decided to buy a fly rod, I felt overwhelmed, ignorant, stupid. Heading off to the casting ponds in Golden Gate Park with the new rod and reel I bought soon after at the local fly fishing shop, I felt ridiculous as I watched my bright line spill into a wet nest on cast after cast. What had seemed, in my head, so simple, so easy, so relaxing, so doable in Wyoming, now appeared to be impossible.

Over the course of the next year, however, after taking classes, making time to practice, reading books and watching all those YouTube videos that showed me how to cast, I improved. But it was incremental, the two-steps-forward-three-steps-back type of learning. I had to teach my wife to ask not “Did you catch any fish?” but “Did you enjoy yourself at the river?” It took me three months to catch my first fish, and even that seemed more an accident than an achievement. And when I caught that trout finally, it slipped the hook, thus leading to another lesson in the language of fishing: I had caught but not “landed” the fish as the men at the fly shop explained to me the following week when I went by to tell them of my progress.

My point in telling this story is as simple as it is important: Nothing has taught me more about learning than experiencing all over the sustained feeling of incompetence that accompanied me through my first year of fly fishing. Whether it is fly fishing or writing an academic essay, the experience made me realize that we must learn the vocabulary (of flies, lines, reels, water, and so on); develop the background knowledge (about water, insects, about  various fly fishing techniques, the fish themselves—who knew fish were so smart!?); acquire the skills themselves, typically with the guidance of someone we have been willing to be vulnerable with as they guide us through that process; and, finally, maintain the patience and persistence needed to learn to do anything of any complexity with some skill.

Even now, after two years of fairly disciplined effort in all these areas, I remain a novice at best—and I love it. There will be time enough to master the craft, but in the meantime, I am learning to be a better teacher of students, of how to read, write, and learn because fly fishing constantly reminds me how hard it is to learn anything—and how good it feels when we eventually do.

Learn more about Jim at The New English Companion Website!

Connect with Jim on Twitter @englishcomp

EC Ning

Facebook

(An open invitation of vulnerability for my phonics colleagues)

©Google Images 

By Cameron Carter

It’s 9:00 a.m., and I’ve just sat down with my first guided reading group of the day. The children know the expectations, as they have been modeled for months. As I get my anecdotal notes ready from the previous day’s discussion, the children get started rereading the text in their brains. I immediately begin quickly doing an informal running record on a few students to see how they are coming along with the text.

A child comes across a challenging word in the text:

Teacher (T): (provides a few seconds of wait time for the child to try and solve)

Student (S): (student first looks at the photo/illustration, then immediately checks the letters to look for parts and/or chunks in the word that he/she may know, and finally looks at me… NOTE: this whole process happens very quickly)

(T): Check the letters and look for parts you know from FunDations (our systemic phonics curriculum) (teacher puts child’s finger on chunks of the word… NOTE: this will look different depending on what word the child is trying to solve)

(S): “Well, I noticed a digraph (ch) and that says /ch/, and I see it at the end of the word, too!” (T): “You noticed the digraphs, now move to the middle of the word. Check the letters.”

(S): “I see a “ur” and in FunDations we learned r-controlled vowels, so it says /r/, so putting it all together, /ch/ – /r/- /ch/, church.  

(T): “Reread to confirm it makes sense in the sentence.”

Colleagues, this is a real example of teacher-student interaction from a guided reading group.

As one can clearly see, the reader is using a combination of systems to word solve. In Marie Clay’s (2001) research of the literacy processing theory, she stated, “In a complex model of interacting competencies in reading and writing the reader can potentially draw from all his or her current understanding, and all his or her language competencies, and visual information, and phonological information, and knowledge of printing conventions, in ways which extend both the searching and linking processes as well as the item knowledge repertoires” (p.224).

The student in the example above is using multiple sources of information, along with his/her phonological background, to word solve.

It is not an either/or process.

Readers need to be equipped with a toolbox of strategies and skills to use when faced with dissonance. Readers can not solely rely on phonics to help them solve every word.

 When we continue our guided reading group the following day to implement word work, I bring in the word “church” again and use multi-sensory activities, as suggested by the Orton Gillingham approach, to imprint the word in the child’s brain. To quote Orton Gillingham (2016), A multi-sensory approach makes reading easier for all children, not only those with dyslexia.”

I highly concur that all children can benefit from using a multi-sensory approach when teaching reading. Using these approaches help the learner construct meaning in many ways. It helps to solidify cognitive synapses in the brain, especially for those readers who may have an issue with executive functioning, such as processing or decoding and encoding.

In conclusion, here are the crucial takeaways to pass along to your colleagues, especially to my explicit phonics friends:

I use systematic phonics instruction every day (FunDations, a version of the Wilson Reading Program, adapted from Orton Gillingham) both isolated and blended/infused in my guided reading groups.

I use multi-sensory approaches for all content areas.

I use running records in my guided reading groups and analyze Marie Clay’s sources of information (meaning, syntax, and visual) to help guide my instruction.

Whatever approach you use, the goal is to build readers. We want readers to be fluent, accurate, and we want them to read with prosody (expression) and meaning.

A recent post on my Twitter (@CRCarter313) states,

“A few goals of reading:

1. Comprehension (within, beyond, and about text- Fountas and Pinnell)
2. Text-to-text connections
3. Text-to-self
4. Text-to-world
5. Exposure to a wide variety of genres, including culturally relevant texts
6. The most simple: Love reading!”

In conclusion, always ask yourself:

What does the child, the reader that sits before need at this moment in time?

The child needs you to implement instruction that best fits his/her needs.

Cameron Carter is a first-grade teacher at Evening Street Elementary in Worthington, OH. He is the Elementary Lead Ambassador for the National Council of Teachers of English and the Elementary Liaison for the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. Cameron has a Masters in Reading and Literacy from The Ohio State University.  To continue learning with Cameron, follow him on Twitter @CRCarter313

References

Clay, M. M. (2001). Change over time in children’s literacy development. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann

Google Images. (2018).

Institute of Multi-Sensory Education (IMSE). 2016. https://www.orton-gillingham.com/about-us/.

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