Written by Mary Howard

I will never forget the moment I heard the words that felt like a cruel stab to my heart. As soon as I finished my session, a woman scurried toward me with a scowl plastered on her face. She identified herself as a special education director, stating in an angry tone:

“Research shows that special education students don’t benefit from independent reading so our teachers are forbidden to do it when they’re in the room.”

She walked away as abruptly as she came, leaving me to catch my breath as the full implications of an irresponsible justification of misinformed “research” washed over me. I began my career as a special education teacher in 1972, so a sense of deep sadness intermingled with conflicting emotions ranging from confused to frustrated to angry.  

I wish I could say this display of ignorance is rare, but I’ve heard many variations of this tragic stance. Even worse, I see it play out in too many schools as our striving readers are removed from the very experiences that we should be celebrating. And for too many unsuspecting learners, this tradeoff is an intervention where volume is last on the instructional agenda. Considering our least proficient learners as undeserving of the research-based opportunities we so willingly offer our most proficient students is nothing short of educational malpractice.

In Literacy Essentials, Regie Routman discusses equity in education:

“In far too many schools, we accept stagnant or low achievement and play the blame game. We use poverty and other outside factors to shirk our responsibility and maintain our low expectations, and we fail to acknowledge that we can do better. …We need to raise our expectations for what’s possible and see our students as capable and resilient, and assume responsibility for the achievement of all students.”

This illogical view merely blinds us to what’s possible and further widens the volume equity gap. While this is not a new problem, the issue is exacerbated by the intentional act of removing children from our responsibility to them. There are decades of research support for the dramatic role volume plays in student achievement but for the sake of this post, I’ll share just a few of the efforts to close the volume equity gap:

Dr. Richard Allington has been a leader in the area of volume starting with his seminal 1977 article, If they Don’t Read Much, How They Ever Gonna Get Good? and his book What Really Matters for Struggling Readers (2012). In Every Child Every Day (2012) Allington and Gabriel describe six elements of instruction starting with: Every child reads something he or she chooses [every day]. In response to our willingness to honor these “everyday” experiences, they write:

Instead, despite good intentions, educators often make decisions about instruction that compromise or supplant the kind of experiences all children need to become engaged, successful readers. This is especially true for struggling readers, who are much less likely than their peers to participate in the kinds of high-quality instructional activities that would ensure that they learn to read.

The Early Literacy Task Force led by Nell Duke clearly addresses volume in Essential Instructional Practices #8: Abundant reading material and reading opportunities in the classroom with this key bullet point:

 

• opportunities for children to engage in independent reading of materials of their choice every day, with the teacher providing instruction and coaching in how to select texts and employ productive strategies during reading, feedback on children’s reading, and post-reading response activities including text discussion

 

Choice reading and volume is also highlighted in the newly released Children’s Rights to Read from the International Literacy Association while Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward remind us in From Striving to Thriving (2017) that “… the best intervention is a good book–one a child can and wants to read.” These are only a few of the brilliant champions of choice and volume including Donalyn Miller, Colby Sharp, Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher, Laura Robb, and too many others to mention.

Notice that none of these references exclude any child or group from experiences that increase the volume of reading, and yet we continue to allow the ignorance-fueled idea that some children don’t benefit from choice reading to spread. Misguided educators allow school-based labels to rob some of our children of the voluminous joyful literacy opportunities they need and deserve. In the process, they cheat them of experiences that could maximize their growth as the volume equity divide widens.

So, what can we do? We could begin by ensuring that these priorities are in place:

• Put non-negotiables practices such as read-aloud and independent reading in the daily schedule first and hold onto them for dear life for all children
• Establish protected times in the day where no child can be removed during these essential events to receive outside support services
• Put your money where your mouth is by purchasing the best children’s texts that you can find and fill schoolwide classroom libraries to brimming
• Ensure classroom libraries reflect varied interest and need including picture books, chapter books, news magazines, comics, graphic novels and more
• Remove all leveling references that tether children to a leveled bin and rob them of choice reading opportunities (this includes Accelerated Reading levels)
• Explicitly teach children how to choose good fit books and honor their choices as you celebrate their personal interests in the selection process
• Rethink programs like Accelerated Reader that turn reading into a test-fueled agenda and actually decreases the choice that fuels voluminous joyful literacy
• Stop purchasing one-size-fits-all programs that wrongly assume that we have one-size-fits-all children and minimize time for meaningful voluminous reading
• Alleviate computerized interventions that ignore the power potential of a highly knowledgeable teacher with massive doses of books in hand
• Create a professional library that includes articles and books that address the role of volume so that teachers will have easy access to these references  
• Put volume at the very center of professional learning conversations and explore ways for teachers to embed reading opportunities into every learning day
• Offer extensive professional support for elevating the benefits of independent reading through thoughtfully responsive and flexible instructional support
• Make tiered pull-out interventions the last resort and prioritize your first line of defense so that classroom teachers will maintain a lead support role
• Support teachers in designing more intentional intervention experiences that are carefully embedded into each learning day across all content areas
• Model daily that you live and breathe voluminous joyful literacy in your own life as you share and display what you are reading
• Provide daily opportunities for children to engage in rich reading collaborations and conversations including advertising reading with peers.
• Ensure that interventions prioritize authentic and engaging reading, writing, and talking as you bring voluminous joyful literacy to life instructionally
• Make voluminous joyful literacy the heart and soul of your school so active and enthusiastic engagement in choice reading is at the center of your efforts

John Guthrie provides research-based direction for making this important volume shift. His study of fourth graders should inspire our next step efforts as we acknowledge that our most proficient readers read 500% more than our least proficient readers. He adds:

Because engaged readers spend 500% more time reading than disengaged students, educators should attempt to increase engaged reading time by 200%-500%. This may require substantial reconfigurations of curriculum.

This means that we cannot use lack of time or conflicting schedules as an excuse, rather opting to expend our energy reconfiguring the learning day in the name of our readers. Removing children from these experiences adds to the volume equity issue and further removes us from the 500% increase our striving learners need. It’s worth emphasizing that Guthrie’s volume increase includes reading at home and at school. The questionable argument that volume should be considered a home issue ignores that this 500% increase requires both sources and that access widely varies from home to home, again minimizing volume. Our obsession with one-size-fits-all programs has also dramatically decreased volume while turning reading into a marketing frenzy.

For too long we have allowed irresponsible educators to make ill-informed decisions that fail to consider the implications of those decisions on children. Our silence has turned voluminous joyful literacy experiences for all children upside down. It’s time for us to recognize that shallow thoughtless choices that are devoid of logic or research are an insult to this profession and harm the helpless recipients of those choices – children.

Make no mistake about it – there is a serious volume equity issue in our schools and it is our responsibility to lift our collective voices into the professional air and speak out against this travesty of judgment. While I wish that I could have found the words at the fateful moment that inspired this post, I have since found my voice and intend to use it from this day forward. Children should not have to suffer from ignorance, regardless of whatever title of power they may wield. I intend to speak out against this distorted view and I ask that each of you do the same in whatever way you can. Because if we sit idly by in silence, then we become complicit co-conspirators of an irresponsible lie.

I choose voluminous joyful literacy opportunities and I will fight for the children who are depending on us…

Will you join me?

 

Links shared in Mary’s post!

Regie Routman, Literacy Essentials

Children’s Right to Read (ILA)

Essential Instructional Practices in Early Literacy K-3 (Michigan/Nell Duke)

Essential Instructional Practices in Literacy Grades 4-5 (Michigan/Nell Duke)

Richard L. Allington and Rachael E. Gabriel Every Child Every Day March 2012 | Volume 69 | Number 6  Reading: The Core Skill Pages 10-15

John T. Guthrie (2004). Teaching for Literacy Engagement. Journal of Literacy Research V. 36 No.1. PP.1-30

From Striving to Thriving by Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward (Scholastic

What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-Based Programs (3rd Edition) (2012)

 

 

By Cameron Carter

 

As a child, I never considered myself to be creative. I would watch the other children draw magnificent pictures of people, while mine looked like a somewhat glorified stick figure. Others would craft beautiful clay pots, while mine would remain in the kiln because the handle and top fell off. Not only did I see my lack of artistic abilities at school, but in the home as well. My mom always was able to whip up any type of drawing just by quickly looking at a photo. She would paint magnificent landscape portraits on canvases. Growing up, she tried to involve me in classes at the local art museum, but that was very short lived.

 

As one can clearly see, I felt as though I lacked the creative gene. This fixed mindset frame I was in all changed when I attended the Columbus Museum of Art Creativity Institute this past summer. I was proposed with the opening statement, “Creativity does not equal art skill.” At first, I was a bit confused. I never thought of creativity as not being able to draw the perfect landscape scene or cartoon character. The institute taught me that we are all artists in our own unique way. One does not have to possess art skills to be creative. Taking an alternative route home from work is thinking creatively. Taking a photo of your dinner and editing it is being creative. Organizing your freezer like a Tetris game so all your food fits is thinking creatively. My eyes were opened to forming a new definition of creativity.

 

The institute referred to the text, “Making Thinking Visible” by Ron Ritchhart. The book promotes students to notice and wonder about the world around them. Students are encouraged to be curious and use multiple pathways of critical thinking to find many possible solutions. Teachers must engage and provide students with models to promote their thinking. Students must be open to disequilibrium in their thinking in order to achieve the highest level of creativity. It may certainly look messy and unorganized, but it is the thinking process that is most powerful. Educators need to understand it is always about the quality of thinking versus the quantity of the thinking. One must embrace the world of ambiguity in order to help adapt this creative mindset.

 

After this powerful mind shift experience, I wanted to quickly incorporate it in the classroom. I wanted my students, and their parents, to know that creativity is not just being able to draw the perfect image. For our school’s open house, I asked the parents to partake in a creativity challenge where they received a brown lunch bag full of random items. The instructions were simple and concise: collaborate in small groups to create an emotion. The ambiguity of the instructions alarmed some, but they began right away. I walked around and documented the conversations overheard, and at the end of the challenge, we reflected on all the thinking processes observed. The parents were amazed at the higher order thinking skills that were demonstrated with the simple task. Next, it was onto the students.

 

We completed the creativity challenge, and we reflected on our challenges and triumphs. The students shared the collaboration piece was key when they faced a moment of disequilibrium. They saw the value in the questions, “What do you notice?” and “What do you wonder?”

 

In our class, we encourage all to speak our common language to promote creative thinking. I encourage educators to take this leap to bring creativity in the classroom. Always remember, creativity does not equal art skill.

 

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. To continue learning with Cameron, follow him on Twitter @CRCarter313

 

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

 

By Larry Ferlazzo

 

I have been a consistent basketball player for over forty-five years – I have played regularly during that period and also remained consistent in the mediocre level of my play.  Nevertheless, any time I moved cities, I was easily able to connect with new-found friends on the court. And, apart from soreness, a few black eyes, and one broken wrist (I did finish the game despite that injury!), I had been able to escape with any serious physical problems.

Until last March, when I suffered a severely herniated disc.

It’s been seven months, and I’ve almost recovered.  In fact, I just played in my first friendly game of basketball since the injury (though I have retired from league play).   During my successful rehabilitation process, I noted a number of similarities between what it takes to be a successful patient and what it takes to be a successful learner and gained increased empathy for my students.

Here are a few things I learned:

 

• It’s easy to give up if not initially successful

 

During the first few weeks of my injury, I spiraled into what my wife called “the abyss” – I was making no progress, saw no future progress on the horizon, and had nightmarish visions of never getting better.

 

If I, a person who has a long list of personal and professional successes behind, can feel this way, how must a student who might have a much less positive track record feel when he or she is just “not getting” some concepts?

 

• A little bit of progress can go a long way

Professor Teresa Amabile is well-known for the research behind The Progress Principle.  She found that the key to motivation was daily progress – no matter how small.

Through physical therapy, I was able to begin escaping my “abyss” by noting even the tiniest amount of progress – I was able to walk one additional step without experiencing excruciating pain, I was able to do one additional set of an exercise.  And both the physical therapist and my wife (who is a nurse practitioner) helped create situations where that progress happened and pointed it out even when I didn’t notice.

For struggling students, how easy is it for us to miss very small, yet positive, steps they might be taking?   And how many of us take the time to help deliberately create situations to increase the odds of those small positive steps happening?

 

• Words can make a difference

 

When my regular physician referred me to a sports doctor, the specialist nonchalantly dismissed the idea that I would ever play basketball again – within the first five minutes of my appointment.   I was devastated, and shaken, and began to fall into the “abyss” again.

 

How often do teachers make a comment about a student’s goals – to be a professional athlete, or performer – that can appear to them as dismissive?  What kind of impact can those words have on them, even if they are successful in hiding those emotions? How much motivation can be quashed by a few misplaced words?

 

• You often can’t get very far without deliberate practice

The concept of deliberate practice, a strategic and focused practicing of a skill, is often discussed in education and athletic circles.  One element of deliberate practice which is sometimes missed, however, is the role of coaching – the need for someone to observe and give you detailed feedback.

In my physical therapy, and in my regular TRX exercise sessions, it became very clear that regular feedback on my techniques were and continue to be crucial to my recovery.  It’s easy for a novice to make numerous mistakes – both big and small – that can hamper success and even cause harm.

It’s difficult for a teacher with thirty-five students in his/her classroom to provide regular and consistent individualized coaching.  But if research shows that it’s critical to success, should we place a higher priority on exploring ways to generate more of it – for example, through top-notch peer editing and other specific ways that students can provide quality feedback?

 

I’m not pretending that any of these meanderings are lightbulb-worthy insights.  Nevertheless, I figure my teaching practice will never be hurt by gaining a little more empathy for students….

 

Larry Ferlazzo is a long-time teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California.   He has authored nine books on education, writes a weekly advice column for Education Week Teacher, and hosts his own popular resource-sharing blog for educators.