Looking for a silver bullet or magic? Stop reading right now, I cannot give you these. There are no silver bullets or magic ways to improve reading scores or any test scores for that matter.   School leaders, teachers, and communities often draw incorrect conclusions about the quality of a school, teachers, principals, all the way to a superintendent based on scores from one day of testing. So, let’s learn some ways to improve reading and also scores.

 

First, I ask you to embrace and accept a simple assumption: if you practice, most things you do will get better.  If you practice with purpose based on proven research strategies, improvement is even more likely to happen. For students to improve reading, they need to read and read with purpose.

 

Here are some tips and cautions to guide a program for reading success!

 

Rule #1: Read Aloud: Do this every day for five to ten minutes, depending on the length of reading classes. This is an opportunity to model reading, ask probing questions, and integrate strategies which have been taught.

 

Reminder:  Reading a favorite book for most or all of a class period no matter how animated the instructor is will not make students better readers.

 

Rule #2: Instructional Reading: This is purposeful reading instruction to increase the application of strategies and skills to a text needed to be a better reader.  State standards are often a good guide for specific strategies and skills along with an abundance of research on the skills needed to be better readers.  The key is students need to read with purpose at their instructional level. Assessing students to know their lexile levels and using this information to create genre focused instructional reading units that meet the needs of students is critical for students to become better readers.

 

Reminder: One book for all rarely works; all students do not read on the same level.   Instructional reading must be driven by the instructional needs of each student.  If a teacher reads to students during this part of the lesson, students will not become better readers. They are not reading.  Embarrassing games that have students read aloud like popcorn reading serve no purpose to improve reading for all. They are time fillers, nothing more!

 

Rule #3: Independent Reading:  Is your school making a concerted effort to promote independent reading?  This can range from allocating funds for books to school wide promotion and celebration of independent reading.  Create a culture where all the students in your school are always carrying an independent reading book!. By encouraging them to read accessible books on topics they love and want to know more about, you develop their motivation to read! Students should complete thirty minutes of independent reading a night, and that should be their main homework assignment. Try to set aside two days a week for students to complete independent reading at school. Reading in a classroom is valuable!

 

Reminder:  If staff get hung up on how to hold students accountable for reading or how to punish students who do not read, your efforts will fail.  Find different, creative, and motivating ways to increase reading. You can have students present a brief, monthly book talk and enter completed books on a reading log. Twice a semester, students can choose a book from their log and share it with their group.

 

I am asking for a commitment to reading.  Yes, actual reading VS reading programs where students read passages and answer questions or face texts far above their instructional reading levels. Commit to research based reading instruction and students will become better readers. If all students read at least three self-selected books a month in addition to instructional reading texts for the course of each year, test scores will improve.

 

As professionals I am calling us to take back what we know makes sense and what research has proven to work. In other words, bury worksheets and have students read the finest books. Reading teachers must become experts on reading instruction, assessment, strategies and the skills needed to teach students to become better readers. Let go of practices that do not work.  If not we will continue to be palsied by slick programs from companies who have very different bottom lines than educators have.

For great information on a favorite topic of ours, Read Talk Write by Laura!

Check out my book published by Scholastic! The Principal’s Leadership Sourcebook!

During my early years of teaching, I remember reading an article written in the mid-1930’s that proposed reading was “caught” much like one catches a cold. The article stated that not much could be done for children who didn’t catch reading during the primary years. I guess the appropriate conclusion was that most likely, they would remain weak and reluctant readers throughout their lives.  I remember thinking, what an absurd theory! I also remember feeling intense anger over placing the children who didn’t “catch” reading in a box labeled “hopeless.”

It’s weird, but in the context of what we know about reading today, this theory can be rationalized. Those children who listen to thousands of books and hear and engage in meaningful talk before they enter kindergarten are primed to “catch” reading.  That idea was not the point of the article, for the author offered no evidence, anecdotal or research-based, to support this static mindset.

Learning to Read as a Growth Mindset

When children interact with teachers and adults who believe it’s possible to create book joy, to enlarge vocabulary and background knowledge through conversations and by reading aloud several times a day, then gaps in literacy can close.

There are two kinds of read alouds students benefit from:

1.    Read aloud books you love and are passionate about sharing with students. Students sense the passion and hopefully work hard to replicate the reading experience for themselves.
2.    Read aloud to model how books affect your mind and feelings, how you interpret books and apply strategies like inferring and involve students in the process. When you present interactive read alouds, students have multiple opportunities to build and enlarge their mental models of what good readers do and eventually understand why they love reading.

Materials for Interactive Read Alouds

The interactive read aloud is the instructional piece of reading. It’s a mini-lesson where the teacher uses an anchor text to think-aloud to share how to apply a strategy such as inferring or literary elements and text structures.  An anchor text is short and the same genre as the unit of study. You can use an excerpt from a longer text, a picture book, or a short text such as an article, folk tale, short, short story, or myth. Two elements guide my choice of an anchor text:

•      it needs to be high quality literature; and
•      short enough to complete in seven to ten lessons.

If a picture book is too long, but a book you feel strongly about using, summarize some parts to move the lessons forward. Then, offer the book for independent reading so students can connect with the entire text.

Guidelines for Presenting Interactive Read Alouds

By organizing your units of study around a genre and theme such as biography and obstacles or informational texts and changes, student first observe how you think about a text and then work with a partner to practice what you model before moving to their own texts.  What follows are guidelines for presenting ten to fifteen minute interactive read alouds.  The lessons become a reference point for review and for intervention and/or reteaching lessons.

•      Model the strategies, literary elements, etc. that are in the plans for your unit of study.
•      Name the strategy, literary element, or text structure, you’ll be modeling.

Today, I’m going to show you how I make an inference.

•      Explain the strategy, how it helps readers, and what you will do to apply it.

An inference is meaning not stated in the text; it’s implied. Authors write texts expecting readers to infer. For this biography, Wilma Unlimited by Kathleen Krull, I will use details to find unstated meanings.

•      Read a short part of the text out loud, and show how you apply the strategy.

I can infer Wilma’s family was poor. Her father worked several jobs to support Wilma and her nineteen brothers and sisters.

•      Involve students on the next day. Have them pair-share and provide text evidence to support one inference.
•      Collect students’ inferences on a T-Chart to show them how to organize their thinking in their notebooks. Write “Inference” on the left side and “Text Evidence” on the right side.
•      Repeat this process until you’ve modeled and students have practiced the strategies for the unit.

Closing Thoughts

Reading aloud books you love and want to hear again and again nurtures your need for wonderful stories and shows your students the meaning of  “I love to read.” In addition, make one of the read alouds interactive and instructional, so your students develop mental models about how to think and feel about books. Reading can’t be “caught.” It’s taught when students listen to and discuss stories before entering school. Once at school, they can observe how you and their peers interpret and respond to books. Then they self-select and read, read, read!

Check out Robb Communications to learn how Laura and Evan can help you meet your professional development goals!

Learn more ways to improve instructional reading in your school or division, Teaching Reading in Middle School, By Laura Robb

My personal and professional reading life have sustained my desire to continually learn and to read for pleasure. I value the fact that I can choose what to read, reread passages that speak to me, and talk about books and articles to friends and colleagues. One of my primary goals as a middle school principal is to support the culture of independent reading that is part of my school. This means helping teachers feel comfortable setting aside time for independent reading at school. It also means that I model how much I value reading by enlarging classroom libraries, and making our school library an inviting place with comfortable spaces for students to read. I encourage teachers to share books they’ve loved with students, and I share with teachers books I am presently enjoying. For independent reading to flourish in a school, the entire community needs to rally around it.

Research supports the benefit of Independent reading. The pleasure students experience is obvious when I visit a class and observe independent reading. However, I often wonder if schools are embracing independent reading and making it an integral part of their school’s culture. Through reading, students also enlarge background knowledge and vocabulary. But more important is that students derive pleasure from their reading–pleasure in entering and living life in different worlds and cultures as well as stepping into a character’s life and pretending to be that character.

I believe in research, but I also believe in good, old fashioned common sense. To develop skill and expertise at anything in life, you need to practice. Any sport from golf to basketball, requires purposeful practice, and purposeful practice improves performance. If students want to become better readers, it makes sense for purposeful practice to be part of the improvement equation. A combination of independent reading and well-planned, differentiated instructional reading can improve reading skill. Being an excellent reader and writer are necessary for college and career readiness. In addition, it’s also important to remember that students reading below grade level need to read more than their peers who are proficient and advanced readers.

When students self-select books for independent reading, they have opportunities to “practice” the strategies and skills they’ve rehearsed during instructional reading and apply them to materials on their own. Self-selecting books gives students control of what they read which in turn develops self-confidence, literary taste, and a desire to repeat the enjoyable experience.

I am a champion of independent reading. Are you? Readers of my posts know I believe the principal sets the tone through clearly communicated expectations and words of inspiration. I am sharing five ways a principal can encourage and promote independent reading for all, staff included!

If you are new to a school, do a spot check. Are all staff encouraging independent reading? Is it being communicated to students? Are students reading independently in school?

Communicate the value of reading independently. I have known staff who feel they might get in trouble with administration if students are reading independently.

Invest in classroom libraries and your school library. Where we put our money communicates what we value. If we value books and reading, money from the school budget needs to be spent on enlarging classroom libraries and adding books to schools’ central libraries.

Independent reading is practice and should be enjoyable! I have known staff new to my school who shy away from promoting independent reading because they don’t know how to “hold kids accountable.” In my years as a teacher and principal, I have never met anyone who wants to summarize what they read in a notebook or make a shoebox diorama after completing a book. If your staff are stuck in fixed mindsets of accountability for independent reading, work with them to find more positive solutions such vlogs, blogs, or book talks.

Model independent reading! Teachers who read in front of students send a powerful message to their students: as an adult I place such a high value on reading that I read aloud to you every day. Dennis Schug, Principal of Hampton Bays Middle School, notes at the bottom of his email signature what book he is reading. This sends a strong message about the joy reading brings and that’s it’s important to his life.

 

As a school leader, department chair, or classroom teacher, what you value, communicate, and prioritize is like a cold, catching. My challenge, and the challenge of every principal, is to make sure students experience independent reading of self-selected books at school and at home!

Laura and I can provide free P.D. for your school- learn more at Robb Communications

Check out more of my blogs! Scholastic

Guest Robb Review Author: Linda Hoyt!

For many years, I have called for a stronger emphasis on informational sources in primary classrooms.  Now, it is exciting to see primary teachers actively helping children understand that they can learn about the world while they learn to read and write.  Everywhere I go, I see more informational selections on display and in the hands of independent readers.  I celebrate as emergent and developing writers capture facts in pictures, labels, notes, sentences and multiple page books!  These eager researchers read and write in collaboration with partners and take great pride in generating questions that fuel more reading, more research, and more writing!  (Can you hear me clapping?)

Most of all, I applaud the increasing number of teachers who are clearly understand that their role is not to transmit information, but rather to ignite a sense of wonder—to help kids live a curious life.  In classrooms that are driven by curiosity and wonder, learners erupt with literate vigor and writing becomes a natural extension of the learning.

Informational writing used to be saved for genre studies in which young writers created a set of directions or engaged in crafting a report about animals.  But, evidence now suggests that this limited view of nonfiction writing is too little—too late!  We now know that forward-thinking educators weave explicit scaffolds for nonfiction reading and nonfiction writing into the fabric of daily literacy instruction, making sure that children write for a wide variety of purposes and experience a broad base of nonfiction text types in every subject area—every day.

Some teachers express concern that informational writing should wait until foundational skills are in place. But, extensive evidence suggests children do not need to have correct spelling, complete sentence structures, deep content knowledge, or well-developed writing traits in place before they begin to engage as nonfiction writers.  They will develop these essential skills as a natural extension of modeled writing, coaching conferences, revising, editing and presenting their work.  They WILL learn as they go.  With each successive writing experience, word-building skills will grow and the writing will gain sophistication.

The key:  Don’t expect perfection—expect growth.

Modeled writing is a critical element of accelerating the development of informational writing. Take time to think aloud as you write under the watchful eyes of your students.  Let them hear what is in your mind as you capture an interesting fact on paper, insert a label on a diagram, or list the attributes of a tree frog.  Help them to notice that sketches carry information and support the message, and that even adult writers pause frequently and experiment with different ways to craft a sentence.  When young children see you write, they have a powerful window into meaning, grammar, word construction, and use of space on the page.  So, dive in and “Just do it!”

I am so excited about how the children are writing, especially in comparison to years past.  It is early in the year and my kindergarteners are confident with several text types and absolutely love to write.  We have lists, notes, and multi-page books that look like they were done by much older students.  Thank you for helping me to believe… They are more accomplished writers and I am a more accomplished teacher.  

 Sandy Gordon, kindergarten teacher, Hudson, Ohio

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