Book Talks

By Evan Robb Posted on April 22, 2016 1 Comment

Laura Robb

There is great advertising power in book talks. When you invite students to choose an independent reading book to talk about each month, you improve students’ listening capacity and introduce them to myriad books and magazines. A class of 25 students that presents book talks for ten months introduces one other to 250 books. Yes, it’s a powerful way for students to motivate and engage one another as readers. Each month, reserve about 30 minutes of two or three consecutive class periods for books talks.

Books talks should take no more than two to three minutes and should focus on high-level thinking, not retelling. It’s important for you to model how you plan, take notes for, and practice presenting books talks so you build students’ mental model of the process. In my book Differentiating Reading Instruction, you’ll find an entire section on book talks in the classroom. If you have the binder (Teaching Reading: A Differentiated Approach), you’ll find guidelines for book talking in the section that discusses classroom libraries.

You shouldn’t have students complete a project for each book; this discourages and punishes your best readers. However, book talking is short, beneficial to the entire class, and develops students’ public speaking skills and self-confidence.

10 Motivators to Promote Learning

By Evan Robb Posted on April 6, 2016 No Comments

By Laura Robb, Blog from Middleweb, March 2016

The Big Ten Student Motivators

Providing choice in independent reading, writing topics, and projects makes students feel invested in tasks and develops their responsibility and independence in learning.
Collaborating to learn invites students to work in pairs and small groups, share ideas, value diverse thinking, and become active listeners who respect one another’s thinking. Collaboration enables students to develop open-ended discussion questions, plan and execute projects, study for tests, evaluate websites and other sources, have literary conversations, and pool research. And, of course, collaboration invites play.
Integrating meaningful talk makes learning social for a communicating generation in which FaceTime, Twitter, and texting are commonplace. Meaningful talk can happen with partners, small groups and the whole class. During student-led talk, teachers become facilitators who enter a discussion to periodically summarize points or jump-start a stalled conversation by posing a question.
Problem solving asks students to be generative thinkers, coming up with a variety of possible solutions to school and community problems and problems related to topics they’re studying. For example, a fifth grade unit on friendship transforms into problem solving when students self-select and read a variety of texts and then collaborate in small group to compose a pamphlet on what makes friendships work and what derails them. Moreover, choice enables students to select materials from which they know they can learn.
Inquiry learning invites students to ask the questions they’ll discuss and/or research for a topic, project, or unit of study. Inquiry learning is social because it requires students to collaborate and support one another. By sharing ideas, they learn to value the diverse thinking of peers. During an inquiry study, students gain control over their learning, develop opinions on topics, and gain a fluency and flexibility in analytical thinking.
Encouraging risk taking creates an environment in which students feel comfortable making mistakes and even failing. Students who can take risks without fear of criticism from their teacher and peers can become better problem solvers and creative thinkers. In a comfortable and safe space, they can learn from their mistakes.
Unlocking creativity occurs when students are put into a situation in which they can think about and create ideas in their own unique ways. Students who think creatively have multiple ways to solve a problem, or interpret a story, painting, or movie. At school student-centered approaches to learning such as collaboration, inquiry, and student-led discussions encourage creative and innovative thinking.
Developing empathy means that students can step into the shoes of others, understand life as they do, empathize with their problems, and share their joys. Social interactions, collaborations, and reading about and watching videos and movies about other cultures and ways of life other than their own develop and expand students’ ability to empathize. In a student-centered, culturally diverse classroom, empathy leads to understanding, respecting cultural differences, and developing social responsibility.
Teacher-student negotiating fosters independence in learning as students and teachers become co-decision makers for setting deadline dates and suggesting projects, test formats, test questions, and the amount of assigned homework.
Going out for recess, enjoying time to play outside, recharges elementary and middle school students’ learning batteries so they can concentrate. Yet many elementary and middle schools have reduced or eliminated recess in favor of more time for reading, writing, and math. In addition, five-minute brain breaks should occur after students have focused deeply for thirty minutes. Students can stretch, move around, chat with friends, and use their renewed energy to concentrate again.

Some playful closing thoughts

The Big 10 Student Motivators are skills for the 21st century and beyond—skills valued and used by government agencies, corporations, universities, small businesses, and school districts that depend on members to know how to collaborate as they solve problems, develop policy, generate an abundance of ideas, and respond to issues and events.

Learning begins with play. If students of today are to become the innovators and problem solvers of tomorrow, then schools need to respond to the call of play in all grades.

Learning Soul Mates

By Evan Robb Posted on April 3, 2016 No Comments

Vocabulary and Comprehension

By Laura Robb

Vocabulary and comprehension are soul mates! They go together like cheese and crackers, bread and jam, friendship and trust.

The more words students have the better they can read and comprehend. With a wealth of words, students can write and be creative and innovative problem solvers.

We’ve all had students who can read words fluently in a grade level text. The rub is that these students can’t make meaning with that text. Referred to as word callers, they struggle to learn from grade level texts as much as students reading two or more years below grade level.

Whether readers are proficient or advanced, word callers or below grade level readers, we teachers need to improve their reading skill. One surefire way to do this is with consistent vocabulary instruction. Make instruction meaningful and playful! So set aside ten to fifteen minutes a day and watch vocabulary and comprehension improve.

When I ask a middle grade or middle school student, “How can I help you be a better reader?” The answer pours out like lemonade flowing from a pitcher into a glass: “Give me words!”

Kids know the score; they know what they need. To help students read and learn from complex texts, explore the five strategies that follow. Use them with fiction and nonfiction. Start every class with a read loud! Then dive deeply into your vocabulary lesson.

Strategy 1: The Teacher Reads, Reads, Reads!

Read aloud every day. Never miss a day! Touch students’ hearts by reading texts you love! And all the while, you’re building students’ vocabulary and knowledge of literary language!

Strategy 2: Denotative and Connotative Meanings

Zoom in on a key word in a book’s title, in a poem, or in a book. Pair-up students. Have them determine the denotative and connotative meanings. Connotations can provide discussion points and links to central themes and ideas. Here’s the list of connotations generated by sixth graders for the word “Quest” in Katherine Paterson’s Park’s Quest: tasks, journey, danger, battles, inner struggles, goal, destination, undertaking, explore, chase. Ease your teaching load! With a list like this, you don’t need to ask questions. Instead, students discuss how a word connects to the story.

Strategy 3: Figurative Language and Comprehension

Move beyond students memorizing definitions of simile, metaphor, personification, etc. Have them use figurative language to visualize. If students can create a mental image, it’s a sure bet that they comprehend. Help them dig deeper by connecting the figurative language to a theme or main idea. For example, in The Great Fire, author Jim Murphy writes that the day the fire started, “55 miles of pine block streets and 600 miles of wooden sidewalks bound the 23,000 acres of city in a highly combustible knot.” Students connected the knot metaphor to a big idea: in 1871 Chicago was a death trap for people. Wooden homes, buildings, sidewalks, streets meant fire engines couldn’t get into neighborhoods and people couldn’t escape.

Strategy 4: Generate and Discuss Sets of Synonyms

Instead of teaching one word, help students create sets of words. By discussing a word-set, negative and positive meanings surface. Choose key words from texts students are reading. For bold, seventh graders offered: assertive, brave, risk-taker, fearless, daring, bossy, bully. Note gradations of meaning, especially from assertive to bossy and bully.

Strategy 5: Independent Reading With Self-Selected Books

Choice can engage students. They invest in choosing a genre they’re bonded to and in reading books by a beloved author or about a topic they love!

Help students select books they can read—1oo% comprehension and about 95% accuracy. Let them experience the pleasure of time stopping as they lose themselves in a book!

Build your class library! Access to books is key! Encourage students to read at least 40 self-selected books a year. And watch students’ vocabulary and prior knowledge grow.

These five strategies are a beginning! Take the time to read and reflect on my Corwin book, Vocabulary Is Comprehension: Getting to the Root of Complex Texts. You’ll find lessons to carry you through a year of word-love!