"There's nothing to do in there..."

Recently, a colleague shared with me that one of my students commented as he was leaving her room, "I don't want to go to Ms. Darcy's class today.  There's nothing to DO in there..."  At first, it stung a little, because student motivation is a top goal of mine this year.  However, it forced me to continue to reflect on the conditions that make students feel that way and what we can do about it.

In Reading Don't Fix No Chevys, Jeffrey Wilhelm (our KGCS keynote speaker this year) and Michael Smith present what they learned from countless interviews with students about their perceptions of reading.  They found that much of what we ask students to do in reading class lacks the conditions that motivate learners.  In the minds of students, especially readers who have been unsuccessful in school, in-school reading assignments lack any authentic goal or purpose.  Dr. Wilhelm summarizes key ideas for creating flow in our classrooms in the article, Inquiring Minds Learn to Read, Write, and Think.

It is important to remember that disconnected readers are not making meaning.  This is a central comprehension problem for many of our readers that no amount of test preparation will fix.  In fact, excessive test preparation works against intrinsic motivation by communicating to students that the main purpose of reading anything is to prepare to answer questions.  

To promote reading as an engaging tool for purposeful action, I plan a FUNctional Text Friday activity for students every week.  Students work in partners to read, think, and do something interesting.  I try to intervene as little as possible because I want to communicate that they are the agents of action who can use reading and thinking to create things and complete interesting tasks.

This video is a snapshot of our most recent FUN Friday activity.  Before the activity this week, I decided to really make sure that my learning target was clear, so I reminded students that their job was to practice reading, thinking, and doing.  One student raised his hand and said in all seriousness, "Wait, so what you're saying is that Fun Fridays aren't for having fun?!?"  I guess I have more work to do in promoting the mindset that reading and learning and thinking do not have to be separate from action and fun!

I will be placing some of our FUNctional Text Friday activities on a page in the menu to the right.

"the one in the yellow sweater..."

Our class just wrapped up the first Comprehension Focus from the pacing guide-- Questioning.  In exploring the many aspects of questioning with my students, I learned something important about their text comprehension.

One of my research goals for working with students this year is to study comprehension.  Our primary literacy instruction across the division is very successful as measured by PALS.  However, the percentage of students who leave second grade with adequate word reading in and out of context is in the 90s, but our SOL pass rate for third graders is most often in the 70s.  Why is there such a gap between our students' fluency and their text comprehension?

In the first weeks of school, I approached questioning by establishing habits of noticing and wondering.  In classroom activities, I began to observe that many students only felt comfortable noticing things in the pictures.  When they did notice something from the author's words, it was often random details instead of the most important ideas in the text.  As a result, I have been very mindful to model (1) noticing from the words and (2) noticing what's important to lay the foundation for more advanced work in text.

This reliance on the pictures also became apparent in the weeks that followed in a Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) lesson related to the basal story, The Trial of Cardigan Jones.  We had already read and discussed the story.  On a subsequent day, student pairs were given a QAR graphic organizer and slips of paper with story questions.  They had to write the answer to the each question and place the question on the graphic organizer to indicate the QAR.

One of the Think and Search questions asked, "Who saw Cardigan by the window?"  One student pair responded, "the one in the yellow sweater and the other one that looks like a cow" instead of the text-based answer- a neighbor and a milkman.

This strategy of answering questions and interacting with text using primarily the pictures is an emergent reader strategy.  Most students in my class can read text fluently at levels ranging from 2nd-4th grade.  So in essence, several are instructional level readers using emergent level comprehension strategies.  Many of these students appear to be disconnected from the meaning in the print that they are able to read quite proficiently.

It is easy to imagine how students with this strategy profile might struggle with the complexity of an SOL test.  It also explains why so many of them are reluctant and bored and disconnected when reading early chapter books that have few pictures.  I am challenged to help them increase the maturity of their comprehension strategies to match their fluency levels.

Note:  Resources for teaching questioning and the lesson materials are available on the Questioning page in the right margin of the blog.

"That's a great idea... but how will I ever find the time for it?"

I've listened to this refrain over and over in face-to-face and online professional development with teachers. While I never questioned that teachers are legitimately pressed for time with full days and increasing demands, I appreciate it more than ever now that I am deciding how to spend my own reading block.

Each week since school started, I have adjusted and readjusted my schedule to accommodate screenings, literacy testing, the limitations of student independence at this point, and all of my curriculum goals.  And each week I have felt disappointed when the equation just didn't balance.  There really isn't time for everything I want students to experience in my classroom.

Having more goals and ideas than time is not necessarily a negative thing.  It certainly challenges us to clarify our vision.  Whole group or small group?  Picture books or the basal story?  Guided reading groups or individual conferences?  Reading or writing?  Word study or vocabulary?  Teach to the curriculum guide or pull whatever I find ready-made from the basal?  All of it seems to have a place... so how do we choose?

I believe the first step is to shift our focus to the students.  We can get so caught up in deciding how WE are going to spend our instructional minutes, that we can forget to consider how STUDENTS are spending those same minutes.  This is much easier to do as an observer than as the instructor.  Using one of my favorite articles as a guide (Every Child, Every Day), I try to have students engaged in as much authentic reading, writing, and talking as possible in those precious minutes.

Some traditional practices, such as correcting sentences that students didn't write or completing worksheet test prep activities, are obvious minutes lost to real literacy work.  Other times, minutes are lost when we fall short of the conferencing and monitoring and feedback that students need to truly engage in the literacy practice that we schedule.  I was shocked this week when I started doing my first round of writing conferences.  All of the time I had dedicated to writing workshop over the last four weeks had resulted in very little writing for some students.  My plans, and how students actually spent those precious minutes, did not match up.

It is important to trace your reading block from the perspective of a student, especially that student who might need the most reading and writing practice to develop grade level skills.  Is that child getting the research-supported literacy experiences that have the greatest likelihood of impacting them positively?  For me, the honest answer to that question ("not always...") keeps sending me back to the drawing board in preparation for Monday morning.

Setting Goals and Keeping Track

I am committed to insuring that my third-graders will read A LOT of books this year.  We spent the first couple of weeks practicing the behaviors of reading workshop that would support productive reading time.  Daily, we talk about literacy habits that help us get "in the zone" (from Nancie Atwell's book In the Reading Zone).

I went around and around in my mind about how to keep track of what students read this year.  I wanted a way to document and celebrate our wide reading, without falling into some of the traps that I read about recently in an insightful post on Donalyn Miller's blog.  I eventually came up with the idea of using Google Forms to record the books that students read this year.

The day I launched the form, it was a discouraging mess!  Students were clamoring and arguing to get to the computer, asking questions like "Is Green Eggs and Ham fiction or nonfiction?" and standing in line to record their books instead of actually reading.  I almost gave it up as a crazy idea, but after giving myself a little pep talk about my vision, I decided to give it a chance.  With a little more guidance and practice, students are using the form independently in the way that I originally imagined.

A copy of the form is linked below with student names removed.  It is very simple... students select their names from a drop down menu, record their book, indicate whether it is fiction or nonfiction, and give it a rating.

From an academic standpoint, students practice using capital letters in names and book titles, and they have an authentic forum to explore the difference between fiction and nonfiction.  I can always modify the form for a more precise recording of genre later on.

From a motivation standpoint, students feel very accomplished and mature using technology to record their books.  The process allows them to mark their achievement without a cumbersome summary or other "product."  They are developing intrinsic motivation and agency by finishing books and taking a minute to pat themselves on the back.

Finally, the data gives me an important record documenting the reading lives of each student that will help me conference with students and parents.  (And I don't have to lift a finger to collect it... :)

Although I have not attached a number of books to this reading challenge, one student remarked that he thought we could read 1000 books this year (as if that were the highest number in all of math!).  Now we have a community reading goal that I am sure we can accomplish.  Using the form, I can easily update our running total of books daily.

Check out the form at the link below.  Happy reading!
I Finished a Book! Form

An amazing baseball coach (and "teacher") that my son works with says that winning teams often have a unifying slogan to represent their identity as a team.  They have things they always say to each other to remind them of their common goal.

To that end, our classroom theme is Darcy Detectives.  Last week, I filmed a set of clips to remind us what the Darcy Detectives are all about.  These habits will serve students well as readers and writers.  I can't wait to show them our video!

As I was reflecting on these habits, I realized that I should also be striving to be a detective-- investigating my work and how students respond to instruction.  However, in the bustle of getting through a reading block, that is far easier said than done.  I understand more clearly now why an observer can be better positioned to do detective work than the teacher, who is busy doing the instructional work. It is really challenging to be the "do-er" and the "watcher" at the same time.

Challenge yourself by inviting someone in to be the detective in your classroom.  We are blessed to have administrators and specialists who would jump to help you solve a problem.  These supporters could also arrange opportunities for another teacher to observe in your classroom with a specific goal in mind.

Detectives work together to figure things out!

After much inactivity, I plan to use this blog to reflect and share my experiences teaching third grade reading in 2016-2017.  I will still retain all of my Division Reading Specialist responsibilities, while working daily to create a demonstration classroom that strives toward student agency and achievement.

I teach in classrooms frequently as part of my job, but it was an entirely different experience to look into the faces of children whose reading outcomes I would own- for better or worse- at the end of the year.  I naturally felt overwhelmed figuring out where to start.  Starting the year with high hopes and more ideas than we can fit into a reading block is energizing.

What I've observed in too many cases, however, is that we often start the year by feeding our worst fears. Teachers scramble around to their students' former teachers trying to get the skinny on who is a troublemaker, who talks all the time, who is a helper, and who is a darling.  And most importantly who is LOW and who is HIGH.

Because my class was strategically arranged, I also "knew" a lot about my students before school started.  In my position, I've seen their data profiles across multiple years.  Most were children I knew on paper and from a few model lessons over years.  But I learned this week that I didn't know as much as I thought I did.

In the interest of building relationships from the start, I pieced together ideas from several places to create an interest interview.  My colleague Jen Brobjorg is using a similar tool with middle school students in her quest to match them with engaging books right away.

While my class was training toward independent reading and writing this week, I was able to conduct several one-on-one interviews with students, and these interviews allowed me to see my students beyond the numbers on the data spreadsheet.  One student loves to watch the news, and he cracked a joke in class about Donald Trump's wall that made me laugh out loud.  One of my quietest girls likes scary books and intense video games.  (I would have had her pegged for fairy literature.)  Another student listens to the same metal music that my son does, and another likes to design fashion with her mom.  These interviews are already teaching me how I might use student strengths and interests to build reading and writing proficiency.

Be willing to be surprised by your students and be open to learning who they are as people.  We can fight the anxiety that the numbers create by learning who these little people are beyond just LOW or HIGH.  Have a great year!

This presentation originally appeared on Mrs. James' TEI blog at www.teitemplates.blogspot.com.  Activities that present TEI graphics will prepare students for the rigor of the upcoming reading SOL test.  This presentation illustrates how the "notes" graphic was used in a 3rd grade small group lesson.