My Awesome Summer by P. Mantis is one of my latest book purchases. It is a great combination of story and factual information regarding the Praying Mantis and his life cycle. It is a perfect addition to a classroom study of insects or for a child who simply loves them. Little ones will think it's both gross and funny that P. Mantis "eats his brothers and sisters" and the simple text makes it easy for young children to follow.
The front and back cover contain all kinds of great facts about the Praying Mantis. They are written in small blurbs, so you can share them one at a time and over a period of time. The book uses a diary-like format similar to that of Diary of a Worm. The story also follows along through the seasons, so it's great for a lesson on seasons and for changes.
A couple of weeks ago I joined Jan Burkins for a preview of the new Who's Doing the Work? Lesson Sets. While I love the lesson plans in the set that is a post for another time. What I really liked about the lessons were the literature connections. Jan read one of the books from the shared reading lessons and I fell in love with it.
Bat has to find a new home, but that is easier said than done. Fox wants to eat him and Skunk thinks he stinks. Bat finally finds the perfect home where he can hang from a twig and sleep all day. However, it just so happens that the cozy home Bat finds belongs to Squirrel and he is not happy that Bat has moved in. Squirrel and Bat go through the days and nights never seeing one another since one sleeps during the daytime and the other at night. Each day Squirrel leaves Bat a note trying to get him to leave his house, but no matter how many notes Squirrel writes, Bat just keeps coming back! Check out Good Night, Bat! Good Morning, Squirrel! to find out if daytime and nighttime animals can become friends.
You can learn more about the author and the other books he's written and illustrated from his website. His books See Me Dig and See Me Run are great texts for shared reading. They are made up of easy to read repetitive text that tells a funny story with great picture support. The story and pictures provide students with an easy-to-read book that allows for lots of great questioning and discussion.
I started reading a new book last week and felt like a "Super Nerd" as I excitedly told my husband I was reading this "really great" book about phonics. I have read a lot about phonological awareness and phonics over the years and always believed they both play an important role in learning to read. A Fresh Look at Phonics is different than other books I've read though.
Rather than just tell you about phonics, why you should do it, and the phonics activities you should use, it delves into the key ingredients for success and most importantly the 10 common causes phonics instruction fails. It provides research and background to support suggested phonics practices, it addresses common instructional pitfalls (which I learned I was guilty of), and it offers clear next steps.
There are a few ah-ha's that stuck out to me from the first chapter.
1. We over emphasize rhyme. Instead of spending so much time looking for rhyming words, naming words that rhyme, and playing rhyme games we should consider spending more time on the "power skills" of oral blending and oral segmentation, which have a greater reading and writing pay off.
The ah-ha... Rhyme and alliteration activities abound and children's books are full of both making reading aloud lots of fun, but the instructional benefit of working with rhymes is not as great as spending the bulk of your instructional time working with words as the phoneme level.
2. Typically, there is an emphasis on separating phonemic awareness from phonics. We often hear the following: "you do phonemic awareness activities in the dark because you only need to be able to hear" and "you need the lights on for phonics activities, so that you can see the print."
When in fact, research suggests that when students being learning letter sounds, slowing integrating them into phonemic awareness tasks is helpful. For example: follow up a oral segmentation activity using sound boxes and counters by having students place letter cards or write the letters in each box to connect the sound to the spelling.
The ah-ha... we are missing the opportunity to increase learning when we don't gradually include letters into phonemic awareness activities as students advance through the skills.
3. There is a lack of support during phonemic awareness activities. Supports and scaffolds should be added to phonemic awareness exercises, then slowly removed to assess student growth.
The ah-ha... Hand signals for stretching sounds, manipulatives, and support aids such as sounds boxes and picture cards should be added to phonemic awareness activities in order to concretize the activity and support remembrance of sounds.
4. We lack accuracy in testing alphabet knowledge for both accuracy and speed. This causes teachers to miss valuable opportunities to adjust their instruction and be responsive to the diverse needs of their students.
The ah-ha... Teachers should monitor student growth in recognizing letters and their sounds over an extended period of time to ensure mastery. Teachers should determine whether or not students can name the letter and sound (accuracy) as well as whether or not they can do so automatically (speed). Both scores provide separate information that informs instruction. There is a difference between the student who can name 20 letters accurately in 20 seconds and another who names all 20 accurately in two minutes.
5. Our language of instruction is confusing language or lacks specificity. For example: mat and sat rhyme because they both end in /at/ not because "they end in the same sound." Saying it is because they end in the same sound implies that it is because they both end with the /t/ sound.
The ah-ha... To avoid confusion, carefully consider the language and explanations you use.
Bunny's Book Club is my new favorite picture book. So much so that my teenage kids and I curled up on the couch together for a family read-aloud and then I hosted a work teammate read-aloud amidst our cubicles and desks.
Bunny falls in love with books while listening to the librarian host outdoor story time all summer long, but when the weather turns cold and story time is moved inside Bunny grows desperate to get his hands on some books. Soon Bunny finds a way into the library and over time turns all of his woodland friends into book lovers too. Learn more about the story's plot and check out other pages from the book here.
My Favorite Page
I love the way Bunny has to squeeze Bear through the library's book drop.
To learn more about Annie Silvestro and to build the concept of authorship with your students click here to check out the her website. The site also has a contact form to request author or Skype visits for your students.
I am super excited because I learned from the site that the sequel, Bunny's Book Club Goes to School, will be released in the summer of 2019!
Lately, I've been thinking about the ways we scaffold for students during guided reading lessons. Over the weekend I attended the TCTELA conference in Galveston and had the privilege of listening to Jan Burkins present a session (author of Reading Wellness and Who's Doing the Work?). A few ideas that Jan shared coupled with what I've observed in district classrooms got me thinking more deeply about the way we introduce a book at the beginning of a guided reading lesson.
I visit classrooms throughout my district every Thursday and week after week I see teachers using up large portions of their guided reading time on book introductions and picture walks.
Your introduction should be "brief and lean" (Fountas & Pinnell, 2006). There is no need to spend time talking about what students already know. An effective introduction prepares readers for the language they will come across in the book while giving them a sense of the plot or theme of the story (Fisher, Frey, & Hattie, 2017). In a sense, you are providing them with a type of "road map" to the text (Fountas & Pinnell, 2017).
The introduction is not meant to take problem solving away from the reader. An effective introduction should leave work to be done. You want to provide only enough support to enable students to take on a more complex text than they can read on their own. By providing them opportunities to engage in problem solving in the text, they are building their reading processing powers (Fountas & Pinnell, 2006, 2017).
When using books with illustrations, the introduction oftentimes is a picture walk. Similar to a text introduction, the intent of a picture walk is not to tell students everything that will happen in the story. Instead it should prepare them for the language they will come across in the book while giving them a sense of the plot or theme of the story. Also, it is not a pop quiz. Avoid using the introduction to belabor students with questions about the book and its illustrations (Fisher, Frey, & Hattie, 2017).
In their book, Who's Doing the Work?, Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris provide an alternative idea to planning for an elaborate introduction. They suggest letting students decide which strategies to try in order to familiarize themselves with the text. In their next generation version of guided reading they encourage teachers to do less (tell) and facilitate more. Prompts are mostly general and teaching points are reflective rather than directive.
The following is an example of an introduction from the book, Who's Doing the Work?: TEACHER DOING THE WORK
"This book is about a dog and a cat who go on an adventure in a big city."
TEACHER FACILITATING THE WORK
"How will you figure out what this books is about?" or "What should we do first to get started in this book?"
When we give students all the information they need and always prompt them by telling them what strategy to use and/or exactly what to do, then we are robbing them of the ability to problem solve as a reader. This is not to say that you should never give a student information or help them out. Create anchor charts with students during read-alouds and shared reading that will help jump start their thinking during guided reading.
So... as you get ready for your next guided reading lesson consider how much time you are spending on the introduction and how much information you are giving your students. Also, ask yourself "Am I asking questions that tell my students what to do or am I prompting them to think about the text and make a decision on their own?"
I recently completed a 6-week online course that gave me a new and updated perspective on shared reading.
Here are a few of the important points I took away from the study:
1) Read-aloud, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading share equal roles and hold equal importance in the teaching context because they offer students experiences with different levels of text. When you leave one context out, then students miss out on the experience at that particular level. This does not just apply to kindergarten. It matters for upper grades too.
2) Shared reading acts as a bridge between read-aloud and guided reading. It serves as a scaffold for the students as they work out the process of reading for themselves.
3) Moving from read-aloud (the model) to guided reading with little to no shared reading creates too big of a jump to the next reading level because students lack exposure to texts they are growing.
4) A new generation of shared reading exists. Rather than simply reading a big book together in a singsong fashion the teacher stops at strategic points to draw students into conversation, to assist students in working through tricky parts, to reflect with them on strategies used, and to discuss how they figured out challenging words.
5) Shared reading can prime students for guided reading. It can be used to present upcoming vocabulary and text features for guided reading lessons. It can also save small group instruction time by building background knowledge for upcoming guided reading lessons.
Shared reading is an instructional context that helps you get the most "bang for your buck." It tends to be eliminated from the curriculum too early and is far to underused in classrooms.
I recently came across a great book on running records, so this post is for all of you are new to running records, who only administer them 2-3 times a year, and/or those who are struggling with some aspect of them.
I love this book on running records for several reasons:
1) It is short. It only has 32 pages.
2) It is easy to understand. It really simplifies the process.
3) It is chunked into easy to use chapters and sections
4) It provides concrete examples and templates.
I will summarize a few of the most important points in this post, but I highly recommend the book as a resource to refer back to for scoring and analyzing the running records you administer.
Why Use a Running Record
Some teachers believe children's progress in learning to read is best measured by testing the number of letters, or sounds, or words they know. If a Running Record is taken in a systematic way it will provide evidence of how well a child is directing his knowledge of letters, sounds, and words to understanding the messages in the text. So... if you teach kindergarten and think a running record can't help you, you may want to think again about it.
Running Records are taken to guide teaching, to assess text difficulty, and to capture progress over time. Running Records are an important part of assessing a child's text reading. They show much more than whether a child read a word right or wrong.
Taking a Running Record
Teachers who practice with a wide variety of children and are at ease with administering Running Records will get the most informative records and will make the fairest interpretations of the data. Some teachers only administer running records 2-3 times a year or not at all. Correctly administering a Running Record will show everything other reading inventories show as well as what the reader already knows, what the reader attended to, and what the reader overlooked.
Teachers should practice administering a Running Record until it is easy.
At first, simply record easy-to-notice behaviors.
In the beginning, taking a Running Record will require your whole attention without interruptions. We all know that the things we practice are the things we get better at. So... practice!!In the beginning, set yourself up for success by freeing yourself of interruptions, carefully choosing the students you assess, and recording only the easy-to-notice behaviors. With practice and time you will become more skilled in record taking and able to focus despite the child's level, the text chosen, or the interruptions around the room.
Begin by practicing on a range of average readers. Avoid practicing on higher or lower readers until you become more skilled at administration. Good readers go to fast and struggling readers produce extremely complex records. Choose the students you start with wisely. Then practice with them!
Any texts can be used for administering Running Records. You don't have to do a Running Record only on pieces you have a pre-printed text for. Start with a familiar text that the child has read once or twice. An easy level book also makes it easy for teachers to record as they practice their recording techniques.
Teachers may also want to use a more challenging text to see if a child can read at a higher level than they anticipated. If the challenge is too great, the record will not show where the reading process comes together, but rather where it falls apart. Many teachers think that running records should always be administered using a "cold read," but when getting started, a familiar read will make it easier for you to record the child's reading behaviors.
When used in relation to Running Records the terms easy, instructional, and hard do not describe the characteristics of the text itself. They describe how the child read the text. They do not address how another child will read the same text.
Taking Running Records at three levels of text difficulty is a more reliable way to establish the instructional level of text that should be used with the student.
- easy text (95-100% correct)
- an instructional text (90-94% correct)
- hard text (80-89% correct) This type of careful approach allows the teacher to use the record to make important educational decisions such as moving children to different groups, observing children with particular difficulties, selecting children for special supplementary assistance, etc.
Printed Text
Oftentimes, a printed text does not allow a teacher to record all of a child's reading behaviors. A Running Record needs to capture all of the behaviors that will help a teacher determine what a child is doing. A Running Record is not just about right or wrong words. When reading a Running Record, a teacher should be able to "hear the reading again" when reviewing the record. Limiting yourself to a few select pre-printed texts will provide less usable information. Pre-printed text encourages teachers to attend only to right and wrong responses, and to ignore how the child is arriving at their decisions. This was an "ah-ha" for me. I never really thought about the benefit of using a blank sheet of paper for a running record before I read this book.
Tape recording is discouraged because it does not record visual information such as how the child moved, seemed puzzled, peered at the print or looked across the room or at the ceiling.
Assessment and Comprehension
Comprehension is dependent upon the difficulty of the text. Assessing comprehension on a text that is too easy or too hard does not make a lot of sense. The answers to comprehension questions depend more upon the difficulty of the question posed rather than on the child's reading. So true!! Are we asking the right questions??
Different teachers ask different questions, thus weakening the assessment. This makes complete sense and may be why Running Records you are taking on your own students do not seem to match exactly with a teammate's Records.
Try having a conversation with the child about the story after you take the running record. A good conversation will add to the teacher's understanding of the reader.
This Guided Reading video series takes place in a fifth grade classroom, but can easily be adapted to younger grades. It is a 5 part series. This video came from The Teaching Channel, so it is higher quality and a good model to watch. The management video is my favorite one.
These videos are nice examples of administering and analyzing Running Records
This video is almost 20 minutes long. It is most helpful if you break it into chunks and actually analyze the record for youself as she works through it.
The Running Records book is very helpful when watching the anaylsis video. The section on how to record what you see and how to score errors makes a great "cheat sheet" when scoring.
Something to think about...
- How skilled are you at administering a Running Record? Do you practice?
- Do you only use pre-printed Running Record sheets? If so, practice scoring without the text.
- Do you only pay attention to right and wrong words read by the student? Are you using the Running Record to learn all that you can about a child's reading behaviors?
- Are you using standard procedures and taking and scoring records properly? If you want to be able to compare Running Records to each other and over time then you need to be using a common standard for taking records.
