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Using Share Time to Inspire and Instruct Writers

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00December 6th, 2018|General, General Education, Latest News, Teaching|

by Leah Mermelstein

Recently, I was speaking with a group of fourth-grade teachers who use The Teachers College Writing Units of Study. They had just taught a minilesson about using ‘boxes and bullets’ as a planning tool. Not surprisingly, some students had success with the lesson, while others struggled. It seemed natural for us to brainstorm possible follow up minilessons, but after a few minutes, we wondered aloud if we could better address this issue with a few well thought out share sessions. We came up with a few open-ended questions and over the next few days, the teachers used those questions to jump-start conversations with their students. The teachers were amazed by the kids’ conversations during the share sessions. They saw firsthand how conversations deepened the students’ understanding of ‘boxes and bullets’ and untangled some of their confusions about planning in general. Not only that but by listening in to these conversations, the teachers got some great ideas for future lessons. Share sessions, when done thoughtfully are as instructional (if not more so) than minilessons or conferences. The question then is: How can we ensure that the shares that we do in our classroom are instructional and engaging for everyone?

Shares as Conversations:
In my book, Don’t Forget to Share, I talk about how share sessions in the writing workshop are most useful when teachers structure them, not as a second minilesson, but as a time for kids to have instructional conversations with one another. When I’m conducting share sessions as conversations, I begin by telling the kids the topic of the conversation. Then, kids talk to one another in partnerships and finally, they talk together as a group. In my book, I outlined four different types of share conversations (Content, Craft, Process, and Progress). Over time, I have layered new thinking onto each of these shares, and have had fun developing some new share session ideas as well.

Ultimately, the kinds of shares you can do with your kids are endless. Here are my current five favorite share session conversations. If you’ve read my book, you’ll recognize many of them, but you’ll see some new ones to try out as well.

Content: This type of share starts with a student sharing either her entire piece or a part of her piece. The class retells the piece to make sure they understand it. Finally, they ask questions about the parts that confused them and/or the parts they want to know more about. Based on these questions, the student will decide what revisions she’ll make (if any).  Just recently, I did a content share in a kindergarten class. The little girl wrote a story about having a play date with her friend.  She and her friend were playing under the table. On the last page, she wrote that she was sad. After the class retold her piece they asked questions: Why were you under the table?  Why were you sad?   She explained that they were playing family under the table and that she was sad because her mother came early and she didn’t want to go home.  Ultimately, she revised her story by explaining why she was sad.

Craft: This type of share starts with one child sharing the craft technique he/she tried. The craft might be directly connected to what was taught in the minilesson or it might be something that popped up during a conference. The other kids come to the share with their current writing piece, a pencil, and/or a post-it note. After the child shares, the other kids reread their writing checking to see if the craft technique would work for them. If it does, they make some sort of notation to remind themselves of what they want to try. Finally, they share their findings with one another.

Minilesson: This share starts with a question that is related to the minilesson.  The kids talk about the question as a way to clarify their ideas and deepen their understanding of what was taught. Recently, I conducted a minilesson helping students organize their table of contents in their non-fiction books. After the lesson, many kids were still confused and unable to make substantial changes. During the share, I asked the following questions: What kinds of changes could a writer make to their table of contents? How would those changes help? Because they were talking as a way of thinking, they struggled at times to find the right words but the talk itself brought to a new level of understanding.

Process: During a process share, the teacher poses a question that gets kids to reflect upon some part of the writing process (How does rereading help you?  What kinds of planning can you do in your Writer’s Notebook? How does that planning help you with drafting?  How have you grown in this unit? What can you do now that you couldn’t do in the beginning of the year? How can you take what you learned in this study to the next study?) The kids talk about the question as a way to deepen their understanding of that part of the process, as well as to help themselves transfer their learning into ongoing work.

Spelling: In a spelling conversation, the teacher finds a student who has spelled a word incorrectly and uses that word to provide spelling instruction for all students. The teacher first shares what the student did well and then shows the class the spelling rule or pattern that this word follows. Finally, the kids talk to one another, trying to generate other words that follow the same rule or pattern.  Recently, a student I worked with had spelled ‘played’ as ‘plad.’  First, I pointed out to the class how the child listened closely to the beginning sound of played. Then, I showed the kids how in this word, the long ‘a’ was represented by ‘ay’. Then, the kids talked to one another, brainstorming other words where the long ‘a’ was represented by ‘ay’.

Leah, a student I had the pleasure of working with, called share conversations the ‘bits and pieces’ of all of us.  I love that description and hope that if you conduct your share conversations, you will be able to use the bits and pieces of all of your students to help everyone become more engaged and skillful writers.

Leah Mermelstein is a literacy consultant who works with teachers, literacy coaches, and principals. She is also the author of four books on the teaching of writing and is thrilled to be a presenter at the 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference. Hear more about how talk can instruct and inspire writers at her session titled, Conversations That Inspire and Instruct Student Writers.  You can find here at @MermelsteinLeah or www.leahmermelstein.com.

Teaching and Cheerleading

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00October 30th, 2018|Classroom Teaching, General Education, Reading Recovery Teaching, Reflections and Commentary, Teaching|

by Johnny Downey

A month or so ago, I was racking my brain, over and over again to try and find a topic to explore for the wonderful opportunity to guest author on the RRCNA blog. This week, a great idea swept over me. I brainstormed some things I was passionate about, first jokingly, but after looking at my list I realized two of my great passions are great topics to blend into advice.

Some of you who know me know I am a teacher by day, cheerleading coach by evening. I am getting ready to begin years 11 and 15. It seems not nearly as long!  As I’ve illustrated below, there are many things teachers and cheerleaders have in common.

 

GREAT Teachers GREAT Cheerleaders
-On stage at ALL times

-Celebrate EVERY success even when you’re “losing”

-Encourage students to get excited about learning

-Adapt to many environments to meet needs of all students

 -On stage at ALL times

-Celebrate EVERY point, even when we’re losing.

-Encourage others to get excited about the event

-Adapt to many environments, rain, snow, wind, flying balls, etc.

 

Two lessons every Reading Recovery teacher-in-training learns are: (1) use simple language and (2) celebrate/praise the partially-correct in teaching situations. To help early readers, a Reading Recovery teacher learns early on that language is important to every lesson. Having a simple language that is easy to take on provides a child with the tools to internalize the wanted behaviors of learning to read. In cheerleading, we must remember that fans do not know exactly what we want them to say. We need to keep our cheers and chants short and easy to repeat. We introduce phrases, ask for fans to yell with us, and repeat several times in order to get the whole stadium yelling together toward a common goal.

The common goal of learning to read is where our simple language falls in the classroom. If we simplify our language around the reading process, our students can begin to internalize. Take for example my favorite thing in every Reading Recovery beginning lesson, the self-correction. Self-correcting is noticing something is wrong and attempting to do something about it. If our language is quick and simple, “try that again,” “something didn’t look right, sound right, etc.” the student can begin to internalize these simple phrases and metacognitively think about his/her reading.

If our language is full of words, and drawn out, students won’t be able to pick up as quickly. For example, if a teacher said something like, “that wasn’t right,” or “right here you said ____ and this word sounds like ___ at the beginning. Make the ___ sound with your lips. Great! Now let’s make the next sound, and the next, and the next and now let’s put it together.” By this time, the student has totally forgotten about the page they’re reading, and the book! Simple is the way to go!

Celebration is the essence of positivity in the classroom. Reading Recovery teachers let some errors slide in order to build upon the strengths of their students. Cheerleaders will do the same thing. Think of a game where the home team is down by 14, the cheerleaders don’t give up and tell the team everything they are doing wrong (even though they might want to). They get pumped up and tell the team and the fans to keep going! They celebrate and stay positive. Teachers can do the same in their classrooms. There is no need to point out every little thing that is wrong and needs fixing. No one likes that, so why waste the time? Just like a big Friday night game – be the cheerleader for your students.

  • Celebrate when they first recognize they’ve made a mistake and they go back to try something.
  • Celebrate that they’ve noticed! (Worry about fixing it later.)
  • Celebrate when they first recognize the lowercase “b” or “d” correctly.
  • Celebrate when they’ve learned to write their name efficiently.
  • Celebrate if they simply do well on a running record.
  • Celebrate the partially correct, build their confidence, and you can’t go wrong!

Teachers and cheerleaders should remember to use simple language that can be picked up by the students and fans – something that can be the same and repeated when needed. They must also remain positive above all and celebrate even the partially-correct in all situations.

 

Johnny Downy is a Learning Design Specialist with the Forest Hills School in Cincinnati, Ohio.

 

Teaching as a Team Sport

2023-02-08T18:10:11-05:00September 4th, 2018|General, General Education, Reading Recovery Teaching, Reflections and Commentary, Teaching|

by Susan Vincent

This past summer, I watched the Tour de France bicycle race on TV, as I do every summer. I loved waking up every morning to the incredible scenic views of quaint French towns, the majestic Alps, and the spirited fans who lined the narrow streets to cheer on the bicyclists.

What I did not really understand for many years is that bicycling is a team sport. I always viewed cycling as an individual effort, because that’s the only way I’d ever experienced riding a bike. I’ve come to find out, however, these bicycle teams are actually intricate networks of support for the cyclists.

The cyclists group themselves in a clump called a peloton. The peloton helps cyclists ride more efficiently by cutting wind drag. The other riders “draft” for each other in turns, blocking the wind and making it easier to ride. The riders also have outside support. Supporters ride along in cars, handing off water and snacks, or changing flat tires. Communication is also a big part of success, I learned. Riders wear earpieces to get information about road conditions and to get advice about strategy.

Of course, no cyclist would get very far in the Tour de France alone. A network of support is absolutely necessary. It occurs to me that teaching is the same.

When Marie Clay, in all her genius, developed Reading Recovery, she made it a team sport. She established a required professional network for teachers. The network provides teachers “continuing contact” with each other (as we used to call professional learning meetings.) Groups of teachers meet regularly to watch each other teach and to learn with and from each other. Even during the “alone” times of teaching, at the first sign of stagnated learning, a colleague or teacher leader is at the ready to sit beside you, observe a lesson, teach your child, and problem solve with you. You are never really alone in Reading Recovery. You are in a peloton, sometimes drafting for your colleagues, sometimes being drafted by them. Your earpiece is always in place with your professional readings and colleagues to guide you. And of course, the children are always the winners when teachers operate in this kind of team.

My fondest professional wish is that this type of Reading Recovery learning network could grow even larger and more intricate.  Reading Recovery professionals have a wealth of knowledge that could support literacy teachers everywhere. The teaching peloton no longer needs to be bound by geography. We have tools today that didn’t exist in Reading Recovery’s early days. Thousands of teachers meet on Twitter and share educational ideas. Over 4 million posts per day are on education-related topics. Shouldn’t Reading Recovery be a major voice? I think so.

Perhaps Reading Recovery professionals can “draft” for the field of literacy professionals, who have been bombarded in recent years by all kinds of craziness, from NCLB to high stakes tests, to scripted programs. Teachers could use some expert literacy “drafting,” taking us in the right direction, helping us understand how children learn to read and write. If you are a Reading Recovery professional or if you support Reading Recovery, I think you can help the team.

If you haven’t joined Twitter, join. Check out Reading Recovery’s monthly chat by following the hashtag #rrchat. Participate and bring a friend.  If you are a teacher leader, spend some time getting your teachers signed up and encourage them to participate. If you are unsure and in new territory, all the better! You can learn together. There is help available through Reading Recovery.  Soon, Reading Recovery could be a very noticeable voice in a very public forum. It’s important because more children are waiting to be literacy winners! (Let’s wear some yellow jerseys!)

 

Susan Vincent is a faculty member in early childhood education at Miami University Regionals in Ohio. She taught Reading Recovery for 19 years as a teacher and teacher leader. Follow her on Twitter, @ssvincent. Susan will be a speaker at the 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference, February 9-12, in Columbus, OH. Her session is titled: “Accelerating Progress with ALL Readers Through Classroom Instruction”.

Why Revisiting Shared Reading Texts Matters for Emergent and Early Learners

2023-02-08T18:10:11-05:00August 22nd, 2018|Classroom Teaching, General Education, Teaching|

by Debra Crouch

“Ms. Candia, Ms. Candia, did you know there’s ‘and’ in Jack and Jill? Do you hear it, Ms. Candia? Jack ‘and’ Jill—do you hear it?”

This exciting outburst from Cameron, a student in Trish Candia’s kindergarten classroom, came one day during early Spring in the midst of independent literacy time. Cameron was in the “Big Books and Charts” area, revisiting a chart of the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill, a text that had been used in multiple Shared Reading experiences throughout the school year. His teacher, meanwhile, was working with a Guided Reading group while the rest of the students were involved in various reading and writing experiences around the classroom. Cameron excitedly interrupted the Guided Reading group to share his discovery and his teacher recognized this moment of learning was important. She invited Cameron to share his learning with the entire group at the table with her. Cameron’s learning also became part of the whole-class reflections about learning that occurred at the end of the morning.

Shared Reading was a daily practice in this classroom, incorporating revisits to familiar texts and periodic introductions to new texts to begin the journey to familiarity. Some of the familiar texts used each day were selected by students, others by the teacher. Many of the texts incorporated rhyme, rhythm, and repetition; a variety of fiction, nonfiction, songs, and poetry were used across the school year. All texts provided contextualized examples of the various high frequency words being learned, opportunities to notice and name strategies being explored and applied, and a wealth of big ideas worthy of revisiting multiple times throughout the year’s reading and writing work.

For some teachers, the power of revisiting known texts may be discounted when thinking about student engagement. Engagement may be equated with entertainment, causing teachers to seek only new and unknown texts, thinking this is what holds kids’ attention and interest. Engagement for learning, however, is based on beliefs a learner holds about themselves and what’s being learned and the interactions and relationships they have with those around them in a learning setting.

Engagement for learning is more likely to occur if students see themselves as readers and writers; understand how reading and writing are important; feel they won’t be penalized for attempts and approximations; and have a caring and trusting relationship with the others in the classroom (Crouch & Cambourne, 2018) (https://www.teachingdecisions.com/teaching-decisions-that-bring-the-conditions-of-learning-to-life/.)  As students revisit known texts in Shared Reading with the whole class and then again in Independent Reading, either alone or with partners, their engagement increases as they confidently begin to make sense of text at both the idea and print level. As engagement increases, so do opportunities for increasing student’s awareness of something novel within the familiar text. Each rereading of the text offers emergent and early learners opportunities to self-regulate their ever-developing understandings of print concepts, language patterns, book dialects, and “tunes of the language” (Holdaway, 1979). For Cameron, revisiting a known text served as an opportunity to notice and solidify for himself understandings about sounds and print that the class had been thinking and talking about since the beginning of the year.

Some practical ways to keep Shared Reading texts in play during the school year include:

  • Begin each Shared Reading experience with an “old favorite” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VLgVCZayMo), selected by either a student or the teacher. This routinely offers students opportunities to bring new learning to a familiar text, perhaps noticing something that didn’t get attention on previous readings, or reaffirming a previously-taught skill or strategy.
  • Include opportunities during Independent Reading time for students to revisit big books, charts, and songs previously used during Shared Reading. This learning experience offers increased practice in orchestrating reading behaviors, strategies, and skills.
  • Dramatize a text to offer students the opportunity to internalize a story’s sequence and language. Understanding characters’ feelings and motivation is strengthened as students work to interpret a text and deliver dialogue effectively.
  • Use shared reading extensions to support students to attend to details in the text. Creating an innovation on a text, where the class writes their own version of a text, supports students to notice the organizational structure of a text. Students also notice text language more closely as they work to emulate the text being recreated.
  • For nonfiction texts, students may add text features that an author didn’t include, such as labels or headings or a table of contents. As students add to texts in this way, they make decisions as writers that support readers.

Revisiting texts from Shared Reading increases engagement and provides multiple opportunities for extended learning. These experiences allow students time to savor, to experiment, and to, ultimately, make the story one’s own.

 

Additional resources:

Crouch, D. & Cambourne, B. (2018). Teaching Decisions That Bring the Conditions of Learning to Life. http://www.teachingdecisions.com/

Holdaway, D. (1979). The Foundations of Literacy. Sydney, Australia: Ashton Scholastic.

Parkes, B. (2000). Read It Again! Revisiting Shared Reading. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

 

Debra Crouch works nationally as an independent literacy consultant, collaborating with districts and schools in designing professional learning opportunities. Her website is teachingdecisions.com. She can be reached at .

Debra will be a speaker at the 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference, February 9-12, in Columbus, OH. Her session is entitled: “Engagement, Expectations, and Response: Guided Reading that Nurtures Student Learning.”

A Seat at the Table

2018-09-05T12:49:56-05:00May 29th, 2018|Classroom Teaching, General Education, Reading Recovery Teaching, Reflections and Commentary, Teaching|

by Hollyanna Bates

A Seat at the Table
As a school district literacy coordinator, I worry about literacy. I worry about students learning how to read. I worry about those who find reading difficult. I worry that we aren’t spending enough time creating readers who choose to read.

I have found that I can fend off a little worry when I leverage the worry into powerful actions.  These actions have developed from small steps to well-developed projects. The projects are implemented across our schools in order to impact both reading achievement and a love of reading.  The projects are possible because teachers, administrators, and volunteers work together with the belief that we have to do whatever it takes. We stand firm in the belief that students need access to the behaviors of literate cultures and we aim to provide this access in a variety of ways. We offer our students a seat at the literate table.

 

Summer Books
A few years ago, we read Allington and McGill-Franzen’s research on summer reading and were persuaded to make a change.  We hadn’t seen much success from our traditional summer school model and limited funds reduced the number of students we were able to impact. Since we had surveyed students using Donalyn Miller’s tool in the Book Whisperer, we knew that many students would not read during the summer if we didn’t provide books; many reported having 0-2 books at home.

With district funds and a heck-of-a-lot of grant funding from our local Rotary Club, we have replicated the work of Allington and McGill.  Each student in K-4 gets to choose summer books from a large library we created just for this purpose. Our team researched the newest, most popular titles and cultivated a collection for each school.  Each May we roll out the bins, add some new titles, and invite students to select books to take home for the summer.

 

Author Visits
Our local education foundation has partnered with the school district to provide author visits to all K-8 students each year. Because literate citizens know the names of authors, have books inscribed by authors, and have read several books by a favorite author, we implemented the visits as a way to provide this access. Last year, 100% of surveyed teachers reported that they found the visits effective for these reasons: they built excitement around reading, writing, and art; inspired students to read books; provided access to literate cultures; and built understanding around the writing process. Before the author visit each year, students write letters persuading a committee to select them to eat lunch with the author.  This year, Carlos (pseudonym), a student who is living in poverty and learning English as a second language, wrote, “I want to be picked to eat lunch with the author because it will change my life.” Today, he ate breakfast with Colorado author Todd Mitchell and I think both of them will be forever changed after their time together!

 

Home Libraries
When our district leaders looked at the research related to the number of books children have at home, the number of students who choose to read, and the correlation with achievement, we couldn’t help but take action.  The pilot project was funded by our education foundation and has grown to be funded by every community resource available. Now implemented in our three schools most impacted by poverty, students in grades 3-5 are well on their way to having authentic home libraries. Each month students select two books from the Scholastic order. These books belong to the students and become their home libraries.  In a recent survey, 93% of participating students reported they had read all the books ordered through the project, with 76% of students reporting that they read some books twice.

While I still worry about literacy development of our students, I am proud of the projects we have in place, the opportunities we provide, and the improvements we make each year to help all children fall in love with reading.

RESOURCES
Summer Reading: Closing the Rich/Poor Achievement Gap by Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen
Scholastic Research Compendium on Access to Books

Hollyanna Bates is a past president of the Colorado Council of the International Reading Association (CCIRA) and a Reading Recovery teacher leader/literacy coordinator in Summit School District, Frisco, Colorado. Follow her on Twitter @hollyannabates.

 

 

Any views or claims expressed in The Reading Recovery Connections Blog are those of individual authors, not RRCNA.

 

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