Michelle Lanford- Nov. Post-Conferences

I started conferences with my focus group by doing an Interest/Attitude Interview. This provided me information about the students' home life with questions such as: Who lives with you, Do you have any jobs at home, What do you really like to do at home, Do you ever read at home, When do you read at home, Does anyone read with you, Do you have a bedtime, Is there a tv in your room, What are your favorite shows, Do you have pets, etc. It also gave me information about school with questions such as: Besides recess and lunch, what do you like about school. Are you a good reader, What makes you a good reader, If you could pick any book what would it be, Do you like to write, What is your favorite thing you have written about, etc.  I felt like this would help give me a little more insight into each student's life as a learner. Then I completed an IRI for each of these students to see where they are and what they can do as of now. I found out that most of them are pretty good at decoding and "word calling," but when it comes to comprehension they are lacking. They could recall a few of the literal details but they really struggled with inferential questions. I know from this that I need to focus on this area of reading with this group. I also accessed the listening comprehension of each student in my group by reading the passage aloud. It was interesting to see that all of them could answer more questions correctly after I read it aloud. This tells me that these students have the reading capacity to improve.

Jinger Willard Blog Post 5 (Dec.): Routman Chapter 5: Organizing an Outstanding Classroom Library

An outstanding classroom library is something I’ve always wanted to have but have not ever been quite able to achieve and maintain to the standards discussed in this chapter.  Most recently, moving states and switching grade levels has put me in the position of starting my classroom library over from scratch, twice.  At the beginning of each school year, when I had a larger book selection, I always had my new group of students organize my classroom library as part of our review of genres.  This also served as a way to get them familiar and excited about the books available in our classroom. I would have them make a list of books in their journals they were interested in reading as we worked on organizing books by genre and topic.  Students couldn’t wait to get their hands on the books once we finished organizing.  Routman’s chapter reinforced the value in doing this.  I have never had my library organized by reading levels.  Over the years I have felt the pressure to level my books based on reading programs being used at the school or district level, but I never quite seem to get that far.  This chapter helped to relieve the pressure of the need to do this.  I agree when Routman talks about the importance of paying attention to students’ interests and de-emphasizing leveled books. I can remember going to the public library as an elementary school student and choosing books I liked based on those that were displayed and caught my interest or based on topics I enjoyed.  These books were not leveled. My teachers never told me I had to choose books with a certain colored dot or reading range.  I never considered the level of a book when choosing them, but I was somehow able to find books appropriate to my reading abilities.  Programs like AR can sometimes pigeon hole students into a certain level, and they often feel discourage to reach beyond their level.  How else can we build our knowledge and vocabulary unless we are challenged with text that we read?  If a student is interested in a book, their engagement will help them to overcome some of the challenge a book might present.  This belief was supported by the quote from this chapter “reading comprehension test scores are more influenced by students’ amount of engaged reading than any other single factor”.

This chapter also helped to further motivate me in my goal to incorporate more reading into the content areas.  I would like to include “math reading” into my “Daily 4” math stations.  I am on the hunt for math content books that engage students in the text but also require them to apply problem solving skills.   Overall, this chapter reinforced many of my own theories and beliefs.  My classroom library continues to be a work in progress but am encouraged that I am on the right track.  

Sheryl Elliott-Routman- Chapter 5- Dec. blog

Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library opened my eyes to many things.  My library does not “jump out” at anyone who enters my classroom.  I do have a nice book shelf that was given to me by a former group of students, but it does not stand out when you walk into my room.  I know that I need more comfortable seating for my students.  I think that would make my classroom a more reading-inviting environment.  “An adequate classroom library will have at least two hundred books, but an excellent library will have more than a thousand.”  Wow that spoke volumes to me.  My classroom library is not close to having one thousand books.  I really liked the suggestion of surveying my students to see what they like to read.  That would give me great suggestions on books to add to my library.  In the past, I’ve relied on what my personal children are reading too.  I think my biggest weakness in my classroom library is nonfiction.  My selection is pretty slim.  I know I need to add more.  I love, love, love the suggestions found in the paragraph about making book talk “hot” in my class.  I am going to implement the “top-ten” list.  I think my students would love that.  I also love the idea of using rain gutters to display books.  I have a lot of wall space and would love to do that in my class.  This article made me realize that I have some work to do to make my classroom library better for my students.

Emily Plumley - November - Teach With a Sense of Urgency

In this chapter, the author discusses teaching with a sense of urgency, but not in a way that means we need to teach at a fast pace, constantly moving, leaving the kids behind us. This sense of urgency means its so important for us to pay attention to our students, and their wants and needs. And it means that we need to make every moment in our classrooms count. 

I absolutely agree with this. I want my students to know that I genuinely care about them and how they're doing. And I want them to know that I'm interested in the different ways they learn things and figure things out on their own. 

A quote I enjoyed from the chapter said that, "Teachers who read with young children and promote productive talk about stories are more likely to expand children’s language development." I really enjoy doing read alouds with my students because they get so hooked onto the story and it opens discussion about the story and the way the author writes something. It even encourages them to venture out and read the book on their own, or try and stay ahead of me. If doing a simple read aloud is something that will motivate my students to want to read, I will do one every year, and every day (if possible....lol). 

Michelle Butler - November Blog Post - Ch.4 - Teach with a Sense of Urgency

Michelle Butler – Blog #4 – Routman Ch.4:

Overall, I enjoyed reading this chapter. It was a good review of best practices for teaching reading. However, the part of the chapter that I marinated on the most was the discussion of the 4 phases of learning. As good teachers, our daily lesson plans should always include each of the 4 phases of learning:

1.     Demonstration

2.     Shared demonstration

3.     Guided practice

4.     Independent practice

I feel that I provide sufficient opportunities for numbers 1-3. However, due to the population that I teach, we really struggle to get to number 4. Independence is hard for my special learners. They really lack the confidence “to give it a try”. We spend a great deal of time encouraging, building self esteem, practicing with EVERY skill. Even after “heavy” modeling and practice, most of my students will freeze in fear when asked to read to me or when given a writing task. They are so afraid that they will get it wrong that they will struggle to even give it a try. Right now, we are really working on writing – which is directly impacted by other academic and functional strengths and weaknesses such as speech and language, auditory and visual processing, reading ability, sight word reading, gross and fine motor skills. Since most of my students have significant deficits in all of these areas, they are already fighting an uphill battle when it comes to reading and writing. At this mid-point of the year, my students have the foundation mostly in place (letter names and sounds, letter formation, fine motor skills to hold a book/pencil, some sight words) so that they are able to attempt reading and writing. My goal for the 2^nd quarter is to move them towards independence on their instructional level as much as possible. 

Brown (Blog Post 4) Miller, Part 2 “Why not? What works?”

I actually had some selfish reasons for reading Miller’s text. I was needing to respond to a parent who was questioning the amount of independent reading that was taking place in a classroom. I was trying to wrap my brain around why anyone would question reading taking place in the classroom. As I read Miller’s text, specifically the section about traditional SSR and ScSR (Scaffolded Silent Reading), it began to dawn on me that perhaps this parent was thinking of IR in a traditional sense. I believe she must be thinking of SSR or DEAR where the teacher is modeling silent reading while providing limited monitoring of engagement and little or no feedback. There is no accountability for students.

Miller explains, that effective IR can foster student growth. Effective IR includes:

• classroom time to read
•  student choice
• explicit instruction about what, why, and how readers read
•   access to a large amount of books
•  teacher monitoring, assessment, and support during IR
•  time to talk about what they read

It is so much more than just dropping everything and reading a book. The teacher plays a key role in IR. This parent was concerned about the amount of small group time her child was receiving, meaning she expected more. There has to be a good balance! The teacher cannot be doing all the work! The more the child reads, the higher her achievement will be. Miller sites the Anderson, Wilson, Fielding study from 1988 that found that students who read an hour a day scored at the 98^th percentile while students who read 4.5 minutes scored at the 50^th percentile. I am hoping to explain to the parent what teacher behaviors can foster effective IR. Miller states that teacher’s should provide:  

• explicit lessons on how to select books at appropriate levels
•  explicit instruction on and teacher modeling of reading strategies that can be used during silent reading
•   feedback on students’ reading
• reading conferences where students   read aloud while teachers take running records, discuss books with the children, and set goals for future reading
• student accountability for reading through post-reading responses
•   large and small-group discussion around texts that the students read

I feel I am prepared to respond to this parent about best-practices concerning IR! I hope she will see that IR is so important to a balanced literacy block and it can really improve students’ reading ability! 

Rachel Johnson- Routman- Chapter 5

            In this chapter, Routman discusses the importance of an efficient classroom library.  Notice I did not say the importance of having a classroom library.  Having an array of books in your classroom is not enough.  The books have to be applicable to your students.  These books not only have to challenge your students but also offer them fulfillment as readers.  The book selection needs to broaden their reading horizons while still offering comfort reads.  This task is not easy.

            Routman stresses that in order for students to develop and grow as readers they have to have books to read.  I will be honest, my first thought was, “Duh.”  But then I really thought about my students and what she was saying.  Sometimes I have trouble remembering that every child is not like my two children at home.  I would hazard a guess that my two children literally have hundreds of books at home available for them to read ranging from pictures books to chapter books.  That is hundreds of books for just two children.  Some of the children in my classroom do not have this luxury.  For some, the only books they have available to them are in our school library and my classroom library.  For these children especially it is essential that I have a well stocked classroom library.