Summer Assigned Reading

 Calling All Teachers:  I Need To Hear Your Voice

Since the school year finished, I've been hearing lots of complaints from families about assigned reading taking all the fun out of summer experiences with books.  There are two camps:

1) the parents who kids love to read and will read all summer but feel "constrained" by a book list, required reports to "prove" their reading or assignments during the vacation months.  These moms and dads are telling me that making reading an "assignment" creates an environment where children see it as a chore rather than an adventure.

2) families who don't have a personal connection to the importance of reading for recreation during the summer to protect the reading gains a child has experienced during the school year.  For these families, reading is also a labor, not a pleasure, an assigned task that someone always seems to slip through the cracks with other time demands and distractions.

What Do Researchers and Experts Say?


There are several studies relating to this topic but one I find helpful in addressing our first group is from the American Library Association.   Their findings took into consideration both teacher and student perspective.  This study also provides insight into the use of technology. 

Did you know that there is a research brief on a website called Summerlearning.org?   These ideas began at John Hopkins and you'll find plenty here to raise your level of understanding.  And June 21 of this year, they are sponsoring a Summer Learning Day.  You can visit their website and share your ideas or read to the end of this blog where you'll find a free, grassroots way to touch a child.

Reading is Fundamental, so often in touch with the communities that surround our at-risk populations also comes through with an interesting article entitled A Primer on Summer Learning Loss.  What I appreciated in this article are not only the statistics about summer reading loss which we all know too well but the solutions framed from real schools and school districts.  Duplicating best practices for those who have gone before us AND been successful is one of the best resources we have.

Kids are making a splash with reading in Kansas this summer.  I think any student would find at least one activity at their local library that they would enjoy.

Even Michelle Obama is speaking up on this issue.  Regardless of her husband's politics, she's taking her stand against obesity and pairing it with the idea that summertime is reading time.  Learn more about her support of United We Serve's Let's Read, Let's Move initiative.

Here's a novel idea:  take the ideas from this research and make them a part of a short "mini-study" for yourself, a personal investment in your own professional development this summer.  It will put you in a position to positively impact the summer slump next year.  Set yourself up to start planning to prevent the summer slump at the beginning of the school year.  Make it your goal to not only teach all the strategies and skills but to help your children fall in love with reading and find the book that will get them hooked.

How Do We "Make" Them Want to Read?

I really believe the answers lie in the arena of motivation.  We must give children an authentic, a good reason to read when they are outside the academic arena.  That's why I love Donalyn Miller's approach during her instructional year (you can learn about it in her book, The Book Whisperer and her blog).  She begins working toward summer reading the first day of school by daily crafting her instruction so she builds that key motivation all year long.  She listens to their voices and learns herself how to more strongly motivate students from year to year.  Any student  is much more likely to read if he or she has been in the habit and found it enjoyable and stimulating throughout the school year.  Unfortunately, we seem to separate these key ideas more and more as we become more "curriculum driven" in the classroom.  Don't get me wrong: curricula are good tools but we cannot ignore the motivational piece of the puzzle.  We don't seem to think much about summer reading until it's time for the school year to end.

Answering the question: "why should I read anyway?" honestly and, for our more at-risk students, with a certain level of support, is essential.  Too many "checks" or "requirements" can take the fun out of reading and demotivate rather than motivate. 

But If We Don't Make Reading Assignments, How Are We Going To Know If They Read?

What is your answer to this question?  I'd love your take on your personal experiences with assigned summer readin's effectiveness and the research you have seen (if any) on this subject. What does your specific school or district do ? What would you say to one or both of these families when you send home the "required" reading lists?  Do we have an authentic answer?

A POST SCRIPT

If you are on Facebook, I invite you to visit The Literacy Ambassador's K-6 Summer Challenge cause page and take up the challenge of finding a child to turn on with a book this summer. 

A Quicky: Engaging Students - What Does That Have To Do With Literacy?

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend of mine who related 
a simple story to me which bears repeating.

As a storyteller, my friend often visits schools with no more than her voice and her body, charged with the task of entertaining and engaging students with stories for 30 minutes.  She is superb at what she does and, after her presentation, she overheard this conversation.

"I just don't get it," said one teacher to another.

"What?"

"We have all kinds of bells and whistles, quick response exercises, hand and sound signals, technology and yet our kids are always all over the place.  This lady comes in with her voice and a story and suddenly then are mesmerized.  What's with that?"

What is Engagement?

Now certainly familiarity may be a part of this equation but I believe the question is worth pondering.  I also see it, not so much as a judgement of tools, but as a question - how do I engage my students?  Certainly with our tech savvy children of today, our various technology tools are important.  But there is something deeper behind whether those tools work in classrooms or not.  The real questions are

"What authentic teaching can I do that will capture their interest?": 

"Am I so much on the "delivery" channel that I've forgotten the power of teaching?"

The topic is certainly a bit broader than literacy but I see literacy as the doorway to engaging students. What about you?

Michigan State University's National Center for Research on Teacher Learning attacks the issue with some important information:  "Faced with the concerns for classroom time and "effective" use of it, can put difficult demands on teachers.  What it often comes down to is how good are we at helping students construct meaning, including having time to discuss and explore?

Take that back to literacy.  

Are we so into "drill and skill" - repeat the rule back fast - that we forget that education includes thinking?  I've met children who are compliant word callers and decoders but they don't have a clue of how to use reading as a tool to get information they need, to analyze and synthesize what is presented in the text.  Here are a few literacy-related questions to think about in your own teaching:

1.  Do you use read-alouds daily to engage and foster thinking about text?  Engaged Interactive Read Aloud techniques, covered in my new book Before They Read, are a most efficient means of exposing to student what great readers do when they read).

2.  Do you let the size of the class keep you on the "controlling" channel instead of the learning, exploring channel with students?  Professor Deborah Ball shows us how to avoid this pitfall. 

3. What is your goal for any literacy lesson you teach?  The goal MUST always be to nurture and foster the growth of an independent, thinking reader.  It can never simply be what I call "reguritation of facts" even when we are teaching facts.  What do those facts mean?  What is their significance?  Those are much more improtant questions..

4.  What does your writing instruction look like?  Writer's Workshop is a terrific approach to that authentic, engaging, interaction that needs to happen when students are creating text.

Introspection Improves Teaching

Dr. Deborah Stipek of Stanford University says,

 Teachers can motivate students only if they themselves are motivated.  They can make students feel valued and secure only if they feel valued and secure; they can foster enthusiasm for learning in students only if they are enthusiastic about teaching. The school culture can make or break a teacher in the same way that the classroom culture can support or undermine students' efforts to learn.

This thought-provoking paragraph is from her book Motivation To Learn:  Integrating Theory and Practice.

Why not use these questions as a basis for a staff or grade-level meeting?  They really boil down to whether we as teachers are sending learners to the next level or out into the world or whether we are so focused on them passing the "eternal test" that we end up providing only short-term memory/learning.  These questions also tie to the reality of the most common subjects of those meetings: 

how do we get more students to "benchmark" or pass the assessments?

Are you motivated?  If not, how do you change that?

Engagement for both students and teachers is key.

How do you motivate yourself for the challenge of the daily classroom?  How have you equipped yourself with a mastery of the subject matter so you have the freedom to engage your students and teach?  Share your secrets.

Your comments as the authentic voice in the classroom every day is essential on this topic.  I look forward to reading your posts.

Literacy As A Doorway for Family Engagement /Parent Involvement

I'm a regular follower of Dr. Catherine Snow's work at Harvard's Family Research Project.  When I talk with everyday teachers, I always hear strong feelings that family engagement might be a good thing but who has the time with all the other requirements and pressured placed on educators.  Do you feel like that?

Let me suggest a different perspective. 

Consider that every time you effectively engage families in their children's learning, you lessen your workload.  You expand the horizons of a student and, especially among those who are termed "at-risk", you foster an extra level of intervention; you find a new resource for helping you bring more children to competency in the standards you are required to teach and in benchmarking those important assessments.

The secret is not to expect the parent to do what you do.  Meet them where they are, not where you want them to be.  That mostly just takes a little thinking time.

Families have important but unique roles, especially when it comes to literacy.   Early elementary school teachers have a special job since they are often the first face of education new parents in the school meet.  Take a little time to get to know your students' families early in the year and resist the temptation to write off those who don't come to the first open house.  Find out through a simple survey or a brief 1-2 minute chat what questions they have about their children's learning and what their goals are for their child.

A tiered, systematic approach works best, no matter what grade you teach.  

Tier #1:

For those that come to the school regularly and are comfortable, all you really need to do is to provide resources (books, a BIT of information about what assessment results mean and areas that they might help their child with at home).  They will take that information and run with it.

Tier I 2:

Send a personal note to every parent who wasn't able to attend.  You can get inexpensive, custom designed postcards or even business-card sized notes from Vistaprint (they even run specials where you can get as many as 100 postcards free, only paying shipping). 

In that note, voice your genuine regret that they were not able to come and share some small tidbit of information that they can use at home. It might just be that the family wanted to be there but they had a sick child, couldn't get a ride to the school or had to work.  Don't assume that an absent face is an uninterested one.  You're beginning to build a positive face for your classroom and your school.  Remember that busy or stressed families need regular encouragement to move them toward engagement.

Tier #3:

Determine that you will continue to send positive encouraging messages, even when you get no response, on a regular basis.  Schedule it into your calendar and stagger the notes so that you are only sending out a few a week or certain times of the month. 

An absence of response is not a "get away from me, I don't want any part of this" like we can assume too often.  It more likely reflects a negative experience with authority or schools on the part of the parent (either as a mom or dad or as a student when they were young), an incredible personal struggle just to put food on the table and a roof over their family's head, or some other personal barrier.  In a national study by Projectappleseed.org, fewer than half of all parents had been formally asked by schools what assistance they might need to be more involved in their child's education.  That's a place to begin.

Literacy As the Doorway
 Every family has literacy in some form; it just may not be the formal, academic literacy we focus on in school.  Hook on to that literacy, at whatever level you find it.  It may not be reading with their children, the traditional place we want families to start.  If that is not a part of their everyday lives, finger wagging and nagging them to do it is not going to be effective.  We have to start at a place that connects more to the current experiences of that family.

The National Center for Family Literacy has a wealth of information and ideas to help you get started.  Here are a few additional examples:

 Building on Parent Strengths to Promote Literacy is full of ideas that reach out to families.

Start at a level where parents are comfortable.  One principal in California began a storytelling festival at his school which eventually led to his students documenting their parents' stories and writing them down for a school-specific book that could be shared over and over again.  Everyone has at least one story to tell.  Think baby steps to move families a little closer to understanding your challenges and standards in the classroom.

The Council for Exceptional Children has an excellent, brief article with even more ideas to get you started.  Consider taking this resource and others you find here to your principal and asking if you can devote at least part of a staff meeting to discussing this important issue and what might work at your school with your population of families.  Not possible or the administrator not on that "channel"?  Take it to your grade level meeting and start there.

Involve your PTA/PTO (they support family involvement).  But ask them to think off the volunteer and fund-raising channel.  The voices of parent peers can sometimes be more effective than educators and they often know their communities, especially in these days where teachers may not be living in the neighborhoods where their schools are located.  If you aren't a member, join.

Ask the more involved parents, PTA/PTO or not, to reach out to a specific number of families (maybe only one other, or maybe two or three, as their time allows).  The ripple effect of this personal contact, without taking time away from your teaching, is an untapped resource.

Finally, if you have parents who are computer-savvy, send home a few assignments that create learning together opportunties at home. 

Thinkfinity.org
FunBrain.com
and Adprima's resource list of free websites that are child and family friendly

The main consideration that educators often ignore is that presenting literacy in the light of real-life skills rather than an academic exercise is more meaningful to parents.  Think about literacy activities that will promote communication and relationship with their children, are fun and interactive, and connect to their everyday environment.

As you try these resources, I encourage you will also share your own through posts to this blog. 

Don't forget to visit Share a Story: Shape A Future  this week and share this family-friendly resource with the parents and caregivers you interact with.  It's a virtual blogging tour talking about all kinds of connections with reading and writing, brought to you by the Reading Tub.

Resolutions and RTI

When I think of new year's resolutions, I often think of teachers.  You now have a good handle on the personalities, hot buttons, learning styles and capabilities of your students.  The second half of the year will fly by before you know it and you are already back in the middle of it all. 

As I was thinking about my own resolutions, I was reminded that the International Reading Association's Response to Intervention Commission has published their Guidelines (and a working draft of guiding principles).  These guidelines focus on several important keys for today's teachers and move us from a restrictive, repetitive approach to teaching which relies too heavily on curriculum (to the neglect of other important factors).

The next few blogs this week will address each in turn.  I solicit your comments about your experiences, what your school is doing with RTI, and how you'd like to see teaching change (for the better).  During your implementation of RTI, what have you learned?  There are even books such as Beyond the RTI Pyramid which have study guides to help you work through those answers.  After all, our resolutions (at least some of them) should be on behalf of our students and their families.

RTI is first and foremost "a prevention model", according to the Commission.

Are you seeing the form of RTI being implemented in your school or district as "just more work"?

Or, is it resulting in less referrals to special education, extensive intervention and diagnosed learning disabilities?

One of the purposes of RTI is to prevent unnecessary referrals (and perhaps premature ones) to those programs.

What a grand idea!  Giving students what they need in order to succeed.  Here's hoping that it makes its way from these high ideals down to the everyday classroom.  The National What Works Clearinghouse gives some guidelines of their own that can help make sure that happens.

One of the best ways I've seen for doing that is for the entire school staff to be on the same page:  literacy coaches/ reading specialists, librarians/media specialists, other staff specialists and classroom teachers, along with administration.  You may have heard of a "problem solving model" for RTI.   Is that happening where you are? How is it working?  What problems have you encountered in getting the end results you want?

Another way schools can insure proper implementation of RTI is to include parent education as part of the solution. There is a great resource to share with parents from NH's Parent Information Center which explains  RTI in a family-friendly format.   It may be that this helps you understand RTI better too.

When I talk about involving parents, I don't mean lecturing to parents about what they "ought to do".  That's counterproductive.  Instead I mean a genuine respect for what they can bring to the table in terms of authentic "in the real world" applications to what is being taught in the classroom. After all, what motivation will we give students of any sort to succeed and learn if they do not see any meaning for their lives?  That is nowhere more important than in the area of literacy.

Parent involvement as a part of RTI also means giving families information in a format that is friendly to them.  For some of you, that will be during parent/teacher conferences, for others through a website posting or email blast.  Think about your parent base at your school before you plan how to make them a part of RTI.  Your job of evaluating and identifying students, helping them at the various tiers will be easier with the engagement of families.

More later this week - add your comments and stay tuned!