Do You Know The Reading Tub?

Come to the Author Showcase at the Reading Tub

Those of you who are regular visitors to my blogs have heard of the Reading Tub.  I'm pleased to let you know that I appear in their author showcase this month.  You'll not only find the interview with me but archived interviews with other authors.  At the Reading Tub, you'll also find a blog (I'm also featured there), book lists and reviews and quality articles of interest to both educators and parents. 

In the interview, you'll learn a bit more about the Literacy Ambassador but, as usual, I'm also sharing resources (wonderful picture books for older readers, advice for parents, references to quality book lists, and an announcement about a special kit Maupin has created from my latest books called The Home/School Literacy Partnership Kit).  You can also watch my new Youtube video through a link on the blog (playing the game Rhymin' Simon).

Practical, Use in the Classroom Tomorrow Ideas

Even as school district budgets tighten, we all know the importance of continued quality in-service training/staff development.  Here's a unique spin for preschool and kindergarten teachers:  Check out the free facilitator's guide for a book discussion of Before They Read, my new title at Maupin House Publishers.  Invite your preschool colleagues to join you in discussions that will build bridges and help young children be ready for school.  You'll also find a sample activity, the table of contents and other excerpts from the book on the book page for that title.

If you'd like to plan a day with the Literacy Ambassador which could include staff development, a parent meeting, opportunities for students to group write with the Literacy Ambassador, contact me through this blog or TLA's website for more details. 

Next post we are back on the teacher channel, providing even more inspiration and resources for honored educators.

Gettiing Back on Track

The new year has started and well on it's way so I realized it was time I came back and started posting more frequently to this blog.  Please forgive my absence; we have some exciting new resources to share with you!

TEACHER RESOURCES

This past weekend I was privileged to see my friend, Dr. Steven Layne, at a conference here in Alabama.  Many of you may know him if you are members of IRA.  Wow! 

I never cease to be inspired by Steven's passion for literacy.  The fact that a partnership to produce a book and the related friendship helped draw him from the brink of death is an amazing story.  In addition to all the wonderful picture books and books for young adults Steven has written, he now has a great new book out entitled Igniting a Passion for Reading, for teachers.  In it, he asks an important question:  "how can we teach the 'how' without the 'why'?

Perhaps at no time in history is that more important to ask as our literacy requirements and the definition of literacy expands and the motivation to read seems to get so little attention.  If we do not give children authentic, meaningful-to-them reasons to read, then they will not choose to be readers.  And what a limitation that puts on the future of our world.

My question relating to this topic is:  are you as a teacher a passionate reader?  Do you read yourself?  Do you share that passion in the middle of decoding and fluency lessons with your students?

I just finished Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer, which is another title I would heartily recommend on this neglected subject.  Miller is a 6th grade teacher in Texas that takes what some might consider a quite unorthodox approach to teaching reading and social studies.  Yet, in this world of "teaching to the test" she has incredible results on her student's state assessments without doing so (in four years ALL of her students have passed the state reading assessment - not one failure to meet "AYP"!).




Both these books send strong messages:

MOTIVATION HAS A PLACE                 INSPIRE!

We must pay attention to the motivation of our students to learn to read and to sharpen their reading skills.  Dr. John Guthrie has been studying motivation of students for a very long time and, if you need research to back your attention to this element, and to "justify" its inclusion to your administration, he's the one to reference.

Teachers can include both instruction in the mechanics AND create a strong rich environment that draws children of all ages and of all backgrounds to the reading table. 

Of course, it is challenge to do more than deliver a script, teach a lesson or assess our students, especially with the varied and heavy responsibilities all teachers face.  Many educators can get easily frustrated, discouraged or dulled by ignoring the part of them that drove them to be a teacher in the first place. In fact, what brought you to teaching in the first place was the same thing that we are talking about - a spark, motivation to make a difference, a love of learning. 

I encourage each of you to read these resources and others and recapture that spark in your teaching.  That is when we will have children benchmarking assessments, we'll have the wisdom to know how much assessment is essential and how much is counterproductive for our students, we'll get to know the needs of our students, have the standards stamped in the back of our minds and go out and teach.

RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS AND FAMILIES

Now that I've given you a few resources for yourself, I'll list a few ones for your students (and their families):

The Reading Tub, a family and educator-friendly nonprofit, is adding more and more book reviews and resources (for children of all ages). 

You can subscribe to their Scrub A Dub Tub Blog to get a regular dose of what's available.

Do you know that they have an Author's Showcase (which I'm excited to be participating in this week!)? 

They also have community projects you can involve your students in like Read it Together and Use Your ABCs?  And a newsletter called The Wash Rag?

Adlit.org (from the same people who bring us Reading Rockets) has terrific book lists for those teaching tweens and teens. Don't forget that among your "assigned" readings, you need to give your students at least a snippet of time to read something of their choice.

You can meet authors of nonfiction (how many kids do you have that like to read the real stuff) and get their insight into teaching and using nonfiction books at I.N.K.'s blog.  They share even more resources for using nonfiction to teach at their INK THINK TANK.

Don't forget your parents. 

If you teach kindergarten through 3rd or 4th grade, you have quite a bit of engagement and involvement from at least a core group of parents. 

1.  Encourage them to play a unique role with their child's literacy development (not the one you do with lessons and worksheets, etc.). 

2.  Help them learn to help their children use reading and writing in authentic, everyday situations. 

3.  Let them know it's OK not to like a book and to choose another. 

4.  Surprise them by telling them that you want them to have fun with reading and books, play games, and use the time they have with their child to strengthen their relationship (real chats with their children can do that and grow vocabulary).

If you teach 4th grade or above, children are becoming more independent and many parents don't see a role they have in continuing to support their child's literacy development.  Certainly the "snuggle and cuddle" bedtime reading doesn't work for many of them any more. 

Again, go back to that theme or authentic experiences.  Every family has to grocery shop, pay bills, do laundry and run errands.  Literacy is right in the middle of all of that.  Making lists, reading labels, checking figures and reading statements, checking labels so we don't shrink shirts or turn underwear pink, reading street signs, maps and billboards - that's the stuff real-life reading is made of. 

A CAVIAT:

It's easy to make the mistake of trying to teach parents techniques, strategies, etc. that you have learned are effective in the classroom but you will limit the number of parents who want to be engaged in that.  If we are going to help our most at-risk and struggling students, we provide more than rigorous classroom instruction.  We must draw families into the experiences that will create life-long readers, writers and learners.

For more authentic ideas for families, 

1)  share my blog for parents which fluctuates between postings from that "sit with your child and read" stage to the support of independent older readers. 

2)  If you teach children in kindergarten, Anytime Reading Readiness, my new book for families of children ages 3-6, is chocked full of quick, easy, ready-to-use ideas.  It's partner book, Before They Read, is a guidebook for teachers in preschool and kindergarten.

3)  The National Center for Family Literacy has a free newsletter for parents. 

4) Even if you choose to use "educationese" with your families (and they are receptive to that), make sure you translate that into family-friendly terms and activities.  The South Shore Regional School Board in Canada has put together a guide to do just that with parents who have K-6th grade children.  

5) The Peel District School Board has put together a rare guide for parents of independent readers in middle and high school that you must check out.  It's one of the best I've seen.

THIS BLOG NEEDS YOUR VOICE

This blog is established as a sounding board, a collaborative tool, a chance for a community of teachers to find resources AND communicate questions, comments, encouragements and challenges. It will only improve with your input.   Feel free to share your comments about this important subject.

Invite a teacher friend to follow the blog and add their input as well.  If each of you do this, we can grow this community and spread important messages.  I can't do it without you!

More on RTI

PART II

The second point that jumped at me from the IRA Guidelines for RTI is that RTI is a framework, not a specific program or model.  I like that because it brings the leadership back to the teacher.  How will you use these tools in your classroom to maximize service to your students?    If you need help, did you know that there is an organization (the National Center on the Response to Intervention), funded at two universities (Vanderbilt and University of Kansas) that can offer you free resources and support?  They can provide support to your center or your district.  Check them out!

RTI is about modifying the standard classroom approach if it doesn't work for a group of or an individual student.  Again, in my mind, that goes back to a renewed respect for the professionalism of teachers and educator-teams.  What a refreshing idea.  But with that renewed respect, comes a great deal of responsibilty.  Responsibility to stay on top of what works, best practices.  Responsibility to connect to your fellow educators and experts in the field and keep up with research.  Responsibility to take that part of your job seriously.  When I travel the country, I hear teachers tell me they are fed up, up to their eyeballs with the wrong type of staff development:  boring, etherial approaches without "take back to the classroom" tomorrow ideas that are confirmed by the experience of the teachers.  One more part of the responsibility of a professional is to communicate what you need.  Here are a few print and Internet resources to get you started:

Evidenced Based Reading Practices for Response to Intervention, a book that includes the voices of respected reading researchers speaking to the subject.

RTI Actual Network's Blog.  Every teacher needs a place to speak her mind and share her ideas, ask questions.  One of the greatest things I've discovered about blogs and listservs and online groups is that you can learn so much from that virtual community and contribute your knowledge at the same. For those of you that live in Florida, specifically, there is a blog on literacy from your state DOE.  Other states may offer the same type of interactive format. 

Webinars.  Tired of professional development that you don't select?  Try a webinar.  The IRA has listed a February event which will talk specific about RTI.  Hurry and you can get in on Missouri DOE's free one.

My friend, Emma McDonald of Inspiring Teachers (who just happens to be the publisher of my e-book, Powerful Picture Books), is on the same channel.  Her recent newsarticle on Tiered Instruction fits well into this list of resources. You'll notice that she created a personal copy of my newsletter but you just need to scroll down a page or so to find the article.  She brings an interesting idea: considering Montessori methods within the context of differentiated instruction.  I found it fastinating and it immediately gave me an idea. 

I always encourage teachers to look for those activities during small group time that work with students on a variety of levels.  For instance, in preschool or kindergarten when you have children on different levels of phonological awareness, activities that fit the range of the spectrum from not understanding rhyming, to being able to read rhyming pairs and recognize rhyming patterns in print.  Think about pulling activities from that range.  There's a great little puzzle I found called Find The Rhmye: A First Rhyming Puzzle.  I'm not into "advertising" but this is a great little tool.  I'm sure you know of plenty of other sets of materials or ideas that will work with a variety of students.  Organizing them by skill level is key to being able to pull them quickly to meet the needs of your particular group of students for a given year.

If you know of other resources you have found beneficial, please share them with a post to this blog.  If everyone shares a bit of what they find, we'll have a tremendous resource built on the subject.

Last Post of the Week: RTI

It's the end of the week and now we have one more chance to look back at IRA's Commission on RTI.

The last statement that struck me was "instruction and materials selection must derive from specific student-teacher interaction and not be constrained by packaged programs."  What does that mean to you?

In many cases, I see that we have become curriculum driven rather than student driven.  Getting back to the idea identified by IRA's expert commission is a challenge.  It reiterates the idea that we have all heard so often (and know to be true):  that there are "many roads to reading" - Dr. Peter Hannon, University of Sheffeld, England.  Rebecca Novick's new book, Many Paths To Literacy, is also a good verification of that sage statement.

Our friends in the educational publishing world (no names please) have become so expert at telling us that their product is the "fix all, end all" for instruction that it may have blinded us to this important fact.  I recently read this excellent article about supplements and alternative approaches that work well for students whom the curriculum "doesn't fit" and hope you will find it just as helpful.

Let's narrow in on literacy for a minute, down from the broader subject:

Reading Rockets (I hope you know this site) recently published an article entitled "Best Practice for All Students" and included a reference to a familar term "differentiated instruction".  This article emphasizes that Tier I instruction must be exemplary and not just "delivery of a stock curriculum".  It must include adaptations which include small group collaborations to address differences in skills such as fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension.  This article also correctly clarifies the distinction between groups in Tier I instruction and a Tier II level group.

Betty Hollas, author and veteran educator, provided a session at the last IRA conference in Phoenix, AZ (February 2009) entitled Differentiating Literacy Instruction for Intervention and Advanced Students in the Same Classroom.  What I love so much about Betty's presentation handouts are that she included useable tools like the Literacy Contract and a connection to Bloom's Taxonomy which helps level questions asked about literature or stories read.  She's also the author of several excellent books on the subject.

We've come to the end of our postings for this week.  I hope you've found valuable ideas and I encourage you to come back and visit us again.  And remember postings from you make this blog better so post away!

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!

Resources for Busy Reading Teachers (and we're all busy AND reading teachers)

As you take a short break in your teaching to enjoy the winter break, I want to say to every reader "thanks and lots of love" for all your efforts in and out of the classroom.

Every week I talk with teachers face-to-face and virtually.  Even at conferences, when I ask teachers to talk with me about their work, so many say, quite frankly (when I tell them I'll keep their name out of it), that they are up to their eyeballs in staff development:

too much of the wrong sort,
too little that is meaningful and
expectations that teachers will be able to absorb what they need from a conventional presentation when they have already been in class all day or feel pressed for time. 

I also hear that too often, these professional development settings are designed and solicited with little input from the teachers receiving the training.

Here is my holiday gift to you:

A few resources I have found that will help you discover valuable information to enhance your teaching while allowing you to set your own timetable, accessing when it is convenient and meaningful for you:

IRA READING RADIO - I was thrilled to see that the International Reading Association has partnered with BAM! Radio to provide the first resource from IRA that you can listen to anytime.  The initial show features Peter Johnston, professor and Chair of the Reading Department at the University of Albany (NY), talking abou the need to redefine literacy in modern terms, and is hosted by IRA's executive director.

NINGS, Networks, and Listservs:

Social and professional networking are growing by leaps and bounds.  Just look at your students who are blogging, responding on Facebook or Twitter, connecting with those who have common interests.  Teachers can do the same.  With a commitment of only minutes a day, you can create dialogues, ask questions of peers or more experienced teachers, all without the worry of "what will those I work with every day think".
Check out these and share others you know about in comments on this blog:

The National Council of Teachers of English's ning (a virtual, member-based platform for setting up a venue for interaction on the Internet)

IRA, NCTE, NAEYC and many other professional teachers' groups have their own groups on the Linkedin network.  Although Linkedin contains people from all walks of life, you can choose those you wish to interact with.  You are alerted to news, job offerings, and postings from other members on any level you wish.  It does require you to sign up, as do most online communities, but you control how much you interact.  The advantage to Linkedin over Twitter is that you can actually write a sufficient amount of test to thoroughly explain your question or comment.  Others join in and share information, based on your post.  I don't know about you but I don't have time to idly chat online; I need to have a purpose for the time I devote and I sometimes need a pat on the back, a voice of understanding and support from outside my immediate world, a confirmation of my professionalism and expertise.  You can get all that from these sorts of interactions.

Yahoo also provides a variety of discussion groups including one for IRA as well as specific groups for teachers who use various teaching strategies like Four Block or the 6+1 Traits of Writing.

CAVEAT:  As with any networking on-line, there are a few cautions:

Set personal guidelines to limit your time on these sites (it's too easy to loose time surfing "eternally")
Decide ahead of time what you want to gain from this sort of interaction and let that guide your involvement.
Ask others about their experience or visit as a guest initially until you are satisfied it is the group for you.
Consider whether starting your own blog or ning is positive for you.

BLOGS

My use of blogs is two-fold:

I have three blogs to serve those whom TLA supports (one for preschool teachers, the one you are reading for K-12 teachers, and one for families).  I post occasionally now but in 2010 will be ramping up to share content at least three times weekly.

I also spend a bit of time each week searching out great resources that others are providing in a blog format.  Do you know that there were 112.8 million blogs as of 2007 (no telling how many there are now)?  That means there is probably a blog out there that contains just what you need.  Here's a half dozen samples to get you started:


Picture Books to Teach the 6+1 Traits of Writing
A Blog from Real Teachers Who Love Reading
The Dream Teacher
If Bees Are Few (inspirational)
The Reading Tub's Blog (bringing reading home to families - and a great resource for teachers)
I.N.K., Interesting Nonfiction for Kids

I encourage you to let one of your new year's resolutions be to grow as a professional and not depend solely on what you might have access to through your school or school district.  You're likely to become a better teacher for the effort!

Remember, we always love comments.  If you've had a great experience with some personal "PD", share what you learned with the rest of us.  Happy holidays (and well deserved rest during the winter break).

Picture Books and Literacy Celebrations In The Spotlight!

Several posts ago, I talked about using picture books as a powerful way to promote content learning and grow background knowledge. Today, I revisit the world of picture books with a few great new titles AND tips for using picture books in a different way to grow both the background knowledge, vocabulary and oral language of both students AND families. But first, a few thanks to my new friends from SE IRA (after these few paragraphs, you'll find the topic at hand):

I recently presented at the SE Regional Conference of the International Reading Association.Thanks to all my new friends in Louisiana for a great time. You were wonderful hosts! also met a couple of new friends I'd like to quickly share with you before going on to our topic:

I made some great new pals like Nile Stanley and Brett Dillingham, authors of Performance Literacy Through Storytelling, Nile and Brett told terrific tales and poems during the Poetry event one evening. Nile was spunky and joined music and poetry for a delightful experience and I have to say that Brett is a mesmerizing and illustrative storyteller, all at the same time.

I also met Hester Bass, the author of The Secret World of Arthur Anderson. If you don't know about this interesting artist, you'll want to explore a copy of this new book and you can find out even more about him through a website on his museum.

Now, back to our topic: While at the IRA conference, over 50 teachers and literacy advocates sat down with me to address a new use for picture books and I'm sharing a few additional resources here for both those who attended my session AND those who couldn't make it to the conference. 

Think about traditional picture walking and then let's tweak it a little. Great teachers do that with effective strategies all the time, to make it work for their students and families. Picture walking can be a wonderful tool for engaging families and students reluctant to spend time with books, beyond that pre-reading strategy of scanning the pictures before you read the text. Here are a few tips for using picture books to engage those for whom traditional literacy approaches may not be appropriate or comfortable, that is

Modeling is important. Simply show them how to look first at the outside of the book and  talk about what the story inside might be like.

Then take them inside, beginning with the first page and again just talk about what you see in the pictures. Don't worry about the text (if you've chosen wisely books that are colorful, have a strong storyline supported by the pictures, it will be easy).  Ask the child what he sees, it may be different.

Lastly, after the pictures have been viewed from every page, talk about the story as a whole. What happened? What was interesting? Who were the characters, those who were a part of the story? Would you do the same thing they did?

Taking the concept of exploring a book from an "academic lesson" to a positive experience with their child is the focus. Continue to encourage and coach; even let parents (or students) try it with one another so they get the idea. Give the parent "playing the role of the child" permission to act just like a child in their responses.

Wordless books and nearly wordless books (temporarily remove the intimidation of text and concentrate on engaging the family or student in telling a story from the pictures).  Here are a few to try with many different ages of children and many different families:

Changes, Changes by Pat Hutchins
Do You Want to Be My Friend?  By Eric Carle (Harcourt, 1995)
First Snow by Emily Arnold McCully (Harper Row, 1985)
Free Fall by David Wiesner (Harper Trophey, 1991)
Hector Protector by Maurice Sendak
How to Build A Snowman by Scholastic and Jo Moon
Hug by Jez Alborough
I Can't Sleep by Phillippe Dupasquier, U.S. edition: Orchard, 1990
I Like Black and White by Barbara Jean Hicks, Tiger Tails, 2005
Lights Out by Arthur Geisert
My Friend Gorilla by Atsuko Morozumi, Farrar, Straus and Giroux:  London, 1997
Oops by Arthur Geisert, Houghton Mifflin, 2006
Pancakes for Breakfast by Toni DePaola (Voyager, 1990)
School Bus by Donald Crews (Harper Trophy, 1993)
Sidewalk Circus by Paul Fleischmann
Ten Minutes Til Bedtime by Peggy Rathmann
The Red Book by Barbara Lehman
The Secret of Love by Sarah Burg
The Snowman by Raymond Briggs (Dragonfly Books, 1986)
Truck by Donald Crews
Tuesday by David Wiesner
Yes! By Jez Alborough
You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum by Jacqueline Weitzman
You’re A Good Dog, Carl by Alexandra Day

I'd love to hear how your experiments with these ideas work in your classroom and with your families!  Please post and share with others through your comments!