Release the Control! Using Conversation as a Comprehension Tool

It is possible that there is a little bit of a “control freak” in all teachers. We like our worlds organized, colorful, labeled, tidy, and neat. We like fanciful borders and desks aligned “just so.” We like to play dictator (albeit a nice one) to our class, as they should stop, sit, turn-and-talk, listen, line up, and complete any number of commands upon our request. In our minds, a class that is listening attentively during reading instruction, with a teacher presenting a creative, tidy lesson at the whiteboard, is a class that is learning at their fullest potential.

We are wrong. 

Influential teachers release control; they understand that conversation fosters meaning-making, and with conversation comes noise. Embrace the noise! Discourse does not equate to chaos; discourse surrounding a book equates to a deepening understanding. Influential teachers do not stand in front of the classroom and present; rather, they sit with children and facilitate. Do you want to be an influential teacher? If you just nodded, read on to learn how you can incorporate discussions into your classroom in order to maximize engagement, motivation, and reading comprehension.

Step One: Understand the Facts

• The Transactional Literature Discussion Model, a model that encourages students to read, write, and respond to whole books, lends itself to creating an environment that encourage students to spontaneously discuss literature and become actively involved in the meaning making process (Dugan, 1997).
• Students of all academic tracks can meet high academic demands when discussion-based pedagogy ensues (Moller, 2004; Applebee et al., 2003).
• Collaboration can lead to higher overall achievement on large-scale test scores (Fall et al., 2000).

Step Two: Recognize the Benefit of Literature Circles

Literature circles can be an excellent tool to motivate reluctant readers (the students who are sleeping while you are playing dictator) and promote engagement. Here are the top reasons why you should consider literature circles in your classroom (Dugan, 1997; Moller 2004):

Literature circles allow for…

• an increase in student engagement despite reading ability level
• a deepening understanding of a text through social-interactions
• a burgeoning desire to further explore concepts
• an increase in self-awareness as a reader
• an escalation of community membership
• a rise in story-structure based dialogue
• a higher level of willingness to ask questions and seek assistance in clarifying ideas.

Step Three: Create a Positive Atmosphere

Teachers, you MUST promote a classroom environment that allows for an appreciation of literature through spontaneous response and peer acceptance (Dugan, 1997; Moller, 2004). 
Check the following steps off your “To Do” list:

• Promote student differences and varying opinions! In order to promote risk-taking during discussions, which allows for the exchanging of ideas and background knowledge, and thus higher-level thinking, students must feel comfortable and accepted.
• Consider all students capable members of the literature circle. Struggling readers may require accommodations and consistent scaffolding, but they can become adept at contributing to and enriching group discussions.
• Provide meaningful reading activities and discussion opportunities TO STUDENTS OF ALL ACADEMIC LEVELS in order to promote active participation and position in the classroom’s social world (Moller, 2004; Fall et al., 2000).
• Create heterogeneous groups! Students should be in an environment where they can both learn from and aid others.

Step Four: The Build Up

Effective literacy teachers are able to recognize the needs of individual students and offer support. Struggling readers can become active members of a heterogeneous literature circle. Guide them, support them, and encourage them:

• Build up their responses during discussions. Don’t nod and move on. Add another block to the base of their idea!
• Prompt further explanations
• Design accommodations to assist students in completing reading and literature role assignments
• Offer frequent positive reinforcement and praise.
•  Remember, every child is capable of contributing to the success of literature-based discourse, as every child possesses a unique set of skills and background knowledge.

Step Five: Let It Go

Effective literacy teachers must remove themselves from the role of lecturer in order to become a facilitator, participant, and active listener, allowing students to assume the role of discussion leader (Moller, 2004; Applebee et al., 2003). I promise, gradually releasing control does not sting too much, and you will be amazed at the ensuing results! By doing so, students may:

• use open discussion opportunities to focus on sharing connections, experiences, and opinions,
• encourage others to speak and expand on ideas
• engage with significant issues within texts
• seek clarification of text structures from peers

Don’t worry, teachers, you still have important responsibilities. Don’t take a coffee break just yet!

If you want to be an effective literacy teacher, you must prioritize authentic questions, seeking tools to further explore and build upon understandings rather than assess basic comprehension skills. Remember, at any time, students’ envisionment of a story is a mixture of questions, hypotheses, understandings, and connections to prior knowledge and experience. Authentic questioning allows for discourse continuity and the exchange of multiple perspectives (Applebee et al., 2003). Don’t settle for “What he said,” “I agree with her,” thumbs up, and nodding heads!

Step Six: Read It, Write About It, Discuss It

Reading and writing are reciprocal processes. As an effective literacy teacher, you are going to encourage students to synthesize their understandings of literature and groups discussions through writing! Then, you’re going to give them the chance to participate in extended learning opportunities! Encourage them to explore concepts across multiple subjects. It will help your readers deepen their understanding of a topic.

Step Seven: Believe in Your Class and Yourself

Discourse in social learning environments has a significant, positive impact on student engagement with literature, student dissection and comprehension of literature, and student performance on assessments. Just remember:

• You can create a classroom environment that allows for discourse.
• You can become an effective literacy teacher!
• You can place high academic demands on students of all ability levels, provide rich instruction, discourse opportunities, and extended curricular activities to all students.
• You can decrease concentration on concrete, skill-based activities and task structures, so students can become interested in reading!
• You can promote rich classroom discussions to maximize engagement and motivation in the classroom, which in turn maximizes learning.
• You can make a difference in the lives of young readers!

Applebee, A. N., Langer, J. A., Nystrand, M., Gamoran, A. (2003). Discussion-based approaches

to developing understanding: Classroom instruction and student performance in middle

school and high school English. American Educational Research Journal, 40(3), 685-

730.

Dugan, J. (1997). Transactional literature discussions: Engaging students in the appreciation and

understanding of literature. Reading Teacher, 51(2), 86-96.

Fall et al., R., Webb, N. M., Chudowsky, N. (2000). Group discussions and large-scale language

arts assessment: Effects on student’s comprehension. American Educational Research

Journal, 37(4), 911-941.

Moller, K. J. (2004/2005). Creating zones of possibility for struggling readers: A study of

one fourth grader’s shifting roles in literature discussions. Journal of Literacy Research, 36, 419-460.

Cassidy, Kathy (photographer). 2006. Partner Reading (Image), Retrieved April 29, 2014, from

https://flic.kr/p/8B5LPe.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree...

“What’s that?” – This is a simple phrase that, if you ask any parent, can become extremely tiresome. Children have a natural curiosity and desire to know all. They want to question, and talk, and question again, from the moment they wake until they fall asleep. Though it can become exasperating, don’t shrug these questions off, they could be helping a child grow. After all, did you know that every time you answer a question with a sincere response, you may be handing a child another flower to place in their bouquet of word knowledge? Yes, that is a bird, it is called an Ostrich. Yes, that is a boat, it is called a tugboat.

“By age four, the average child in a welfare family might have 13 million fewer words of cumulative experience than the average child in a working-class family” (Hart and Risley, p. 116). It amazes me that so much of our vocabulary development can be predicted by age four. Talk about putting pressure on parents! While reading this quote, I could not help but wonder why students from families of a low socioeconomic status seemed to be at such a disadvantage. After all, they are born with the same natural curiosity to know as any other child. Plus, they may not know about things like mansions and butlers, but their vocabulary growth is still positively affected by different experiences, right? As I continued to ponder, I finally came to my own conclusion. 

When I was a child, I remember going to the zoo, the park, the circus, the beach, dozens of places with my family throughout the year. It was through experiences that I learned about the world around me, which is directly tied to vocabulary development. I have been blessed with a family with the means to provide me with vacations and opportunities to explore; I learned about acrobats when I visited the circus and chauffeurs when I took my first limo ride. I had conversations constantly with my mother, who stayed at home until my younger brother was school-age. Other families, however, are not fortunate enough to have the means for frivolous spending, or the ability to stay home and talk with their child all day. Thus, their children are not becoming exposed to new words and phrases on a regular basis.

Now, I do not want to generalize; children who are born to families of a low socioeconomic status are quite capable of seeing future success. However, it is extremely shocking to see the vast differences in vocabulary development recorded in Hart and Risley’s study, especially since vocabulary plays a crucial role in reading comprehension. Vocabulary is tied to experience, experiences allow for the development of prior knowledge, and prior knowledge is needed to learn new concepts. Students must understand the meaning of a word in context in order to comprehend text. Do you see why students with limited vocabulary are more likely to face challenges in reading?

Let’s say a child with poor vocabulary, born to a family with poor vocabulary, grows up to have children of their own. Does this allow for the constant development of struggling readers? The proverbial apple does, indeed, fall close to the tree. This is the problem-a cycle that is difficult, but not impossible, to break. The key is finding the code to crack it.

Hart, B. & Risley, T.R (2003). The early catastrophe. Education Review, 17(1), 110-118.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!

Students NEED to learn how to navigate through the world of nonfiction literature. In a world dominated by informational text via sources like the internet, magazines, billboards, and advertisements, students need the skills necessary to comprehend the world around them. Fictional text allows for students to lose themselves in fantasy and whimsy, to read creative stories that engage and transport the reader to places like Avatar’s Pandora and The Wizard of Oz’s yellow brick road. Fictional text serve a purpose, expanding on students’ knowledge of story elements, sequence, and other important skills. Non-fiction text, however, allows them to learn lessons from history, comprehend science and the physical world around them, study culture and places beyond their community, learn about the movers and thinkers of the past and present. Non-fiction text is REAL, and REAL is exactly what students need to function in everyday society.

You may be thinking, “No problem, I’ll just trade out Harry Potter for a book on dogs once per week and we’ll be set.” WRONG! I hate to break it to you, readers, but it takes a completely different skill set to manipulate nonfiction text. Just think of all the things students see in a textbook compared to a novel.  Charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs with captions, labels, glossaries, a table of contents, headers, footers: the list is exhausting! Now, add all of these features to the ever-growing world of the internet, where you can add in advertisements, hyperlinks, page and section breaks, etc. The world of non-fiction text is a bit scary for adults, yet alone children! The only thing more exhausting is the idea of teaching each and every one of these crucial skills!

This is why the study of non-fiction text plays a crucial role in the classroom. Students need to be immersed in a sea of books. They need to learn to love non-fiction as much as they love fiction. You may be thinking, “Where does the madness begin?” Right away, readers, right away. Even the youngest students can benefit from reading nonfiction text; you may even be surprised how receptive young readers are to reading about animals and the world around them. Play off that exhausting curiosity they always have (you know what I’m talking about, the constant “What is that” and “Why” questions that drive you crazy). Fortunately, there is a growing amount of non-fiction resources for students of all ages! Before you know it, students will be spouting off facts and seeking out answers to their own questions. SUCCESS! The earlier we introduce students to multiple genres, the earlier they develop their own tastes, and the more likely we are to develop engaged readers who are intrinsically motivated to learn!

So the next time your student asks you where boogers come from, why tigers sleep most of the day, where birds go in the winter, why humans can’t fly, and where the dinosaurs went, give them a book. Encourage them to explore. Maybe you’ll be fostering a passion and developing the next rocket scientist, paleontologist, or doctor. Now, wouldn't that be something?

Get this image here, on Flickr!

Motivation is key!

My family dog is an affectionate, loving brown mutt. When we first picked the little ball of fur up from the rescue agency six years ago, he was affectionately referred known as “Macadamia Nut.” We shortened it to Mac; not because we had a fondness for the moniker, but because he reminded us of a large Big Mac from McDonald’s. Poor, poor, chubby Mac. Well, I suppose Mac decided that he was set up for failure, and thus would live up to his name. Mac loves food. Mac also loves to explore: down the block, around the street, through the neighborhood. So, although it shames me to admit it, we have developed the fool-proof way to get our wandering mutt back into the house after being “let-out.” Slim Jims.

The only way to motivate Mac to return to the house on one of his “outings” is to yell Slim Jim out the back door. It’s embarrassing. Other dogs are proudly prancing up and down the street with their muscular chests held high and ears pointing. Chubby Mac trips over his own legs, belly flopping, to get to a Slim Jim.

Motivation is key. Dogs need motivation to return home, adults need motivation to get into freezing cars on Monday mornings, and students need motivation to read. Motivation is key to success!

According to Gambrell, “It is generally acknowledged that motivation plays a critical role in learning. It often makes the difference between learning that is superficial and shallow and learning that is deep and internalized” (p. 15). Moreover, fostering motivation in the classroom is key to developing engaged students; according to Guthrie, self-determination is the eventual step for engaged learners who internalize a variety of personal learning goals (p. 433). Guthrie states, “Literacy serves the need to gain concepts that explain” (p. 434).

Teachers, I am speaking to you here, so perk up. It is YOUR JOB to create engaged readers who are motivated, knowledgeable, strategic, and socially interactive!

Steps to planting and growing a motivated reader (because we know motivated students who read for authentic purposes are truly better readers):

• Step 1: Show YOUR love of reading! Share parts of books YOU enjoy and how reading enhances YOUR life. Students need to see firsthand that reading can be enjoyable, and it has a place in life outside of the classroom! I try to bring books I am reading, or books I have read, into the classroom to share with my students! Last month, I shared one of my recent favorites, The BFG by Roald Dahl, with the class. They constantly asked me, "Miss B., did you like this part, too?"
• Step 2: Build up your library! Create a book-rich classroom environment, encourage students to try new genres and bring books home, and provide them with high-quality literacy experiences!
• Step 3: It’s all about choice! Let kids self-select books based on interest rather than restricting them. Your children are not criminals-let them out of book jail. 
• Step 4: INCREASE opportunities for social interaction; students should have the opportunity to discuss books ALL OF THE TIME! I try to incorporate small and large group discussions, constantly mixing up the kids and partners during pair-share activities. Kids will look for any chance to talk, so why not make it about a book? Let them learn from each other!
• Step 5: Create opportunities for students to become familiar with lots of books. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it will increase your students’ appetite for reading.
• Step 6: Provide students with reading-related incentives! I’m not talking about candy and bouncy balls; rather, use reading itself as an incentive for students by giving away books, bookmarks, and reading passes. My students love receiving books on their birthdays, and my "Get Caught Reading" punch cards have been motivating my little readers to pick up a book when I'm not looking! Don’t forget about teacher praise!

Grambrell, L.B. (1996). Creating classroom cultures that foster reading motivation. The Reading Teacher,

       50(1), 14-25

Guthrie, J.T. (1996). Educational context for engagement in literacy. The Reading Teacher, 49(6), 432-445.

Depolo, Steven (photographer). 2012. Keep It Up Sign Card Motivation 2012 Girls on the Run Grand Rapids Montessori (Image), Retrieved February 21, 2014, from: http://flic.kr/p/bAbBje

Read, Kid, READ!

It is a harsh reality that middle school is generally considered to be the most awkward three years of any pre-teen girl’s life. The braces, the frizzy hair (which never goes away for exceptionally lucky girls like me), the sudden realization that you should have two eyebrows, the list goes on and on. Thus, it makes sense that some girls hate to be pushed into the spotlight at this point in their lives, especially in gym class, where any number of horrific incidents can ruin the carefully constructed bubble layer of confidence surrounding a self-conscious girl.

Mr. Koss swore I could serve the volley ball; it did not matter that I had never touched a volley ball, or that 40 people were starting at awkward, little me in a joint gym class. I could serve the volley ball, and I would serve the volley ball, or else I would not receive my participation grade. So, staring at the volley ball as if it sprouted horns, I served it, right into Mr. Koss’s forehead.

Now, if Mr. Koss had taken a moment to model exactly how to hold a volley ball and discuss the process of making it soar, he may have saved himself a nice welt and a headache. Alas, explicit instruction was not utilized.

Comprehension instruction must be taught explicitly; students need to observe and discuss before they can act and complete. Language is the instrument of choice in explicit instruction. Students need to see, hear, and discuss how skilled readers approach text and use strategies to comprehend and deepen thinking in a variety genres. They need to understand why strategies are being taught, and how they can be applicable, and beneficial, in their own reading. Whether it’s during whole-group instruction, guided reading groups, or conferring with students, teachers need to explain their thinking process so students may learn to do the same. It is not all about modeling, however, as the following approaches should all be utilized in a classroom (Harvey & Goudvis, 2007)

• Think-alouds
• Read-alouds
• Interactive read-alouds
• Lifting text
• Guided discussion
• Anchor lessons and anchor charts
• Rereading for deeper meaning
• Teacher sharing of literacy by modeling with adult literature 

Thinking should be a visible, tangible thing. Kids need to be up close and personal, interacting with text, and leaving tracks of their thinking behind. A classroom should not be quiet; students should be active learners that are engaged in focused discussions. Ditch the question-and-answer model in favor of a turn-and-talk-method, Post-it notes, and clip boards, anything interactive that will engage students and force them to ask questions and draw conclusions.

This being said, I have made a list of goals for myself. I am going to “spice up” my reading instruction. Over the next few weeks, I am going to incorporate more of these strategies. My third graders won’t know what him them!

• Try new discussion structures, such as compass-groups and jigsaw discussions, instead of always relying on turn and talk and pair share activities.
• Model the importance of jotting notes and leaving “thinking tracks” in margins of text. Ditch the beloved highlighters!
• Ask “What did you notice I did?” ALL OF THE TIME.
• Lift text, especially content area text, in order to rehearse how to read.
• DEMONSTRATE FIX UP STRATEGIES- Why do I always read correctly? Students don’t! I need to show them what good readers do when we lose our train of thought or stumble! Get back on the bike, little readers!

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.