Observations and Jury Duty!

Since this week is Winter Break for all NYC schools, I will not be going to observe this coming Wednesday.  I also have the unfortunate news that on Wednesday, March 23rd, I have jury duty!  Not unfortunate  in that I don't want to serve, but in that jury duty could not only mess with my Wednesday but the rest of the week as well.  Tuesdays aren't good days for observing for me because of all the running around needed in order to get to and from class the night before--I'm just plain tired on Tuesdays.  Hopefully, A)  I won't get picked for jury duty and they'll only keep me Wednesday and Thursday, or B)  We miraculously have class online or half online that Monday and I can function efficiently that Tuesday to observe instead.  (Hint, hint, wink, wink)
Oh well.  I'm done with my rant.  Hopefully the next few weeks of observation will go much smoother than last week so I can get this case study show on the road.

Podcast: Creating a Home Reading Program

The podcast, Creating a Home Reading Program, explains the R4 reading program or otherwise called the Read, Relax, Reflect, Respond Program.  Teachers assign a specific number of minutes their students should read at home per week and they are to record their minutes on a reading log that is to be signed by their parents.  The reading and relaxing is meant to be a motivator in that these students are reading books that are within their independent reading level that they want to read rather than what they are assigned to read.  This helps to relieve the pressure that reading exercises could have on some students.
The teacher also provides students with a list of questions called prompts that are meant to guide students to think deeply about their reading.  Students choice one question from a variety of types of questions such as "Reflect and describe how the reading relates to you or your own personal experiences." or "What would be something that your parent or teacher would find interesting about the reading?  Why?".  Students should be presented with a wide array of questions so that the student can pick a question that fits their learning style or interests.
Teachers also provide their students with a reflection journal that is to be written in every week for student responses to their weekly readings.  Teachers should also model reading and writing strategies by being sure that they write a thoughtful response to their students' writing.  It is recommended that the teacher grades only by whether students complete the task and not by the quality of their writing.
I was curious about this podcast because it has been on my mind how I would create a literacy program in my classroom, let alone at home.  Reading at home is extremely important to the literacy growth of students, but unfortunately, many students hate to read or are too distracted by other things such as television, video games, and surfing the web.  If students are given a choice of reading materials within their independent reading levels, it is more likely that they will enjoy what they read and feel confident as they do it.  As a teacher, it is my job to keep my library full of interesting, fun, and varied types and genres of reading material so that each one of my students can work up to their full literacy potential.

Week 2 of Observation

This past Wednesday, I came in to observe Ms. C.'s class and my target student Jhon expecting to be there for only two hours... I was mistaken.  Wednesday was an extremely hectic day.  Apparently, their schedule has changed and now at 8:30, they are to go to Rosie's Broadway Kids for tap dance.  I had observed a tap class before during a past observation, but it is still very enjoyable to see these kids have such a great time while being exposed to the arts.  Like math, the arts are another universal language.
Then we rushed back to the school where they were supposed to be scheduled for music.  Since we were running late, the music teacher came downstairs with her guitar.  She read them the story Love You Forever by Edward Munsch while playing the song on her guitar.  During this time, since Ms. C.'s prep hour was messed up, I helped her prepare for a math activity.
Since Tuesday was the one hundredth day of school, the students made necklaces of one hundred Froot Loops by counting either by two's, five's, or ten's using different colors of Froot Loops.  It was Ms. C. and my job to separate three boxes of Froot Loops into the six separate colors.  Very tedious work!  Also, annoying because, apparently, green is the cheapest color to make so the majority of each box was green, followed by orange, yellow, purple, blue, and then red... there are very very few red which is what made this annoying...plus I'm on a diet so this became a temptation for me.  Did you know that Froot Loops have 12 grams of sugar?  Yuck.
During this activity, I had the opportunity to work with many students, but I was especially happy I got to work with Jhon.  He was in the group of students who were to count the Froot Loops by five's.  He didn't have a problem counting out five of the same color of Froot Loops and continuing the pattern.  The small issue that we had was his counting past 25 or 30 in English without getting confused.  Because of this, instead of putting him on the spot and having him count them by fives for me like I normally do with the other children, we counted together as I point to each group of five.  I would do this twice every time I went to check on him by saying, "I think I may have lost count.  Could you help me check again?" or "Let's just double check just in case".  He did very well.
Unfortunately, since the day was really crazy and the Froot Loop activity took longer than expected, there was no reading or writing time today.  There was the extended time literacy intervention that I observed which was similar to last week's lesson.  There was one student there that wasn't there last week, but who I remember from Ms. C.'s class last year.  I will call him Grant.  Grant is an extremely spacey child which is amplified because he misses a lot of class.  He missed a lot of class last year and the pattern holds true this year.  His literacy skills have definitely taken a hit due to his absenteeism.  During the diagraph/tapping/spelling activity using the same diagraphs:  ch, th, sh, wh, most of the students would at least get the correct diagraph in the spelling correct.  Grant, on the other hand, doesn't even come close to the correct diagraph or he doesn't write one down at all.  Ms. C. asks for all the students to name the diagraphs listed on the board and he waits until other students say it before he mouths it.  Ms. C. then asked him to say the diagraphs by himself and he couldn't do it.  They have been working on diagraphs since October.  I can see how Ms. C. is frustrated, but I also feel bad for the student.
During the extended time, I had a chance to ask Ms. C. a few more questions.  Many of the questions have been answered in my previous post, but here are some of the answers repeated and elaborated upon.
Ms. C. has been working at this school for almost 25 years and has vast experience working with ELL's.  The school has a large Hispanic and Chinese population and every student she has has varying degrees of exposure and experience with the English language.  Ms. C. is originally from Greece so she speaks the language fluently and can understand the basics of other languages with Latin foundations.  She also speaks Spanish very well which helps when a Spanish speaking student needs a brief translation or a dialogue.
Ms. C. feels that many ELLs need constant and vigilant positive support.  Many of these students are extremely shy, like Jhon, and may need extra confidence boosters to motivate him to keep up the good work. For example, Ms. C. mentioned that there was a small issue a while ago when starting first grade.  In first grade, he was at the front of the line nearest to Ms. C. and many times, Ms. C. would hold his hand and give him hugs.  When moving in to the first grade, he was no longer at the front of the line.  This affected his confidence and his work suffered a bit.  One day, Jhon's parents spoke to Ms. C. and said that Jhon said that he didn't want to go back to school because Ms. C. didn't love him anymore.  Ms. C. had no idea that Jhon felt that way and she was thankful that his parents were comfortable enough to communicate that to her.  Jhon is now back at the front of the line.
Like in the example, it is both the jobs of the teacher and the parents to communicate candidly about their child/student.  Communication is very important for ELLs both in regards to the family and the community.  It is the family's job to try their best to help aid their child on the way to English language proficiency, even if it is by taking them on playdates with peers who speak English or by exposing them to shows like Sesame Street.
She said that classroom teachers, whether if they speak an ELL's native language or not, they consult the ELL specialist or the resource room teacher for ideas for student learning.  She also said that reading culturally diverse literature helps to keep both native and non-native speakers motivated and interested in learning about other cultures.  She doesn't participate in on-going ELL teaching strategies, but she believes that the strategies she uses works:  reading and involving different cultures in class, translating some directions in native language, short dialogues in native language, communication with parents, sending independent level readings home, etc. She has had many students from all over the world including many areas in South America, the Middle East, China, Eastern Europe, and Central Africa.  She cannot speak all the languages, but she studies up a bit on the distinct differences between their language and English so she can try to make smoother connections between the languages.  To see if what she does helps student progress, she constantly assesses student writing, assignments, and participation.  She also told me that Jhon has actually made some improvement in his writing since the last time we met and she would be happy to make copies of some writing pieces for me to look at.  She communicates to parents by telephone mostly, sometimes email, and many times by letters home or newsletters.  She participates in the school news letter that goes out within the community.
Just to answer the basics, the school uses assessments such as running records and word lists from the Teacher's College Assessment- Reading and Writing Project Columbia University.  They use Fundations for the extended time on Wednesdays as a tutorial.  Apparently, teachers are not allowed to make "lesson plans" for extended time because it should be only in a tutorial format.

First Week of Observation

On Wednesday, February 9th, I attended P.S. 51 Elias Howe School once again to observe in an elementary school classroom.  I was pleasantly surprised when I was assigned to a teacher who I have worked with once before last year, Ms. Abby C..  Ms. C. taught kindergarten for the last 23 years, but is now currently teaching first grade.  She told me that it really helps that she had several of her students last year.  They already had a relationship and they could try out first grade together.
Ms. C. was the first teacher I have ever worked with and, so far, she is my absolute favorite!  I spent the whole day with her and her class observing and helping out students where ever I could.  When the students were in music class, Ms. C. and I had a chance to talk.  Apparently, she specializes in literacy as well and English.  Also, surprisingly, she had taken many theater courses in college and said that Elizabethan English was her forte.  I also discussed with her the purpose of my observation and as soon as I said the words "ELL case study" she immediately interrupted me with "Jhon!".
Ms. C. gave me a thorough background of the student as well as copies of all his previous assessments.  Jhon's family moved here from Ecuador in the middle of last year.  He, his parents, and his grandmother moved to New York City after his father, a former professional soccer player, chose to make the move to the United States.  All three adults in his life do not speak English at all.
When Jhon arrived last year, he did not speak any English, but by the end of the year, his conversational English improved but his reading level was left at A.  Then his parents took him back to Ecuador for two months and he completely forgot all the English he had learned.  Ms. C. dared to say that he may have taken two steps back in his English acquirement.
Currently, Jhon is reading at level D when the benchmark for first grade at this time is approximately G/H.  According to his assessments, he is at the early alphabetic level or phase.  Ms. C. also told me that he is a timid child but eager to try.  Many times when he makes a mistake, he shuts down.  He is also sitting with a group of students who also speak Spanish but are fluent in English.  Even with this sitting arrangement, he hesitates to ask for help when needed.
I had the opportunity to introduce myself to Jhon and he is a very sweet little boy.  I asked him if he would mind me listening to him read for a little while and he said he didn't mind.  He read two books to me.  The first was a narrative about a game of hide and seek.  He read enthusiastically but whenever he didn't know a word, he would skip over it or make up something that would seem to make sense.  For example, the book had the repetitive line "Nobody there" and instead he would say "not there" or "not here".  The other book was an expository piece about maps that he seemed to enjoy reading.
At the end of the regular school day, I observed Ms. C. teach a small literacy intervention group during extended time.  The teachers use guidelines from a program called Fundations by the Reading and Writing Project of Columbia.  The lesson was geared toward helping the students achieve phonemic awareness, or as the book presented it, blending and chunking.  In order to spell five given words, Ms. C. urged the students to tap out on their fingers each sound that they hear of a word.  The word mash was one of the given words.  Ms. C. modeled tapping out M-A-SH and then the students did it along with her.  Then they would try spelling it on their dry erase boards.  I thought this was a really good mini lesson that I could easily use myself.
All in all, I was extremely pleased with how my first observation day went and I am excited to go back.

Question for the Week

What would you do if you had an ELL in your classroom that you knew for a fact didn't have any exposure whatsoever to English outside of your classroom?

Response to Intervention (RTI): What Teachers of Reading Need to Know

Response to Intervention (RTI): What Teachers of Reading Need to Know

Summary & Reflection

By now, we all know what Response to Intervention or RTI is, especially in regards to the field of literacy. But when it comes down to actually putting it into practice, many of us, including myself, are flummoxed about the breadth of student skills that need to be assessed as well as the many various methods of intervention. This article gives us a general outline of the steps that should be taken by sharing the vignette of Mark, a second grade student with difficulties in fluency and accuracy. The authors discuss RTI's step by step process with this student beginning with universal screening with the Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening (PALS) and first grade word lists; and ending with specific individualized instruction with constant assessments to see whether benchmarks have been achieved. Happily for Mark, in the final step, the committee did not see evidence of a need for him to be in special education, although, there was concern for him to fall behind over the summer break.

I enjoy reading articles like this because it reveals what truly happens implementing RTI in a real-life context. Like any of the students that we hope to teach, we ourselves tend to be more interested in reading material that can be related to the outside world or that insights empathy. This article is a good supplement to some of our upcoming chapters in our text books in regards to the planning, organizing, and implementation of interventions. Literacy interventions must be structured, balanced, and based on scientific evidence of our students' skills to be successful.

The Assessment of Thoughtful Literacy in NAEP: Why the States Aren't Measuring Up Summary & Reflection

The Assessment of Thoughtful Literacy in NAEP:

Why the States Aren't Measuring Up

Summary & Reflection

This article addresses the troubles with standardized testing in this country. The authors performed this research by obtaining 20 of the most populated states' standardized comprehension tests and analyzed the nature of their questions. The types of questions were compared to the literacy framework provided by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The results were not as, we as teachers, would have hoped. Most states' standardized comprehension tests focus heavily on vocabulary, but far less on open-ended questions which give students greater opportunities to think and respond thoughtfully about a piece of text. Many tests also have a deep focus on text details which could give students the wrong impression about the purpose of reading: we read for understanding, but we build that understanding by relating it to our thoughts and experiences. Students may then pay unnecessary attention to inane facts in the reading rather than empathizing and relating to the text.

I think it is a shame that many teachers focus highly on having their students memorize facts about text instead of having students build knowledge by questioning, empathizing, and relating the text to their previous experience. Even though it is a shame, according to the results of this article, they are not completely wrong. These teachers are responding to the fact that our testing system doesn't focus on the building of true comprehension of textual ideas but the comprehension of the facts or vocabulary. Testing should have more open-ended questions that cause students to think deeply about the characters and their situation; in exposition text, students should be made to care about the presented issues as they read. If our students both comprehend and care about the text, they are less likely to look at reading as a dull task but as an opportunity to learn something new or step into the shoes of another person. As a result, they are more likely to become life-long readers. If we continue testing for inane details they way we have been, more and more students will fail to read for pleasure.

Using Assessment to Guide Instruction

The video Using Assessment to Guide Instruction had some very helpful points in guiding us to becoming assessment based literacy instructors.  Truth be told, my computer was being a bit funky so I was unable to actually view the video, but I could listen to the entire thing clearly.
The video was an excellent summary of all that we have been talking about in class:  assessment will lay the groundwork for our literacy programs.  The use of only one assessment only gives us one perspective of the progress of a student.  It may tell us that "Bobby" has word identification troubles, but how is his meaning-making skills, written skills, oral communication skills, motivation?  When we use multiple assessments or gather a variety of evidence of student progress (or lack of progress) we have a better understanding of the whole picture.  In the video, teachers were asked what they considered evidence to student progress.  Many things were addressed including the following:  running records, word games, retellings, conferencing with student themselves, conferencing with parents, conferencing with colleagues who have contact with student, anecdotal evaluations (notes observing student behavior, comments, interactions, etc.).  The video also stressed that we not only need to evaluate student strengths and needs skill wise, but also within what context.  Most students read narratives better than expository pieces, but sometimes, especially with boys, expository pieces could be motivating or more interesting to the student.
I felt that this video was an appropriate review to what we have been discussing in class.  I found most of it helpful.  There was one phrase that was used that I found to be obvious and silly, though, "Struggling readers tend not to read".  Of course they don't!  If someone is struggling with something, it usually means they are going to avoid the thing from which they struggle unless they are motivated to try harder to succeed.  I've seen this occur in the 4th grade classroom I observed last year when a student became severely frustrated with stumbling through a text he was reading with his teacher that he completely shut down.  He stopped reading and when prompted by the teacher, he snapped back.  He didn't mean to snap so the teacher was pretty understanding.  Later, the teacher told me that she was considering more small group or individual instruction for the student.  A student needs to be exposed to a well-structured literacy program where they have the opportunity to read a variety of different texts within both their instructional and independent levels in order to keep them motivated and keep them "hanging in there" so they can be successful life-long readers.