Literacy: The Way to Go!

How important is systematic vocabulary instruction in the content areas?  Consider this.  One study found that students who received direct vocabulary instruction increased their reading levels by as much as 30 percentile points!  Imagine what this could mean for students struggling with reading and learning.  What should teachers do?  Read the following article for research-based recommendations: http://www.adlit.org/article/26892.

You can share your comments and ideas on this blog now much more easily thanks to the help of my technology coach!  Just click on Comments at the bottom of this entry.

A colleague and I recently completed an informal nonfiction reading assessment with two eighth grade classes.  We observed student behavior and then scored the assessments.  We watched to see if students read the questions first, and if they marked the text as they read.  Then we scored the assessments to determine whether or not students would recall the facts in the piece (they could look back and find the exact answers) and whether or not they could identify the main idea given three different choices.

Of the 41 students observed, only 1 read the questions first and just 5 marked the text as they were reading.  Twenty-two, or 50%, were able to identify the main idea of the text out of three possibilities and 29, or 71%, were able to recall facts.

These results suggest that we can improve these students’ reading comprehension in several ways:

·        by sharing whole class informal assessment results with them and challenging them, as a class, to improve their performance on the next assessment (versus passing back individual assessments and “going over” the right answers with the whole class)

·        by using “Think Alouds” to show students how reading questions first helps to identify important information: http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Reading/Reading%20Strategies/thinkaloud.htm and http://www.teachervision.fen.com/skill-builder/problem-solving/48546.html

·        by showing students how to mark text whether they use sticky notes or reader’s marks, by modeling the process with them http://academic.cuesta.edu/acasupp/AS/610.htm and http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ELA/6-12/Reading/Reading%20Strategies/annotating%20a%20text.htm and http://cndls.georgetown.edu/applications/postertool/data/users/Annotating%20a%20Text.pdf

·        by requiring students to mark text as part of their reading assignments

·        by asking students to compare and explain their marks with a peer

·        by showing students concrete ways of identifying main ideas: http://www.nvcc.edu/home/nmctaggart/dogwood/dogwood/understanding10.htm and http://www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/MULTICULTURAL/MulticulturalNew/FCATSkill/FCAT%20Main%20Idea.pdf

·        by requiring students to determine the main idea as part of most reading assignments

·        by showing students how to identify Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) http://www.justreadnow.com/strategies/qar.htm and http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=227 and http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Reading/Reading%20strategies/QAR.htm

·        by requiring students to identify the QAR as well as answer the questions based on assigned reading

My colleague and I have planned to group students for this instruction once a week for the next month.  This will provide those students, who need extra practice, with a “Double Dose” of instruction, review and practice. 

Our goals are for at least 25% of students to Mark Text, 75% to identify Main Ideas and 50% to Recall Facts on the next assessment.

http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/howtohelpenglish

This week I co-taught in an eighth-grade classroom equipped with a ceiling projector attached to the teacher’s desktop computer which projected what appeared on the monitor to a pull down screen in the front of the room.  What fun!

With a little more coaching from my tech savvy friends, I put together a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Power Point game to help students practice vocabulary words from their current literature unit.  Like the television show, the Power Point game was a bit hit!  The kids really enjoyed playing and their teacher, a naturally gifted “ham,” loved role playing Regis Philbin!  The game can be easily updated with content questions or more vocabulary words once the pattern is in place.

The best site that I have found so far for Power Point Games is http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/PPT-games/.  You can create games such as Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, The Weakest Link and Hollywood Squares.  Middle school kids absolutely love games like this, and I doubt if they even realize that they are practicing vocabulary skills or content knowledge!

It’s well-worth the time it takes to design the game around your own content!  If you want to see the one I used, or you want to work together to design one for you to use, please come by and talk with me!

Writing is a “threshold skill” for both employment and promotion, particularly for salaried employees. Half the responding companies report that they take writing into consideration when hiring professional employees. “In most cases, writing ability could be your ticket in . . . or it could be your ticket out,” said one respondent. (National Commission on Writing 2004)

If writing is considered a “threshold skill” for employment now and in the future, then it is imperative that we teach all our students how to become the very best writers possible.  Ardith Davis Cole’s writing explains how to write so that you look good and sound smart on paper.  Unlike writers and researchers writing specifically for Language Arts teachers, Cole writes primarily for other content area teachers.  Her work focuses on nonfiction and on demand writing, the kinds of writing our students commonly encounter in Science and Social Studies classes.

Cole advocates teaching students skills that she has named, Right-Answer Writing, to address the writing they to need to know how to do well now and in the future.  Her books show how teachers and parents can teach their kids how to craft better answers to test prompts, to persuasive essays and to research reports using the Right-Answer Protocol, which she nicknames RAP.  What middle school kid wouldn’t like to learn to RAP and look good and sound smart? 

Cole begins by teaching teachers and kids how to write The Rap Sandwich.  It looks suspiciously like a Burger King Whopper!

First, she teaches writers to Develop an Introduction, which is the top of the sandwich complete with sesame seeds!  The introduction is composed of two parts, restating the question or petition (what Cole calls a command), and developing a gist or general answer without giving away any details.

Next, she teaches writers to Construct a Body of Evidence, which is the middle of the sandwich.  Notice, it’s a chunky middle!  It contains the evidence, concrete details, examples, and explanations.  It’s the mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, meat and ketchup of the sandwich!

 Finally, Cole provides instruction about how to Draw a Conclusion or put on the bottom bun!

Cole uses this framework to teach writers how to construct single and multiple-paragraph packages, which in NECAP language are called constructed and extended responses. 

The Right-Answer Writing package includes three small books, The Process and The Prompt, The Persuasive Essay and The Research Paper and a CD which all explain and show how the RAP framework can be developed into a five-paragraph essay with a compelling introduction, an authoritative body of evidence and a powerful conclusion. 

If you are interested in looking at these materials, please see me.  But see me before or after this Friday because I’m attending the Ardith Davis Cole Conference presented by the Literacy Leadership Initiative of Vermont, the Vermont Reading Initiative and the University of Vermont.  I’m sure I’ll be bringing back more materials and ideas to share!  The more we write, think about writing and teach writing, the better prepared our students will be for their futures.

On-Demand Writing: A Needed Skill – Long-term projects are important, but they do not cover all of the kinds of writing that learners will be called upon to produce either in college or in their lives. On the contrary, substantive writing on demand for reports, correspondence and even e-mail is now a common feature of corporate life. (Staples, B. 2005. “The Fine Art of Getting It Down on Paper.” New York Times, May 15.)

My sixth graders know they are supposed to highlight or underline important information, but they don’t know what’s important so they tend to underline and highlight almost everything!  So, I have been working with them on marking text when they read.   This is a relatively new skill for them, and I suspect for their classmates too.  I’m sure seventh and eighth grade students could benefit from a refresher on this skill too. 

Model how to do it.  The majority of  our middle school students are still very concrete in their thinking about active reading and reading text to learn.  We have to show and tell  to teach them.  Use your own text and/or content materials.  Although they may use this skill in language arts classes, does not mean they can transfer this skill to other content areas.  Non-fiction text, internet sites and textbooks are especially difficult for them to comprehend.

Start with a page of something they have to read, and make copies for them and an overhead transparency for you.  Tell them you’re going to do a Think Aloud, and explain this is a way to show them what good readers think and DO when they read. 

Read out loud and mark the text as you go.  Say out loud what you are thinking.  Use the symbols below to mark the text on the transparency as you read.

oval = around essential vocabulary words – then write def. for definition in the margin and underline or highlight the definition or the context clues in the text that can be used to infer what the word means

? = to show what you don’t understand and need to ask someone about

* or a star = to show something important like concrete details, dates, names, explanations, then highlight or underline

C = make a connection to the text, write the connection in the margin

!!! = means something surprising

P = make a prediction and then write it in the margin

I = make an inference – this is the hardest one for them to do – take information from the ext and from what you know, develop a theory or a hypothesis about what this means, use clues from the text to support your inference

or happy face = to show something you like

or sad face = to show something you don’t like

Model how to do this using sticky notes for text on which we shouldn’t write.

Also, let them know that they are allowed to mark the text in the NECAP booklets.  Several kids missed this important information.  Yes, they can write in the booklets, but the only work that is scored is in the answer booklet.  However, marking the text should improve their comprehension and increase their learning.

One of the most difficult weeks to be a middle school teacher is the week of Halloween.  Kids usually aren’t able to focus long enough to learn new or difficult content or skills.  As Friday, October 31, approaches again this year, I’ve been thinking about creating a game for my Literacy Skills students to play to practice vocabulary words.

Luckily, one of my colleagues shared his methods of practicing vocabulary or any content using popular game show Power Point slides of Jeopardy and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.  Any teacher, parent or student could customize the templates with his or her own content.

Pairs of students could also customize templates to build a game to play with other pairs of students as a way to practice content and/or vocabulary.

Below are some websites my colleague and I both found helpful.  They include a variety of content areas.

http://teach.fcps.net/trt10/PowerPoint.htm

http://www.jmu.edu/madison/teacher/jeopardy/jeopardy.htm

http://www.teachnet.com/lesson/misc/winnergame022500.html

http://elainefitzgerald.com/jeopardy.htm

http://young.springdaleschools.org/WebsitesTeachersJeopardy.htm

For another way to survive Halloween with a smile at the end of the day, check out the two Power Points about Halloween on this site: http://www.worldofteaching.com/historypowerpoints.html

If you have a site that you particularly like, please send me the address! 

Isn’t it strange how princes and kings,
and clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
and common people, like you and me,
are builders for eternity?

Each is given a list of rules;
a shapeless mass; a bag of tools.
And each must fashion, ere life is flown,
A stumbling block, or a Stepping-Stone

This is one of my favorite poems because every time I read it, always reminds me of how many really good ideas and tools successful teachers have in their repetoire.  The Greece, New York School District’s Website is one of the most useful sites I have found to date.  This site contains many valuable tools, directions and handouts that help students improve their reading, writing and thinking skills.  

http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/

The second instructional improvement recommended by Reading Next – A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy calls for “Effective instructional principles embedded in content, including language arts teachers using content-area texts and content-area teachers providing instruction and practice in reading and writing skills specific to their subject area.” (p. 4)

Language Arts, Science, Social Studies and Math, otherwise known as core, teachers need to know which informational texts are used by their teammates and what comprehension strategies help their students learn from these texts.  Texts are not limited to just textbooks but also include Internet sites, wikis, Moodle, as well as nonfiction books, articles and periodicals.

While core teachers need to know which texts their teammates use, coordinating  instruction and practice of reading comprehension skills across the core curriculum increases understanding of informational text.  According to the Reading Next report, ”The problem is not illiteracy, but comprehension. The bulk of older struggling readers and writers can read, but cannot understand what they read.” (p. 10)  Students need to understand what they are reading in order to continue learning.

This is especially true for students using the Internet to learn.  Although most students can read information at different sites, too many do not understand what they are reading.  Students need direct, explicit comprehension instruction about reading internet sites as well as textbooks.  Showing them what the similarities and differences are between the two different kinds of texts is critical to their understanding of the information presented.

Imagine what the potential to increase student reading comprehension could be if teachers on any given team taught, modeled and monitored student use of the same reading strategy for a month. For example, core teachers could all use Reciprocal Teaching with any informational text.

Reciprocal Teaching is a scaffolded approach to teaching comprehension

strategies. It was designed for youth at any grade level, typically scoring in the thirty-fifth percentile or below on standardized reading measures, with the aim of teaching them to actively process the text they read in small groups. The teacher models four critical strategies: questioning, clarifying, predicting, and summarizing. The teacher then transfers responsibility for implementing the strategies to students by having them work in small groups. Students either take turns using each strategy or lead discussions by using all four strategies, in the latter case becoming the “teacher.” By taking turns using each of the strategies with a series of texts, children learn to independently and flexibly apply the strategies on their own.

Questioning poses questions based on a portion of a text the group has read, either aloud or silently.

Clarifying resolves confusions about words, phrases, or concepts, drawing on the text when possible.

Predicting suggests what will next happen in or be learned next from the text.

Summarizing sums up the content, identifying the gist of what has been read and discussed. (p. 14) 

Or imagine the impact if each core teacher provided instruction in the same notetaking skill like Pryamid Notes http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/tools/pyramidnotes.pdf or Discussion Notes http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Tools/discussionnotes.pdf during the same month.

Improving students’ reading comprehension also requires monitoring of students reading and using different strategies or tools during class.  “The use of such tools as graphic organizers, prompted outlines, structured reviews, guided discussions, and other instructional tactics that will modify and enhance the curriculum content in ways that promote its understanding and mastery have been shown to greatly enhance student performance—for all students in academically diverse classes, not just students who are struggling.” (p. 15)

Enhancing student performance is a worthy goal of teachers regardless of their content areas or students’ grade levels.

A 2004 report from the Carnegie Corporation titled Reading Next – A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy recommended Fifteen Key Elements of Effective Adolescent Literacy Programs to improve middle and high school students’ literacy achievement.  The Fifteen Key Elements were identified and organized into two categories – Instructional Improvements and Infrastructure Improvements (see table below).

The authors of the report assert that addressing one of the improvements above will result in other improvements developing subsequently. 

The first recommended instruction improvement, direct instruction means explicit, show-me-how-to-do-it instruction.  It’s the “Tell ‘n Show” type of instruction that includes an explanation and modeling by the teacher, and then guided and independent practice by the student. 

Several direct instruction approaches have shown to improve middle school students’ understanding of content.

v Comprehension strategies instruction, which is instruction that explicitly gives student strategies that aid them in comprehending a wide variety of text;

v Comprehension monitoring and metacognition instruction, which is instruction that teaches students to become aware of how they understand while they read;

v Teacher modeling, which involves the teacher reading texts aloud, making her [his] own use of strategies and practices apparent to students

v Scaffolded instruction, which involves teachers giving high support for students practicing new skills and then slowly decreasing that support to increase student ownership and self-sufficiency

v Apprenticeship models, which involve teachers engaging students in a content-centered learning relationship

One example of Direct, Explicit Comprehension Instruction is Reciprocal Teaching. This strategy is a scaffolded approach, much like Literature Circles in English classes. Students practice four comprehension strategies in cooperative groups using content-rich text.  This approach is especially useful with reading assignments in social studies and science.

To learn more about Reciprocal Teaching, check out –

http://www.readingquest.org/strat/rt.html

and

http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Reading/Reading%20Strategies/reciprocal%20teaching.htm