A Professional Blog based on the book After Early

In With a Little Help From My Friends: Peer Tutors and Struggling Fifth-Grade Readers the philosophy was that “optimum learning occurs in an environment of intrinsic purposeful engagement through supportive instructional methods.” In this After-School Reading Club, the teacher modeled specific instructional strategies that the fifth grades would then use with younger students, including word identification and comprehension skills. Prior to the program, the authors hypothesized that as the fifth-grade struggling readers gained expertise as tutors, they would be motivated to read and to try the strategies in their own reading that they were suggesting to younger students. Their hypothesis was dead on. The fifth graders got so involved with the program that, with the teacher’s approval, they began selecting the books and designing the lessons for the tutoring session. Once they had planned the lesson, they would model it to the teacher and then they would teach it at the next session. While this was an after-school program, so there was adequate time for this (it took place 3 times a week), it still goes to show that buddy reading, and authentic reading purposes, can motivate even the struggling reader. I never had buddy readers, but always wanted a buddy class for my little guys. I think it is a great way to get older students to work on fluency, especially if the buddy reading is scheduled on a regular basis so the fifth graders can “practice” their story in order to be fluent readers for the younger readers. In turn, the younger students are listening to fluent readers. It seems like a win-win situation.

Have you had buddy readers? What grade were your students and the buddy reader students? How often and how long did you get together to read with them? Did you find this was a motivation for your students to be more fluent readers?

My school has a designated D.E.A.R. time, so I think it would be a great opportunity to get classes together once a week or once every other week to buddy read during that time. It would be important for the teachers to emphasize the importance of practicing their stories so they could read fluently in order to “look good” for the younger students.

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Tailoring a Middle School Language Arts Class to Meet the Needs of Struggling Readers was based around 9 struggling, unmotivated adolescents entering seventh grade. After sixth grade, their teachers were extremely worried about their lack of progress and interest in school. The school designed a special curriculum around these students in order for them to succeed. These were the essential components:
• Intensity: expert teachers, low student-teacher ration, and a considerable portion of time devoted to reading and writing.
• Support: the school held relationships to an extremely high standard- relationships with teachers and their colleagues, as well as relationships with teachers and students.
• Motivation: Teachers increase the likelihood of student motivation by helping students meet their basic needs for competence, affiliation, and autonomy. Competence is facilitated by explicitly teaching and scaffolding the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies that students need to meet academic goals. Affiliation is achieved through meaningful relationships with staff and peers. Autonomy results when students are given choices and opportunities for decision making. Motivation is further enhanced when students are given opportunities to apply the essential understandings and processes they are learning to topics and tasks that interest them.
• Knowledge: developing strategies and dispositions that lead to competence is facilitated by a student’s ability to self-assess how well he or she is presently employing appropriate strategies.
This was a very interesting article about students who had struggled through school for so long that they had know self-confidence. The program was not only about strong teaching methods, but about building students up and arming them with the tools needed to be successful lifelong learners- which is what we hear a lot about- but these teachers really accomplished that. A big motivator for these students was they had third grade buddies. They really bought into repeated readings and building fluency because they wanted to “show off” for the younger students. I think any situation in which you have students perform their reading for others, is a great way to get them motivated.
I don’t know about at your schools, but I am so sick and tired of teachers that DON’T do anything to build their students up, DON’T build trusting relationships with them, and DON’T speak nicely to them. While this was not the main issue of the article, it was a huge component in the study they conducted. What do we, as future literacy leaders, do about the teachers that don’t know how to build strong relationships with their students? Is it our role at all, or completely left up to the administration? Personally, I always try to “model” it for colleagues- I speak nicely to their students in front of them….in hopes that they’ll catch on….some, unfortunately, just don’t!

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“Our aim is to improve students’ ability to respond to literature and heighten students’ ownership or reading”
-Torry H. Montes and Kathyrn H. Au
As a reading teacher, who has had these same goals for your students? I know that I have!  We want them to respond to reading , discuss what they read and feel like readers, right?  I know I do!
Authors Montes and Au found a great solution by using a Book Club in a fourth-grade classroom.  Founded upon, Rosenblatt’s reader response theory, Au and Montes cultivated a classroom in which the aesthetic stance for reading in paramount.  The authors creates an ideal reading setting to help these students view themselves as reader and also to think critically about a book.
Here’s how they did it…
1.    They used high-quality literature: literature that contained pertinent issue and real-world fourth grader concerns.
2.    They encourgage and modeled writing a response to literature that could be either “personal, creative or critical.”
3.    Their Book Clubs consisted of student-direction in small groups with authentic book conversations.
4.    The teacher also led “community shares” about the books.
5.    The teacher modeled and showed the students how to be in a Book Club.
Sound easy enough?  They had tremendous success! Give it a try and

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Over and over again, we’ve heard the praise sung for the glory of Readers Theatre.  Well, here it is again! This time authors Nancy L. Roser, Laura A. May, Miriam Martinez, Susan Keehn, Janis Harmon and Sharon O’Neal found great success using it with a bilingual, English and Spanish, fourth grade classroom.  These authors found great success while using the program and encouraging the students to “step into character(s).”
For this specific study, one fourth-grade class used Readers Theatre and was compared with a control class who did not use the Readers Theatre approach.  The class using Readers Theatre displayed more significant growth in reading rates and reading levels when compared with the control group.  Additionally, with this study the Readers Theatre was used in place of a guided reading or basal reading program.  So, as a believer in the necessity of guided reading, I just wonder if the program would have been that much better if used within a guided reading setting.  What do you think?
Though I have not researched it myself, from my experience with guided reading and Readers Theatre, I think that the BEST gains could be made by joining the two approaches, rather than just using Readers Theatre.    Would your students tire of all Reader’s Theatre? Any thoughts?
One last comment… also unique to this study was the fact that the classroom was bilingual.  Today, I think this is a rarity.  The composition of many classes today is multi-lingual, not simply bilingual (though that would make things easier!).  Any thought on how the findings of this study may or may not be pertinent in a multilingual classroom?

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In his article, The interaction of language, literacy, and identity in the lives of Latina/o students, Robert T. Jimenez examines the different identities held by “Latina/o” students and how this impacts an ability to acquire school-based literacy skills.  Additionally, he explores the way that different language and cultural identities associated with “Latina/o” students require various literacies not recognized by the schools. He suggests that many of the functional literacy, in which these students engage on a daily basis, is neither recognized by the school curriculum, nor the school environment.
To illustrate the issue, he presents instances of two students deemed in need of literacy supports at school engaging in highly involved literacy activities at home.  One student was essentially tutoring his 20-year old sister in Spanish.  A second student was also tutoring a sibling, but this case the student was younger.  Not only were these two students participating in and conducting at-home literacy activities, but the activities conducted by the students required bilingual abilities.
Jimenez’s article calls us as teachers and literacy advocates to find ways to alleviate the problems faced by bilingual students, not add to them by ignoring unique strengths. He makes two suggestions for teacher to help recognize how they use literacy and “empower” them.  He suggests allowing student to record with a notebook/notepad how they use oral language and also using cameras to take pictures of literacy in their own environments.
I love these two ideas, but I need more! So help? Give me your ideas of ways to help these ELL students.  What are your ways of encouraging language identity and literacy identity with ELL students, specifically beyond grade 3?

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Establishing Instructional Congruence Across Learning Settings: One Path to Success for Struggling Third-Grade Readers gave a new take on guided reading. It was similar to the chapter on higher-order thinking for all learners (which I posted earlier this week). This chapter focused on the lack of exposure to grade-level concepts, vocabulary, and syntax struggling readers have, which may prevent them from acquiring information that contributes to their development of language, comprehension, and writing. While most teachers use guided reading, this study provided children access to grade-appropriate language, ideas, and concepts, and at the same time, helped them to improve their ability to read unknown words and therefore, to advance toward independence in reading. By doing this, they had entire classes reading text on the same level. With a lot of cooperation and planning on the teachers’ and reading specialist’ part, they helped bring the majority of the struggling readers, including special education students, up to grade level by mid year and the others by the end of the year.
They used the same text with all students and formed a “pull-aside” intervention program. It was called a “pull-aside” program, not “pull-out”, because they were using the same text, but their instruction was “beefed up” with more systematic and intensive instruction in word-study strategies, increased opportunities for repeated readings to build fluency, and more explicit and systematic instruction in comprehension strategies. They drew from evidence that instructional strategies such as preteaching of vocabulary, discussion of background knowledge and repeated readings would allow children to read and reread text that might otherwise prove too difficult. So that the students would not feel a stigmatism from being “pulled- aside”, when they returned to the room they rejoined the classroom literacy community. Along with their peers, they recorded their responses to the focal selection in their reading journals, and then all children were given time to read self-selected books. This is what a typical session with the reading specialist looked like:
• Before reading: students reviewed and practiced retelling what they had read the previous day. Next, students were introduced to new vocabulary essential to the comprehension of the day’s focal selection. Sight words were introduced, practiced and added to the classroom word wall. Decodable words were introduced and practiced using appropriate word-making strategies and activities. Following word study, children browsed through the selection and previewed text and illustrations, shared predictions, and posed questions.
• During reading: the reading specialist read the text aloud while students followed along in their own copies of the book. As she read, she used think-alouds to model comprehension-monitoring strategies such as self-question, visualizing, and summarizing.
• After the read-aloud, the children shared their reactions, returned to and discussed their predictions, and attempted to answer any questions they themselves had posed. Following the discussion, students read the selection with a peer using a variety of oral reading strategies (echo reading, choral reading, Readers Theatre, and buddy reading). After peer reading, students reread a selected passage to the reading teacher, individually or in pairs. They ended the reading hour by self-selecting books to read independently or in pairs.
Almost everyday students reread at least one page of text to the reading specialist- these rereadings were used to determine whether or not instructional strategies were effective in helping the students to read difficult text on their own.

Sorry this was such a long post….but I really enjoyed this article, but am left somewhat confused. I thought guided reading was the best method for teaching reading? This proves the exact contrary. That being said, this model would take A LOT of cooperation, good teaching, and planning time for a grade level and reading specialist to implement this in order for it to be as huge of a success as it was for this group. What are your thoughts on using the same text for the whole class and just “beefing up” your instructional strategies for your struggling readers? Would you attempt this with a grade level if you were a reading specialist? I think it would definitely depend on the grade level. Part of the difficulty in implementing this, is that all teachers had to read the same text at the same time (because students were pulled from 4 different classes), and there was no room for “planning on the fly”. The results were amazing. This was an extremely informative article and I recommend that anyone who wants to improve their reading instruction read it.

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Joyce Many described how teachers can support the development of their students’ research skills in the article “Stories From the Classroom: Understanding and Scaffolding Children’s Research Processes.” She stated that there are different meanings of research, such as accumulating information, transferring information, or transforming information. What a student believes research means will affect what strategies students use. Teachers can scaffold students’ research strategy use to assist them in learning how to transform information by utilizing teachable moments in one-on-one and small group conferences.

Teachers need to model and teach critical literacy, such as modeling how to cross-check information and evaluate the reliability of sources. The article discussed five support strategies that teachers can use to scaffold struggling readers’ research:

1. Give students a time to roam (explore topics, different sources, research methods)
2. Help students find a range of sources
3. Use a read-understand-write strategy for note taking
4. Teach students to consider the sources
5. Consider what is of value (grammar, research strategy, use of multiple sources, etc.)

What do you believe is the most important way that teachers can help students learn how to research? Is this something that is being taught in Grade 3 and beyond in your school?

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In the article “Using Reading Guides with Struggling Readers in Grades 3 and Above,” Michael McKenna, Lisa Davis, and Susan Franks discussed how the use of reading guides can assist struggling readers in understanding informational texts. A reading guide can also be called a study guide and is a list of tasks and questions for students to respond to while reading a text. These guides can help model strategic reading, help students process content information, and focus students’ attention on important aspects of a text.

The authors state that using reading guides increases students’ comprehension ability, not just their comprehension of the selection that the guide is used with. They believe this may be due to the guide modeling how proficient readers work with new material. The authors also found that these reading guides can be effective with students as young as third grade.

There were also suggestions given for how to create an effective reading guide:

• analyzing material that students will read
• ensure the guide is aligned with assessment items
• make reading guides interactive and interesting
• monitor length and difficulty of reading guide
• include page numbers and subheadings to assist students in their search for information
• include comprehension aids such as definitions or summaries
• use a word processor so that the guide will be available to you for future editing or use
• review your purposes for constructing the guide to make sure it is effective (and complete the guide yourself)

Lastly, the authors stated that it is important for teachers to model how to complete the guide and to gradual release this responsibility to their students. Have you used guides with your struggling readers? Have you come across any good resources to assist in creating effective reading guides? What effects have you seen on students’ comprehension when using reading guides?

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This article touched on many different subjects…a group of teachers formed a Teachers’ Learning Collaborative and met to discuss educational issues and trends and topics regarding their personal classroom instruction. The main idea of this article is that in classrooms around our country, struggling readers are getting poorer and the strong readers are getting richer. The problem is struggling readers are the ones getting all the drills and practice, while the strong readers are doing more higher-order thinking tasks. The groups’ solution to this problem was a model they called Book Club Plus. Too often, book clubs and literature circles are for the already successful readers. So this group came up with a model that would meet the instructional needs of all students. The model has two components:Literacy Block and Book Club. Each of these components meets 2-3 times a week. The Literacy Block relates to the skills and strategies of reading and writing. It may include writer’s workshops, practice activities to foster word-level decoding skills, self-selected reading or listening in peer groups or individually. Literacy Block is also when guided reading takes place. The texts in guided reading are on the students’ instructional level, but all books are related to the thematic unit in which the entire class is involved with. The second component, Book Club, is a heterogeneous student-led book club where students apply the strategies they have been taught by discussing compelling, age-appropriate literature. Access to the literature discussed in the book clubs can involve a variety of routes: independent reading, buddy reading, listening or viewing centers, and teacher read-alouds. What is crucial is not that every child read every Book Club book independently, but that all children have access to these challenging, age-appropriate books and all students write and speak in response to them. As they respond to the texts and to one another, students learn to link texts to examine complex ideas.

This is an interesting model. How do you ensure that your struggling readers are reading and responding with age-appropriate reading material and responding with peers on all reading levels? How do you engage them in higher-order thinking?

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Wanda B. Hedrick, Janis M. Harmon, and Karen D. Wood address the “fourth grade slump” in the article “From Trade Books to Textbooks: Helping Bilingual Students Make the Transition.” This slump is often seen when students must transition to nonfiction texts from the primarily fiction texts they read in the earlier grades.

The authors discussed ways to help students with this transition, particularly the TAB (Talking About Books) Book club. In this method, students read, write, and talk about informational texts in small groups to hold a content area book club. First, they discuss ideas and prior knowledge, then they read the text and gather information. The final step is for students to write about their interpretations (individiually and collaboratively) and extend and share their ideas with others.

The authors worked with students to help them discuss and examine the different features of fiction, nonfiction, and textbooks and how readers read these texts. They also worked with internal text structure such as cause and effect. ELL students especially benefit from this focus on text structure as they build content area conceptual understandings.

What other ways do you know of or use to combat this fourth grade slump as students transition from fiction tradebooks to nonfiction texts?

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