Summer Vacation

There was an article written in the August 2 print of TIME Magazine titled The Case Against Summer Vacation. It points out the benefits to literacy development of having kids engaged in academic activities year round. The article states, “Blame Tom Sawyer: Americans have a skewed view of childhood and summertime. We associate the school year with oppression and the summer months with liberty. School is regimen; summer is creativity. School is work and summer is play. But when American students are competing with children around the globe who may be spending four weeks longer in school each year, larking through summer is a luxury we can't afford. What's more, for many children — especially children of low-income families — summer is a season of boredom, inactivity and isolation.

Deprived of healthy stimulation, millions of low-income kids lose a significant amount of what they learn during the school year. Call it "summer learning loss," as the academics do, or "the summer slide," but by any name summer is among the most pernicious — if least acknowledged — causes of achievement gaps in America's schools. Children with access to high-quality experiences can exercise their minds and bodies at sleep-away camp, on family vacations, in museums and libraries and enrichment classes. Meanwhile, children without resources languish on street corners or in front of glowing screens. By the time the bell rings on a new school year, the poorer kids have fallen weeks, if not months, behind. And even well-off American students may be falling behind their peers around the world.” The article goes on to talk about schools stepping it up to provide new approaches to summer school.

I once sat on an airplane by a doctor from the great lakes area. When he found out I was an educator he immediately voiced some of his opinions on public education. His view was similar to the view of the article. He thought summer was a waste of time for kids and that the school year needed to be longer. Revamping public schools seems to be the wave of the future. It will be interesting to see where it takes us.

Getting ready for the big day!

Since school will be starting soon and teachers are busy preparing for the first day of school. Below is a list of websites to assist in getting ready for the start of school.

Tips for getting organized and setting up the classroom

http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/classmanagement/organizingtips/menu.html

http://www.elementary-teacher-resources.com/setting-up-your-classroom.html

http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/res/classroom.html

http://k6educators.about.com/od/classroomorganization/ht/setupclassroom.htm

Ideas for the first day of school

http://www.kimskorner4teachertalk.com/classmanagement/firstday.html

http://www.theteacherscorner.net/seasonal/back-to-school/

http://www.suelebeau.com/firstday.htm

http://www.ilovethatteachingidea.com/ideas/subj_first_day.htm

First day of school for parents

http://www.pbs.org/parents/goingtoschool/first_days.html

http://parenting.kaboose.com/education-and-learning/tips-first-day-school.html

10 Things You Ought to Know About Reading Comprehension

Timothy Shanahan is one of my favorite researchers/educators. He once presented “10 Things You Ought to Know About Reading Comprehension.” Here is his list…

1. Reading comprehension tests don’t tell much about reading comprehension. It could be a decoding, word meaning, fluency, or comprehension problem.

2. Basic skills teaching improves reading comprehension. It provides enabling skills.

3. Reading comprehension itself can be taught explicitly. It is possible to provide instruction that helps students to think more effectively while they read to understand and remember more.

4. Reading comprehension instruction is not listening comprehension.

5. Reading comprehension instruction requires more than practice. Just reading and answering questions is better than just reading. But reading comprehension instruction is more than an assignment. We can teach kids how to think effectively when reading. Teach strategies.

6. Comprehension strategy instruction is different than comprehension skills instruction. Strategies are intentional and complex. Skills are cause and effect, categorize, compare and contrast, fact and opinion, etc. Strategies are summarizing, questioning, story mapping, monitoring, etc.

7. Combination of strategies are best.

8. Clear explanations matter. Students need to learn what, when, how, and why of strategies.

9. Gradual release of control approaches are effective. Modeling and explanation, guided practice and explanation, and independent practice.

10.We don’t have all the strategies. Strategies are about taking intentional mental actions to understand a text.

We can improve the reading lives of children by providing students with exemplary narrative and expository texts on which to practice their reading strategies.

Anita Archer

I had the opportunity to attend a conference this summer where the presenter was Anita Archer. She is amazing. Talk about a master teacher. She totally understands the importance of student engagement and explicit instruction. The topic of her conference was Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching. Below are some brief quotes and bits of information she presented…

Underlying Principles of Explicit Instruction

Variables related to student achievement/learning:

· Optimizing Academic Learning Time

· Optimizing Content Coverage

· Grouping for Instruction

· Scaffolding Instruction

· Addressing Different Forms/Levels of Knowledge

Guided and supported practice results in high levels of student success.

The more student responses required, the more they are engaged in the academic task.

The more you teach and how well you teach it = the more students learn

MODEL EVERYTHING!!!

Connect and interact with all students.

Monitor student responses:

WALK AROUND, LOOK AROUND, TALK AROUND.

Trade books for reading strategies

Summer is quickly coming to an end. Before we know it, school will be back in session. Teachers all over are gearing up for the new year by preparing amazing lessons to assist students in learning.

Strategy instruction is key when teaching reading. I love using trade books as I teach, so I was really excited to find this list of books to use to teach some of the different reading strategies. I have included the list for your resource.

Prior Knowledge:

Brenner, Barbara. Thinking about Ants. Illustrated by Carol Schwartz. Mondo, 1997. 32 pages

Jenkins, Steve and Robin Page. What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? Houghton Mifflin, 2003. 32 pages

Ross, Alice and Kent. The Copper Lady. Illustrated by Leslie Bowman. Carolrhoda, 1997. 56 pages

Making Connections:

Ada, Alma Flor. I Love Saturdays y domingos. Illustrated by Elivia Savadier. Atheneum, 2002. 32 pages

Ajmera, Maya and John D. Ivanko. Back to School. Charlesbridge, 2001. 32 pages

Rogers, Fred. Extraordinary Friends. Photographs by Jim Judkis. Putnam, 1999. 32 pages

Questioning:

Browne, Anthony. Into the Forest. Candlewick Press, 2004. 28 pages

Woodson, Jacqueline. The Other Side. Illustrated by E.B. Lewis. Putnam, 2001. 32 pages

Davies, Nicola. Big Blue Whale. Illustrated by Nick Maland. Candlewick, 1997. 27 pages

Visualizing:

Schaefer, Lola M. What's Up? What's Down? Illustrated by Barbara Bash. Greenwillow Books, 2002. 32 pages

Karas, G. Brian. Atlantic. Putnam, 2002. 32 pages

Medearis, Angela Shelf. Our People. Illustrated by Michael Bryant. Atheneum, 1994. 32 pages

Inferring:

Kasza, Keiko. My Lucky Day. Putnam, 2003. 32 pages

Simont, Marc. The Stray Dog. From a true story by Reiko Sassa. HarperCollins, 2001. 32 pages

Wiesner, David. Tuesday. Clarion, 1991. 32 pages

Summarizing:

Goldin, Augusta. Ducks Don't Get Wet. Illustrated by Helen K. Davie. (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science) HarperCollins, 1999. 32 pages

Markle, Sandra. Creepy, Crawly Baby Bugs. Walker, 1996. 32 pages

Rylant, Cynthia. Mr. Putter and Tabby Stir the Soup. Illustrated by Arthur Howard. Harcourt, 2003. 48 pages

12 Ways to Improve Your Literacy Teaching This Summer

One of my favorite educators/researchers is Tim Shanahan from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He recently posted twelve ideas teachers can do over the summer to improve their literacy teaching during the next school year. I loved it so I thought I would share.

1. Take a class. If you live near a college or university that has courses in the teaching of reading, see what you can find out (this is especially useful if it has been awhile since you have taken a class—get the cobwebs out and upgrade your knowledge.

2. Read a book on how you can improve your literacy teaching (I have several book recommendations on the widget in the right-hand column).

3. Read some children’s books that are appropriate for your grade level. Children’s books won’t teach kids to read, but knowing the literature that is available can improve your chances of making things better for some kids (I am partial to the Children’s Choices lists on the International Reading Assocation website for a good source).

4. Tutor a student. I know you have been teaching all year long and you’re ready for a break, but really focusing on the needs of one student and trying to figure out how to best accelerate his or her learning is a great way to hone your skills. You’d be surprised how much of that you can take back to the classroom.

5. Travel to parts of the world that have school in session now and visit some very different classrooms from your own. North American and European schools will soon be off for the summer, but in the rest of the world, school is in session. If you haven’t spent time in classrooms abroad it can be eye-opening.

6. Attend an educational meeting or conference. Many organizations have lecture series and workshops during the summer. I know I will be speaking at a couple of those (one at Teachers College in New York, and another at the University of Kansas). These don’t require as much commitment as a summer class, but give you opportunities to connect with other educators and to dig in on some worthwhile learning.

7. Start a book club. I suggested reading a book, but maybe you should read more than one—with your friends. Get a group of likeminded teachers together, select some books, get some wine, and help each other to get smarter about teaching reading.

8. Critique yourself. Every time I finish teaching a class at the university, I go through and revise the course (what worked, and what didn’t, what should I have done, and what will I do differently). I don’t even let myself put it all away until I have taken myself through that exercise. It is amazing how many things you notice about your teaching that are really pretty improvable if you take it on when you don’t have the pressure of daily teaching.

9. Explore a topic on the web. I have been adding lists of websites to this site (over on the right hand side). Right now I have some of my favorite sites with a focus on reading comprehension and on literacy instruction for English Language Learners. Use those resources or build your own, but start to figure out what you could do better and how to do it.

10. Celebrate, but think hard about, your successes. In some ways it is easier to critique yourself than to analyze what is working for you. Which students made great progress this year and why? What did you do that worked? How can you capitalize on that kind of quality next year? When teaching works the teacher owes him/herself a big pat on the back, but what made for this success so that it can be replicated and expanded upon?

11. Read the books your students are going to read next year (e.g., textbooks, basals,
anthologies, book sets). No, really read them. Read each story or selection asking yourself, “what are my kids going to find hard to understand? What will confuse them?). Make notes. If you do this, your comprehension instruction will improve.

12. Learn something… really, become a student again. But learn something that will be hard for you. Over the past few years, I have been learning ballroom dancing and how to read French. Both have been very difficult, but the experience reminds you (and sensitizes you) to what is difficult about learning, and to how embarrassing learning can be. So, if you’ve ever wanted to learn how to cook Chinese food, read Sanskrit, or ride motorcycles, it is time to become learners again and to remember what it is that teachers do that really helps. http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/