All of us, as teachers, have students who are reading below grade level each year. Some of these students are not just slightly but some are significantly below grade level. We, in our county, call these students our ‘striving’ readers; a phrase coined by Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward in their book, From Striving to Thriving. Our school has been working and continues to work to move these readers forward.
The first thing we learned was just how important it is to get these kids excited about reading. We stopped worry about the “level” of the book and were more concerned about whether the student was interested or excited to read the book. We took a lot of ideas from Donalyn Miller (The Book Whisperer and Reading in the Wild) and really spent a lot of time in the first half of our year getting kids to actually read during independent time! We no longer needed “centers” or “rotations” to fill our reading blocks. We actually have kids reading from PK-5 for long chunks of independent time. But, even after we had kids excited about reading we knew we had to tackle the issue of our striving readers.
So, for the last few weeks we have been lucky to have Lura Hanks, our Reading & Social Studies Supervisor, coming to model some guided groups with our readers that are furthest away from grade level (students with IEPs, EL students, etc..) . Lura has come and each time brought a piece of text that was close to or on grade level and each time these students were able to read the text! Yes…you read that correctly…they read it! What I saw her doing was not anything earth shattering but the way she taught got students “to do the work” instead of relying on the teacher. Her techniques gave students the skills and confidence students needed to be more independent.
How does she do it? What’s the magic formula? The key, from all I have learned so far it to build up student confidence, “coaching in” with students as they are reading, and helping students build strategies and expecting them to use them independently.
Each time Lura begins a group the students can’t help but feel like they could read anything. She tells them that “they will read the text” by the end of the week but that on day one she is going to do all the hard work. Also, Lura expects students to try to read while she supports them by coaching in. As teachers we want all kids to succeed. I find that teachers, myself included, have a tendency to help them more than we should because we want them to “get it”. Therefore students become dependent on us to think, they literally will sit there quietly just looking at the teacher knowing that if they wait long enough they will tell them what to do or say. Harvey and Ward said it best, “whoever does the most work does the most learning, so like any reader, kids need time to practice, once we show them how.” Part of learning means sometimes getting it wrong or struggling a bit. As we know from growth mindset research, people learn best when they have to solve a problem or as a result of what we learn from making mistakes.
Another vital strategy is getting kids to “predict” or notice, wonder, and think BEFORE they ever read a word. Lura asks them to just “look” at the text for 1-2 minutes before they ever begin to read. They talk about what they predict it might be about based on the pictures, structure, and text features. Then they begin to read with the background knowledge and connections they have made.
Today an interesting strategy to help them go off and read a paragraph on their own that they were not going to have time to read together. She read the subheading of the paragraph to them. Then she asked them, “Based on this subheading, what words do you think you might encounter as you read?” This set them up to be able to figure out words based on the context. In fact before they left several students had found the words in the section that they probably would not have figured out without first connecting to the topic. I felt like this was a simple but hugely effective strategy.
Accountability is another big part of Lura’s instruction. When she teaches them a word she has them put their finger on it, she defines it, has them read it and notice what it looks like and then she says, “Now you know the word, insert word, the next time you see it I expect you to know it! And…I know you probably don’t believe me…but they do know it!
These are just some basics that I’m picking up but after you watch group after group at every grade level of striving readers reading and understanding passages that are far above their level you can’t help but realize that it’s not about a box intervention it is more about knowing your readers and using the gradual release model to help them “do the work”. He have to stop holding their hands and start coaching…learning from mistakes and effort.
So…after watching 8 or so groups that Lura has taught I was itching to get my feet wet and try it out myself. This week I chose a group of three boys from a fourth grade class who all were reading on a I-K level. I brought a text for them that related to the social studies that they were starting (the Revolutionary War) from NEWSELA (click for the article) that was a 710 lexile (far above their level). These boys did so well reading this high passage that I posed this to them to set a purpose for their reading:
Later after they have finished reading the text on their own, they will respond to this question: In your opinion, how could King George avoided the war with the colonies? Use text evidence to support your reasoning.
Well…how will they do with the writing prompt? We shall have to wait and see! We have several more days this week of touching base with the text before we are ready for the writing piece. But…if you want to know how it’s going let me know and I’ll try to blog about the process.
Know that this is just the tip of the iceberg of what I have to learn to move our strivers. I’m learning from Lura and leaning on what I’m learning from the book I mentioned above as well as the Yaris and Burkins book, Who’s Doing the Work. But…I hope you stay with me on the journey and share what you are learning as well! We are all made better by learning from those around us.