Celebrate This Week: Why I Teach Reading

This week, one of my students asked me why I teach reading.

I’ve been thinking about this question in the context of this week.

We’re getting ready. For the test. We took on testing language.

“What does that mean?” was a typical reaction to a phrase like, “draw a conclusion.”

It’s not that students hadn’t heard the words before or read texts on grade level or responded to questions.

We’ve been doing this all year. But there’s a difference.

We’ve used these words as learners. There has been approximation, engagement, not mastery. We’ve done the work in texts of choice. The questions have grown out our thinking.

Testing changes context.

The work is not learning. It is responding. It’s right and wrong.

This week, students noticed author’s point of view, made inferences, drew conclusions and found evidence in the text to support their thinking.  The same thing they have done all year. But this week, it was done in a static situation with one text and fixed questions.

It’s unsettling.

One could argue we needed more practice with this kind of work.

One could spend all year getting used to this sort of language. Working in same texts, answering questions with test-like question stems. I’ve done this. But there is a cost.

If we spend our precious time teaching this kind of reading and this type of questioning, the work would be familiar. Perhaps scores would be higher. It’s a possibility.

But if we do this, students will walk out of our doors with an aborted view of reading. Reading for knowledge and pleasure will diminish. And, I believe a result could be that the resources available to them as adults will evaporate along with the richness of a life of learning.

We do students a huge disservice if we don’t give them the opportunity to access enjoyment and to learn through reading.  Providing a classroom environment that reaches that potential is the challenge and craft of being a reading teacher. This is the magic that is reading. This is why I teach reading.

This week, I celebrate testing language a few weeks before the test.

This week, I celebrate knowing why I teach reading.

 

Thank you, Ruth Ayers, for a place to share our thoughts and celebrations each week. Read more celebrations here.

 

 

Celebrate: Values vs. Practice

This week I got interim scores from a district assessment. The unstated but very real message in this was: where do you rank and what can you do to pull up those scores. That evening I looked at questions on the test. I thought about them. I spent time and energy in that direction. And then I stopped. And asked, what is best for my students right now? And, how do I want them to leave my classroom in June?

That same evening, I picked up Katherine Bomer’s essay in The Teacher You Want to Be titled, “With and Air of Expectancy.” In it, she compares the word expectant, as in an expectant mother, to expectations, as in what students are to meet in the form of standards.

The word expectant connotes all of the wonderful possible that can be; it celebrates the impending joy. Expectant has an I-can’t-wait-till-you-get-there feeling, and it embraces the I-know-you-will-get-there belief.

Bomer reminded me of what I value, of why I spend so many of my waking moments caught up in my profession, of what I need to do tomorrow and every day after that.

I believe that learning is rooted in engagement and that engagement can only flourish in an environment that is joyful and responsive to the learner’s interest.

Now for the hard part. Where does that value exist in my daily practice?

Today, I’m looking back on the week to celebrate the places where my values showed up. The moments where I practice what I preach.

First: Daily commitment to 15 minutes of choice reading, writing, blogging, commenting, or wondering on Wonderopolis

Second: Daily blogging requirement none; daily average of 20 posts and 50 comments

Third: Twice daily book club talks before and after reading

Fourth: Daily commitment to Read Aloud with the focus on growing our community’s thinking and building the joy of reading

Fifth: Student choice of research topics, books, and partnerships

I believe these moments, these structures put learner interests alongside literacy practice. Each brings a bit of joy, a bit of engagement, and a bit of silly into the classroom. Each puts me on the sidelines, coaching in towards literacy expectations, on their terms. Each has me meeting them where they are. Each provides an opportunity to learn through reading and writing.

At the end of the day, the end of the year, students exceed, meet and approximate the expectations. Bit by bit, each student edges forward. 

The worry I have is not the percentage that will meet the expectation this year. The worry I have is the learner who looks at coming up short as a reason to think they can’t or they won’t. The worry I have is that it’s not about this year. It’s about all that is to come.

Next week, I’ll sit down with families to look at student progress. If a student is less than, it could quite naturally slip into feelings of panic, judgment, failure.

These conferences will be an exercise in expectancy: of what is possible and how we can build towards that goal.  It will be a reminder that learning is a constant state; that the future is full of possibility, that we are expectant. We know you will get there and beyond.

Thank you, Ruth, for your Celebration link up. Read more celebrations and post your own here.

 

 

 

 

Celebrate: The Power of Assessments, Part 2

Time to Celebrate this Week with Ruth Ayers.

It has been a long, short week. So much was packed into four days.

First…

This week was filled with reading and writing assessments. Assessments keep me up at night for many reasons. I wrote about the pain of inappropriate assessments on Tuesday.  But on the flip side, results of assessments, when viewed with understanding and as a marker of growth on a continuum of learning, are reason to celebrate. 

This week I saw my students’ thinking as they wrote about their reading. I saw how each student approached the text. I saw growth and meeting of benchmarks. This matters. Students need to see their growth. But more importantly, teachers need to find next steps for students. So I record their scores to track their progress, and set that aside. What I spend time with and celebrate this weekend are the areas of need, the next step for each child and the puzzle of how to get there.

Second...

Our informational writing unit came to an end and students celebrated by commenting on each other’s posts.  Students tend to notice the mistake rather than the strength or comment so generally it means very little.  I wanted them to not only comment in a positive way, but to learn something in the process. Taking a tip from Melanie Meehan, I cut up our TCRWP checklists and put them on cards .

Then, I invited students to find something a student did well that was on a card and complement them, by identifying what they did as a writer. After working on these for a while I found myself calling them “complement cards.” I started to ask students, have you written a complement or a connection to a post. Inadvertently I had renamed our work. This week I celebrate the renaming of comments. We no longer comment on posts, we complement or make connections.

Third…

At the end of any writing unit I ask students to write an on demand piece.  I invited them to write about any topic they felt they are an expert in. Their only constraint was the time, 45 minutes. Without prompting, many pulled out their genius hour notebooks, filled with notes on their passion projects. One student asked, can we put this on the blog? Never have I had a student ask to put an assessment on the blog. This week I celebrate the power of genius hour learning: time students choose what they want to learn. Given opportunity, resources and choice students can create their own learning.

And finally...

All this week my students wrote about their one little words. So much has come out in this process. Their posts are raw, exposed. The choices they make are so telling.

The reason why I choose powerful is because if I do something hard I could look at my word, then it will tell me that I am brave and that nothing is going to take me down. It will also tell me that I am brave and I won’t back down and if I struggle a lot I can look at the muscle and that means I am strong and I am very powerful. So that’s why I picked it because sometimes I struggle a lot, so that’s why I picked the word, so it will make me brave and my word. I know some people struggle with stuff and adults also struggle a lot, so I picked it because I knew it would help me and make me better when I am working. And if I get stuck I can look at it and it tells me I am strong I can beat any hard stuff and it will make me confident.  Now I like the word and I love the word😊 because I know it will help me throughout the year of elementary so yay👍.

So yay and happy weekend!