I don't know which door it is?

"I don't know what door it is," she said in a panicked voice.  I bolted out of my chair and hurried her to the right door.  I knew part of what she was feeling; although, clearly, I cannot remember not knowing which door to use.  Those of us who have been reading for a long, long time can forget how it must feel to need to be able to manipulate a world managed by print and not-yet-be-able to read.

There are adults and kids alike, sometimes new to our land, sometimes visitors, and those who are not-yet-literate who experience that panic many times, every day.  I was reminded as I looked at her eyes, bulging out of her face, and heard her voice, filled with fear of an losing control, how scary our world must be for ANYONE (kids and sadly some adults, too) who have not yet broken the print code.

Learning to read has posed big challenges for this little one; however, yesterday we learned that even though those rooms are often near each other, the letters GIRLS on the door means a bathroom designated for girls. We put the word on her word ring along with go, I, see and cat.

Then, I printed a universally acceptable sign to help all the little ones who do not yet read when they are in my hallway in my school.  I should have noticed the need long ago.  I should have put up a sign long ago.  I am reminded that teachers, all of us, need to think about what our kids need to manipulate their world!  I am reminded we should try to "walk a mile" in their moccasins (or sneakers).

  

#celebratelu That old "ahhah" moment feeling

When I looked out the morning in the predawn darkness, the snow was everywhere.  My first impulse was to "sigh" with a realization that our color-laden-crispy-sunshiny-fall was morphing into a white-tipped-barren-dark-cold-to-your-bones-winter season. Perhaps, I wondered momentarily, if I should climb back into bed, pull the covers over my head, and forget this day!

Instead, I showered and dressed in layers, emerging in an old-favorite-wool sweater that had been waiting all summer for a chance to come back into the line-up. I fortified my insides with a bit of Quaker's finest that tasted surprisingly delicious as I shivered in the cold!

As I headed to work, the darkness gave way, somehow, to a glorious, early morning "ahhah" moment so lovely I wished I could have taken a picture while driving (so I borrowed this one from a Facebook friend!).  I celebrated the beauty, and the miracle, of thin branches carefully balancing inches of snow while the roads, still warm from the fall's sunshine, remained beautifully-bare!  

A few hours later, I was once again having one of those "I should have climbed back into be and pulled the covers over my head" moments as I coerced my first-period-amoebae-like first-graders into reading an old classic, Get In.

"Sure didn't plan this well," I thought to myself as I guided the amoebae through a short text where Mindy is encouraging her raccoon friend Buzzy to get in a blow-up pool!
"Point to those words," I implored them as word-to-word correspondence is still sporadic.
"Get your mouth ready for that word," I encouraged them.
"We have that word right here on our list," I said hopefully as I pointed to "you" on a short list.
"Now, read it again," I strongly encouraged one particularly reluctant amoeba as I wrapped my arms around him and placed my hands over his own, strongly, scaffolding the reading experience with my mouth moving for his and my heart not too far from his own.

"Will you get in?" we said together.
"I will not get in," he said softly, miraculously pointing to the words as I held him securely.
"Will you get in, Mindy," he continued, effortlessly getting his own mouth ready to say the words as if he had been doing this for a long time.
"See me get in," he said as if he had been doing this a long time.
My breathing slowed so I could hear every soft word coming from his mouth and I smiled from ear-to-ear as I felt that lovely "ahhah" moment-feeling for the second time in as many hours.

"I'm not sure who is more excited right now," the principal, who knew this amoebae quite well, offered as we celebrated our "ahhah moment rereading a page to him and to anyone else who would listen.

There is nothing quite as lovely as snow laden trees, except, if you teach beginning readers!

Sight word mastery in kindergarten? IRA says, "Better not be all you do!"

http://www.reading.org/reading-today/research/post/lrp/2014/10/09/should-we-be-teaching-100-sight-words-to-kindergartners-

International Reading Association

2 hrs · 

Researcher Marcia Invernizzi says drilling kindergartners about sight words can do more harm than good. See what else she has to say about teaching young learners.

Should we be teaching 100 sight words to kindergartners?

According to Marcia Invernizzi, drilling kindergartners with high frequency words on flashcards is unlikely to support the development of their sight word vocabulary.

READING.ORG

#celebratelu Impulse Purchases and Little Voices in our Heads

This week, I celebrate "impulse" purchases 

and those little voices in our heads! 

"You don't need him," the practical side of my brain reminded me as I tucked a huge teddy bear into my already laden Costco basket. 

"The kids are going to love you," I thought as I buckled the seat belt around his soft belly Monday morning. 

"I hope you won't be too much of a distraction," the practical side of me wondered as we drove down the interstate listening to the morning news together.  

"Grandma's old rocking chair will be perfect for you," I thought as I nestled Beary into the rocker and put a book in his lap.  

"You can model what good readers do," I told Beary sternly as I got ready for the day, "no goofing around when the kids are here."   

It's been a few weeks now, and Beary has become an integral part of "Reading Club."  He's more focused than I could ever have imagined and is either busy with his own reading or busy watching over the readers and writers who come into and out of our room!
He's always has time for a "good morning" and to listen to the stories of his friends. He eagerly holds onto take-home-book-bags so kids can focus on their reading or writing!   Sometimes, he nestles comfortably next to reluctant or resistant readers and encourages them to take risks and stretch their own reading (I wonder if they can hear his voice in their heads?).  He listens attentively to reader responses and usually sports a "good job" sicker or two, gifts from his friends.
People stop by in the morning, on their way to lunch, and on their way home to check on his progress or to turn the page of his book for him (He may need some OT to help with fine motor issues).
On Monday, I'm told, he will begin writing Beary's Book Blog. I think his first post will be about that ol' familiar tale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  I can hear his little voice (in my head) composing that first post!      

Reaching ALL Readers (Sight, Phonics and other Approaches)

I've spent a good deal of my adult life guiding, supporting and helping others find the joy and wonder in the printed word.  Sometimes, learning to read appears to happen like magic; however, there were years of experiences that serve as a foundation to the miracle of reading! 

Sometimes, learning to read is hard; however, if parents and teachers carefully analyze a student's relative strengths and needs, all students can learn to read.    

For many students, the "need" is opportunities to learn the phonetic code.  Programs like Fundations have made their fortune out of teaching the code.  Learning the complex ways that sounds can work in English offers all of us the means to read words and ideas we do not yet know.  While that may not seem like something we need, it does allow us to read scientific terms as well as names and the ideas of others outside of our experiences.  Some findings suggest students with language, speech and articulation difficulties, including apraxia of speech, may benefit from this type of approach.

Yet for other students, the need is opportunities to learn a fund of sight words.  There is some research that suggests diverse students benefit from structured sight based approaches. Students with Downs Syndrome as well as students with significant hearing/speech/articulation difficulties may benefit from a fund of sight words that can serve as a base for their own understanding of the code. I wrote about some of that research in this article http://journals.cec.sped.org/tecplus/vol5/iss3/art3/
Other students just find comfort in the predictable and repeated words that are found in sight word based programs such as these.

Some readers benefit from Language Experience approaches too!
Someresources to think about as we all prepare to return to school and face the need to teach ALL children to be readers!

• http://journals.cec.sped.org/tecplus/vol5/iss3/art3/
• http://pridelearningcenter.com/2013/01/29/childhood-apraxia-of-speech-and-reading-help/
• http://ereadingpro.com/ProductSeries-IWLD.htm
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3251281/
• Supporting Individuals with Down syndrome and other ... - DSAW
• www.dsaw.org/Data/Sites/3/media/resources/peer.../a11took-kit.pdf
• READING PROGRAMS/HELPFUL WEBSITES ... and for older non-verbal children ... grades 1-3 and 4-6 with games, sight words, teacher links, kids links and

• http://www.down-syndrome.org/practice/349/practice-349.pdf
• [PPT] Teaching Reading to Children with Down Syndrome 
• www.dsgsemi.org/pdf/TeachingReadingtoChildrenwithDS08.ppt 

• Providing Effective Literacy Instruction to Students With Down ...

  www.bsnpta.org/.../VOL.36NO.4MarApr2004_TEC_Al_Otaiba36-4.pdf

#celebratelu2014 End of yearitis

It happens every year! 

 It's nearing the end of the school year in these parts and so the ritual of filling folders, cleaning files and running at full throttle is in full swing.  There are numerous picnics, writing celebrations and more "moving up" days than I can count.  This week, there will be graduations and curriculum rewriting will commence K-12 as soon as the graduates walk across the stage! On the one hand, we should ALL (kids and teachers) be exhausted and should be limping our way towards summer vacation; however, it never seems to be that way!  Instead, this week, I celebrate "The End of Yearitis." 

Perhaps you have never heard it named before, but if you are a student or a teacher or live with either one,you have experienced that energy surge that borders on mania that accompanies the end of each school year.  There is a bit of the "Bob the Builder" I can take on the world feeling that causes individuals to begin projects that would have been seen as  impossible just weeks before! 

Some clear signs of it were evident this week:

• More than one of my reluctant readers and writers showed up each morning with "made at home" writing creations.  In their own way, they are reflecting on the year and trying to savor the memories.  They have been listening and learning even when we thought they weren't.  Now, as the sun sets in this school year, they are filled with energy to write! Why, I wonder?  It's the end of yearitis.
• Parents are clamoring for books, ideas, suggestions, worksheets for their kids for the summer.  They have been assured by their children, who are suffering from end of yearitis, that they are eager to read every day this summer. Yes, some students who have been reluctant readers for the past 190 days are just clamoring to get at those piles of books their parents are stockpiling!  Why, I wonder?  It's the end of yearitis
• It's not that I don't have anything to do for school, like progress reports to edit, but I found myself recovering cushions for the porch this week!  I also cleaned out a closet! Why, I wonder?  It's the end of yearitis!  
• My son, a teacher, must have a particularly bad case this year as evidenced by his Depot visit yesterday! As the mania, now known as end of yearitis kicks in, he can certainly build fine furniture, take on home repair, and become a master chef!      
• As for me?  Yes I have it bad, too. When I found out that I would be moving classrooms, again, I began singing and dancing to Johnny Cash's "Going Down Down Down...." and the old 70's sitcom theme, "Moving On Up!" Moving, again, no problem!  I can pack 'em up, ship 'em out like Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched!  I have plans to write, read, sew and oh yes, clean up the mess I made sewing those cushions!   
•  It's a glorious feeling, this end of the yearitis! 

                       

 

Assessment-Guided Instruction

I sometimes wonder if our students realize how much we learn through reading and reflecting as we teach! As I finish up the paperwork after a semester immersed in assessment, thanks to "teaching" about it, I really need to document my thoughts.......  

It's easy to talk the talk and much harder to walk the walk in the area of assessment-guided, differentiated instruction. Knowing a student's strengths and needs is a lot of work, takes time and requires more than one assessment!  Yet, it is essential for effective teaching and supports learning for all students.  For our strongest and for our most struggling students, assessment-guided instruction makes all the difference in the world.  Programs and formats work best when we can use our students' strengths to support their needs.  

Classroom teachers use:

Pretests help us know what a learner can do before we start teaching a specific skill' however, they are rarely diagnostic in their focus and cannot, usually, spot weaknesses or holes that might stand in the way of new learning.  In addition, pretests measure progress at a moment in time rather than as learning occurs.  
Formative assessments is integrated into our teaching, seamlessly. Do-nows and exit tickets are some of my own favorite means of formative assessment; however, running records (the real Marie Clay kind), turn and talks and thumbs up are also pretty much integrated into every day teaching in most classrooms.   Some studies (Stiggins) suggest students gain much more in classrooms where formative assessments guide instruction.
Summative assessments are used at the end of a unit of study to measure student learning.  
Screening assessments help us to know which students might need more support.  They are typically given at the beginning of a year as a measure of which students might need support. They measure prior learning. 

Literacy specialist/special education teachers use all of these plus:

Progress monitoring assessment are used to determine if an intervention or a strategy is making a difference.  

Diagnostic assessments help us understanding how student's learn and identify strengths and needs. For students who struggle, this must be a part of what we do so that we can effectively modify/differentiate instruction.

Here are a few places to start:

Dibles    https://dibels.uoregon.edu/
Reading A-Z     http://www.readinga-z.com/assessments/phonics-assessment/
Los Angels County   http://teams.lacoe.edu/reading/assessments/assessments.html

SDE  http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/curriculum/cali/elementary_assessments_4-9-12.pdf

K-12    https://eprcontent.k12.com/placement/placement/placement_langarts_2.html
Scholastic  http://www.senia.asia/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/CORE-Phonics-Survey-Scholastic.pdf
LINCS    http://lincs.ed.gov/readingprofiles/MC_Word_Analysis.htm
Fuchs: www.studentprogress.org/library/training/.../usingcbmreading.pdf 
Easy CBMs https://www.google.com/#q=progress+monitoring+assessments
RTI  http://www.rti4success.org/essential-components-rti/progress-monitoring
Intervention Central http://www.interventioncentral.org/curriculum-based-measurement-reading-math-assesment-tests
A Good Read: http://books.google.com/books?id=-30OYvQsfGMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Fountas and Pinnell