April 2018 – Reflect

Do You Have Students Break Words?

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I am trying a new approach in the Word Study component of my guided reading lessons. Sunday Cummins shared this approach with me recently. Jan Richardson shared it with her. It comes from Michele Dufresne. Twitter: @MicheleDufresne

It is really simple and makes great sense when you think about transitioning readers from using sound boxes into chunking words or breaking a word, a strategy you should be using with readers in stages Early – Fluent.

This strategy teaches readers to break words into meaningful parts or chunks. This is a strategy you should be prompting readers to use as you listen to them read and get stuck on a word. Breaking a word will help the reader hold onto the meaning of the word and sentence as they work through it. The alternative of asking readers to stretch it out, does not often work and it causes them to lose meaning of what they are reading. Breaking a word should be used as part of the cross-checking strategy when students are reading.

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The old adage of sound it out is not effective when reading for meaning.

This new approach involves asking students to break words apart instead of asking them to build words during the word study component of guided reading.

When introducing this approach, you may want to tell readers where to break words at first. However you want them to be responsible for breaking the words themselves when possible. You have to know your readers and what they need. If they do not need to be told, then do not tell them. Let them figure it out.

Let readers take on as much responsibility as they can. Never start from the stand point that readers cannot do something, give them a chance and jump in when they need the support. Remember one benefit of guided reading is that the teacher is right there supporting students as they try things out. It will be more authentic for the student and they will remember it better when they do the work. Then they will transfer the skill more easily.

Example: Break chop in front of the vowel: ch op

Or just ask students to chunk/break the word.

If your students need to be told where to break the word I think it is important to say break the word in front the vowel. This will help reader distinguish vowels from consonants, a skill they must have when breaking apart larger, more difficult words. Recognizing different vowel combinations is very helpful.

In my 2^nd grade group this week I practiced this strategy. I wrote the word sticky on a white board and asked my students to build it and then break it out, without saying the word out loud. They came up with 3 different ideas.

st i ck y

stick y

st ick y

All of these can be helpful to individual students. So, do not penalize readers for breaking the words differently. But make sure you ask them to explain their reasoning. There are certain guidelines you will want to enforce, however.

Keep vowel pairs together: ea, ou, ir

Keep digraphs together: th, ch, sh

Keep blends together: st, sw, sl

Keep prefixes and suffixes together

(This is not a complete list)

Look for meaningful chunks that keep common patterns(rimes) together:

CVC words like: p op, s at, t ub

Readers in the Early stage of reading will probably need more support.

Here are a few more examples of words my students have broke apart this week.

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This student changed her break in the word to “con” “nect” when I asked her to explain reasoning for the break in the picture above. She even said at first I though it was “co” (with a long o sound) and then I thought it was “con” I always ask student to explain why they broke the word the way they did and let them notice a better way to break it without directly telling them when at all possible.

The other students broke it like this:

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Here are the basic steps

Step 1: Write a word on a dry-erase board. Do not say the word and tell students not to say the word. (chop)

Step 2: Have students take the letters off their trays and make the word.

Step 3: Tell students to break the word at the vowel. (ch op)

Step 4: Have the students say each part chorally. (/ch/ /op/)

Step 5: Have the students put the word back together and read it. (chop)

Step 6: Tell the student to change a letter or two to make a new word (e.g. tell them which letters to change). For example, tell the student to “change the letter c to a letter s” so they have the letters for shop). Do not say the word and tell students not the say the word. Students then break the word, say each part, and put the word back together as they read it.

Step 7: Write a word on the dry-erase easel with the same rime but different onset. Have students read it. (stop). If they need help underline the rime (stop).

Now when readers come to a difficult word and are trying to cross-check it, I have them try breaking it as an added strategy. When reading with this group of 2nd graders I had to prompt them to break several words this week. They wanted to guess or try to stretch it out. A habit I am trying to break. They quickly put their finger on the word and eventually all solved their words by breaking them apart.

I like to say break the word instead of saying look for a part or word you know. Saying that can sometimes backfire on you. For example in the word: finger, recognizing the word in will not help. I am sure many of you have encountered many words where it didn’t help. You have to think about the word, text and student when making in the moment word solving decisions.

I did not have to tell any of these 2nd graders the words we chunked this week. They solved every one.

Let me know if you try this out and how it goes. Email me if you would like a copy of this complete strategy.

Engaging Readers

I recently had a group of 3^rd grade students who had started to become disengaged in their reading. We had just returned from spring break and they were well, not engaged! I was deeply frustrated! So, what did I do? I reflected! On my own practice and on student strengths and needs. Also about the texts I was choosing. All of this impacts engagement and motivation. I also thought about how the students classroom instruction had changed. Students were 3 weeks aways from taking their first state assessment. Classrooms switched to test prep activities that changed what their teaching.

My initial concern was kids distracting each other. When one student finished reading before the others and became a distraction. This is not always an issue if you are able to group kids who read close to the same rate, but groupings do not always work out perfectly & kids grow at different rates. After reflecting I came up with a game plan. I focused on what I could do proactively to help keep students engaged.

The next day I led them in a discussion about our goals as readers, and how we could best use our time to meet those goals. Note, I said I led a discussion, they did most of the thinking and talking. I did not want this to be about me, but about them as learners. We discussed what expectations they had for themselves and what they felt my expectations were for them. This helped them refocus themselves without me lecturing them. I purposefully directed the conversation towards the purpose of reading. We discussed what they could do as readers if they finish reading a section of text and the rest of us are still hard at work. They came up with lots of good ideas, while I nudged them towards some others.

We discussed rereading of course. To keep kids engaged as they reread they really need a purpose for reading however. A student in this group had an “ah ha” moment a few weeks prior that I used as a teaching point to help kids understand the importance of rereading and how it can deepen our understanding. So, we talked about rereading with a purpose in mind. Rereading to figure out a confusing point or something they didn’t understand. We discussed rereading to answer a question, and to see if we might have missed a key detail. We talked about rereading to find an important detail they want to share and to mark it with a sticky-note or highlight it if appropriate. Or to flag an idea they want to talk about and clarify. These are things you may ask kids to do when rereading with a purpose on day 2 or day 3 of your guided reading lesson, but you don’t always have to wait. After all you have students in your groups for very brief moments of time, utilize it!

I incorporated more opportunities for student talk around what they were discovering when engaged in their reading. This helped bring more student to student interactions and student/teacher interactions. These interactions were both teacher and student initiated.

We are continuing to review using our time wisely every day in group and it has helped tremendously. Students are not distracting each other as much anymore. When they do it, it is sometimes in reaction to something they noticed in the text! They are also reading to share, or lead a discussion about something they noticed in the book, something missed the first time they read. They are having more authentic ah ha moments and figuring more out on their own. This is what we strive for, right!

In a recent blog post Sunday Cummins talks about the concept of reading multiple sources about the same topic. A concept sometimes called Reading Ladders. This is an idea a colleague and I dug into a little bit last school year when conducting an action research study on student motivation. We found it very motivating for students.

Here is a link to Sunday’s blog post: https://sundaycummins.wordpress.com/2018/04/01/our-students-know-so-little-if/

Anyway, she describes her natural desire to want to know more about a topic and how students have that desire too. We need to utilize that desire with students. I think first we need to get students to be willing to dig deeper into their original source more closely and extract all the information they can! This will lead them on a more focused journey for information through other sources. The journey Sunday is talking about in the mentioned blog post above. This brings up the need to be using appropriate texts with enough depth to keep their attention and stretch their thinking. Especially in stages: Early, Transitional and Fluent.

I argue that reading instruction can and should be more interactive to promote engagement and hold it. Students naturally want to read more to discover more or to find out what happens!

What are your thoughts!

Remember this blog is a way for me to reflect, grow and continue to refine my practice. Hopefully it helps others as well. Idea’s and thoughts are always welcome!

Do you connect your different types of reading instruction? You should!

Do you work in a school or district that utilizes both Guided Reading and Reader’s Workshop? If so are these two different types of reading instruction set up to complement each other? Or are they being separated out like two entirely different entities? If they are separated out, isolated from each other, I would argue students are getting different messages about what a reader does and what they are to do as a reader. You know kids must be exposed to new learning several times before being able to try it out for themselves. Let’s not compartmentalize our reading instruction but connect it, so we expose our kids to new learning across different types of reading instruction. Check out what I mean.

Does this situation sound familiar?

In guided reading you tend to meet the reader where they are using a chosen text that is at a level that will challenge the student but not overwhelm them. Within your guided reading group you really focus on reading for meaning, to understand the content and build upon the knowledge they already have. You may even use guided reading as a way to get in content from your science or social studies standards. You may be choosing more Non-fiction texts than fiction texts to work with students in. Therefore the focus is on reading for meaning. Guide Reading also gives you opportunities to shoring up any missing phonics or fluency needs and depending on the stage of reading your groups are in some high frequency word work. The Pre-A and Emergent stages are centered around the learning letters and their associated sounds & high frequency words, but still you promote reading for meaning. All the other stages put the focus on reading for meaning. When you look at Fountas & Pinnell’s wheel of Systems of Strategic Actions, most of it is filled with actions related to meaning. Even when completing all components most guided reading, lessons always go back to reading for meaning. Kids naturally want to make meaning. In stages Early -Fluent the writing component is about writing a response to reading or writing to extend learning.

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http://www.fountasandpinnell.com/resourcelibrary/id/184

I believe phonics and wordy study definitely have their place in guided reading, but even as you move through the stages of reading, word study options becomes more about meaning.

Your reader’s workshop might consist of a 15-20 minute focus lesson centered around a reading skill or comprehension strategy. These skills and strategies are pulled from your local and state standards. If you are not careful you end up teaching the skill or strategy in isolation and ask students to practice it in isolation using certain books hand-picked for the skill. Next you may have students completing a reading task within their reader’s notebook or on a graphic organizer. Students leave the focus lesson intent on completing a task instead of reading. For example:

a teachers focus lesson might be on recognizing the difference between facts and opinions. After the focus lesson students might be asked to read pre-selected texts and create a chart or list writing down fact and opinions they notice in the list. In the process reading for meaning gets lost and kids cannot tell you much about the article at all.

Or after a focus lesson on similes readers were asked to find similes in a text and write them down or mark them some how. Student might end up marking every sentence where the word like is used but not understand the text at all.

In either case is the reading being asked to read for meaning. No. In the case of thinking about fact or opinion the readers could have been asked to think about why the writer chose the facts they did, and what those facts may imply (the writers opinions). This would be a more authentic way of reading and still recognizing facts vs opinions. This would even help readers understand the writers message that my be more implied and lead to a deeper main idea and understand of the text.

In the case of recognizing similes, the simile itself should not be the focus. The meaning the writer is trying to convey using a comparison should be the focus. It does not matter if the writer used like or as to make the comparison, but it does matter that the readers understands the writer’s implied meaning behind the comparison. Marking them does not help students understand them, but focusing on meaning does.

Does much transfer happen in this scenario? Do you see a mixed message here? Reading tasks vs reading for meaning. Do you see how these two different types of reading instruction could be working against each other, not complementing each other? This can happen when reading instruction becomes compartmentalized. Reader’s workshop was not designed for skill instruction.

Take a look at Lucy Calkins explaining Reader’s Workshop

https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/3qiacy4zjg?popover=true

Reader’s Workshop was not designed for skill instruction like the scenarios above.

When the teacher comes around to confer with kids do they center their conferring around the skill taught in the focus lesson? Teachers may bring with them a mentor text to use to confer with that student. This is a text they are familiar with. A text that has been discussed with the whole class where many students have their shared opinions and thinking about it. The teacher has probably used this book to model and think aloud with, sharing his own thinking about it. If students were paying attention they probably have learned the gist of this book and heard many ideas and details shared about this book and can repeat them back when the teacher brings the book a conference. At this point you are probably not getting a lot of original thinking from the student. If the teacher is using the conference to assess the student on the said skill, then they will probably not get accurate results. This might be something you do for some readers, but not all readers. You have to know your readers, if they do not need that much scaffolding don’t waste their time or yours.

In this conferring scenario are students getting time to independently practice the skill in their own text? Will transfer happen? For some yes, but we are not teaching just for some, we are teaching for all students. If a reading skill is important enough to have made it into your local and state standards, then your students will have to use it while independently reading in their own books. I promise it will come up if your district has sound standards. It might not come up the same day you single it out in a focus lesson, but it will if students are reading a rich variety of texts. If you are meeting a student where they are when coming to them to confer there will be a skill and strategy you can coach them on to. It will be more meaningful to them when using their own book. It will be something they can take with them and transfer to other texts when you lead them to figure it out, not give them the thinking which can easily happen when the same texts get over used.

Teachers should be using the same framework to guide teaching decisions in Guided Reading as they are in Reader’s Workshop and conferring. After all you are conferring with students in every guided reading lesson you teach and in every workshop session.

In the Readers workshop scenario above students may be getting in some authentic reading where they get to practice thinking through a whole text, struggle with its meaning and make connections across it but probably not enough time, for transfer to happen, if the books they practice in have had a majority of the thinking done for them or when they practice skills in isolation.

You should be teaching using the same transferable thinking processes when you confer in guided reading and reader’s workshop. Kids are reading in both types of reading instruction. Skills and strategies can be brought into your conversations as tools that can help you make meaning, not become the focus of what you are doing. You cannot expect all readers in your classroom to be at the same level of knowledge and use of skills or strategies. Stop conferring with them like they should be. Meet them where they are. Students truly learn how to use a skill or strategy only when they have to put it into practice for themselves with the teacher noticing and noting what are doing. Putting names to what the student is doing and helping them make connections for themselves. I think modeling & thinking aloud are great teaching strategies and they must be present in your reading instruction. I use them every day, but not to isolate out a skill over meaning of the text, but too connect it.

All of this confusion could be happening in schools despite good intentions. Any reading skill or strategy taught must always be linked back to reading for meaning. If you cannot link it back to meaning, then you should not be teaching it. Even when learning letters and their sounds we do so to learn to make meaning (words) and read for meaning. No strategy or skill being taught should be more important than reading for meaning or the reader. Remember that not all readers will need to utilize every skill or strategy you teach, some may be beyond it, and you have to honor that. Skills and strategies are tools that can help us read to understand. If they are not being taught that way then kids are getting mixed messages, which is causing confusion for many of them.

Read through this handout from Ellin Keene. She also tends to encourage teachers to set kids up to make meaning using skill and strategies as tools, not the focus of the instruction.

http://mosaicliteracy.com/docs/talk_about_understanding_may_2015.pdf

Guided Reading and Reader’s Workshop should be complimenting each other. Reading for meaning should be the focus of all reading instruction. Different types of reading instruction should build off each other helping students build on their strengths and connect processes of reading together. Please do not compartmentalize your reading instruction.

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