Catching Readers Before They Fall

Kids of all ages find it easy to write from personal experiences. I’m a firm believer in getting kids to tell their own stories. And everyone has stories about older or younger siblings (or what it’s like being an only child.) With only a few weeks left before summer break, I was looking for something fun to do with the kids.  Between all the testing days, they needed something light.

So in two fifth-grade classes recently, I read aloud the book The Younger Brother’s Survival Guide by Lisa Kopelke.  We laughed together at the tips about switching glasses when your sister is not looking after she has made you a mystery concoction or rearranging her room while she is away at camp.  Being the youngest of six children I had plenty of my own tips to give so that kids wouldn’t get tricked like I had been so many times while growing up.  After the reading, I told three of my own stories and wrote my tips in front of them as models.  The students were brimming with ideas.

Next the students each wrote three tips of their own.  They could choose whether the tips were about surviving older sibs, younger ones, or being an only child (there was only one student in this last situation.) I took their papers home and chose one tip to type up for each student.  Then I cut them into strips.

Here are a few they came up with for living with younger siblings:

When your younger brother is mad or in a bad mood, watch out for your things. Guard them!

Don’t let your little sister play with water.  She’ll just flood the place.

When your younger sister is napping —- TIPTOE!  Don’t wake her up.

Don’t leave your books on the table for even five minutes.  You might come back and find some pages missing.

And a few tips for living with older siblings:

Don’t listen to your older brother when he says this roller coaster ride is like a kiddie ride.

Always agree with them.  Make life easy on yourself.

Take notes on your older sister.  See if she shows any patterns.  Then outsmart her by predicting and preparing for her next move.

Don’t believe your older brother if he says you will die from eating raw shrimp.  He just wants it all for himself.

On my return visit, we looked at the picture book again, but this time focused on the illustrations.  We noticed that the tip summarized the idea but that there was much more information in the pictures to each actual story.  I had the students illustrate their stories that led to their survival tips.  They glued their tip to the bottom of their drawing.  After that there was just a matter of a cover, a title page, and binding the books together. Each class has two books, one about older and one about younger (the only child tips were included in one of the books as a bonus section.)

It was quick and easy and I can’t tell you how much the kids enjoyed sharing their stories and survival tips!  The books are part of the classroom and the students choose to read them often.

I’m a walker.  I try to walk 4-6 miles every day. A few days ago I was almost finished with my walk when I passed two little girls with their nanny. The older one (about 4 ½) let out a great big “HI!” with a big smile on her face.  So I stopped and our conversation went like this:

Pat:  Well, hello there, you guys look like you are going somewhere fun.  Are you on your way to the library or the park? (both nearby)

4 yr old: (practically screaming with excitement) We’re going to the library!

Pat: WOW, that sounds great.  Do you like books?  I love books.

4 yr. old:  Yes! (Now she’s literally jumping up and down) “And… And …. And…They have storytime!!!”

Pat:  Well, get going.  You don’t want to miss that.

Don’t you wish all our students, leaving us now at the end of the school year, would leave with that enthusiasm for books and stories?

I’ve noticed lately (as we only have 20 more school days) that talk in the teacher’s lounges centers around teachers’ worries about passing tests.  Did my students pass the fiction and non-fiction on the DRA tests?  Did they pass the standardized state tests in math, science, and social studies? Did they use punctuation correctly, spell lots of word quickly, and write a story with a beginning, middle and end to pass the writing prompt?

Though we have to answer the above questions, and we hope that all the answers are yes, wouldn’t it be great if our hopes or questions for our students could look more like these:

• I hope my students are leaving with some fond memories of the books we shared together this year.
• I hope they have lists or piles of books they want to read over the summer. Will they take time to read? Do they have favorite authors?
• I hope they are leaving with a sense of inquiry.  Have I done enough this year to instill in them a desire to wonder about their world, live with questions, and search for answers?
• I know they have grown as writers.  Do they know that writing can be powerful; persuade someone to change their opinion? Do they know they are full of ideas of what to write about and that their ideas and opinions matter?
• Have I done a good job with building community this school year?  Will it help to stop the bullying?
• And if perchance they do hurt someone’s feelings or injure them in any way, will they say they are sorry with heartfelt sincerity?
• Do they treat others’ opinions with respect in discussions? Are they better listeners than when they first came to me?
• And, finally, do they have the spirit of jumping up and down when they think about stories, poems, and informational texts?

What is the one question that you hope to answer with a resounding “YES” at the end of the school year?

I always remember Don Graves using the word “nudging.” He talked about nudging students to give them that gentle push to try something new in their writing.  I loved the concept.  It seemed to offer the student a challenge, yet something not too overwhelming. With the gentle nudge, it meant that they were supported in what they were taking a risk to try.   Not only do our students need these nudges, but sometimes we, as professionals, do also.

I started thinking the other day about the people who have nudged me in my career.  I remember when teacher friends of mine, Mary and Carleen, who were trained in Reading Recovery several years before I was, suggested that I might like getting trained.  Thanks, friends — Reading Recovery changed my understandings forever about how children learn to read, what we can do to support struggling readers, and how to teach responsively to the child’s needs.

Then there was Kathleen, my niece and fellow teacher.  There was a time when I was feeling like I was stagnating as a Reading Teacher in the school where I worked.  Things had become too routine and uninspiring.  Kathleen nudged me to change schools and come to her school.  That nudge resulted in my spending the last 6 years of my employment working with teachers who were true learners, who never gave up on students, who were creative, inquisitive, and willing to face problems head-on.

There were several people who nudged me to write, among them a teacher friend, Susan.  I had been giving many successful workshops talking to teachers about a variety of topics related to teaching reading.  I told Susan one day that “I just wanted to talk about literacy.”  She answered by saying, “but you can reach a lot more teachers by writing it down.”  So, eventually, out came One Child at a Time followed by Catching Readers Before They Fall, co-authored with Katie Keier.

I have to give credit to Katie for being one of my biggest nudgers of late as Katie is always ten steps ahead of me in technology.  Though I had taken the leap to join Facebook to keep up with my 25 nieces and nephews, their spouses, and their 58 children, Katie nudged me to try Twitter to form my “professional learning community.”  Though I’m still not an avid tweeter, I do find so many interesting articles and websites about literacy that I would not otherwise find.  Of course, I also have Katie to thank for nudging me to become a blog reader and blog writer.  Her latest nudge has been for me to try VoiceThread that I highly recommend.  It’s easy to use and very adaptable to many classroom endeavors.  I recently sent her kinder class a voicethread about a hike I took out west in Red Rock Canyon.  It was so fun to make, featuring pictures of the canyons, rock climbing, and all the desert animals that live in the region.

Take a minute to think about all the people who have nudged you in your life.  I know that I wouldn’t be the same without all my favorite nudgers.  Thanks to them all! Or comment on a student that you’ve given a gentle nudge to recently.