We all want our students to do well on the standardized tests that are coming our way.  But let’s teach them how to take tests in a smart way.  Our main job is to help our kids become strong, strategic readers.  In this way, they will be able to navigate the test language and do well.

We agree with what Greene and Melton say, “In order to be effective test takers, students must first be effective readers” (2007, p. 15). There is so much more to being a proficient reader than a passing standardized test score.

Test preparation can be easily integrated into the daily reading workshop if standardized tests are viewed as a specific genre.  We use the language, format, and structure of tests in our mini-lessons during our regular reading workshop.  But we do this for only a few weeks before the tests. We don’t sacrifice months of quality teaching in a sound reading workshop for test preparation.

In their wonderful book Test Talk (2007), Greene and Melton show how teachers can teach the test genre while maintaining best practice teaching.  Test Talk includes sections on finding the main idea, identifying author’s intent, and inferring with very specific classroom lessons.

In this era of testing frenzy, teachers need to take a stand for keeping the teaching of literacy at the heart of our day — not test preparation.  You do not need to purchase expensive workbooks or test prep software.  Teaching children how to be good test takers can be done on the same material they are reading each day in reading workshop without giving up the essential elements of a comprehensive literacy approach.

How do you feel about the balance you provide between time spent on test prep and time spent on supporting students to be strong, strategic readers?

Last week I went into the second grade class where I go once a week to read with some struggling readers.  I saved a little time to read with two other students, very capable and avid readers, who had been begging me to pick them every time I showed up at the door.  It turned out to be a wonderful experience for them AND for me.

Since I spend all my time with readers who are struggling I sometimes wonder if I’m losing sight of the end goal of what proficient readers actually do. It’s always good to read one-on-one with the more capable readers to keep a clear perspective on what is expected of average and above average readers, to listen and watch what they do at the point of difficulty, and to create that vision of an effective reading process system.

Reading with Iman and Maysia (both successful ELL students) made me realize that all the things I’m trying to teach, support and reinforce with the struggling readers ARE the things that proficient second grade readers actually do.  Both girls self-monitored their comprehension and fluency incredibly well — stopping and asking questions if there was a vocabulary word they were unsure of; rereading to confirm the flow of the sentence after noticing a punctuation cue; commenting on the storyline; spontaneously predicting what might happen next; and slowing down to break words apart and then picking up their pace when the problem was solved.  When Maysia read “Manyara stole away in the quiet of the night…” (Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters), she stopped and said, “That must be a different meaning of stole” and then offered an idea about the meaning.  She asked a question when she got to the phrase “the old woman was silhouetted against the moon” because the concept of silhouettes was new to her.

For Iman, I picked the book Angel Child, Dragon Child.  I did a short book introduction about the main character who comes from Vietnam and gets teased by classmates for the way she talks and the way she dresses.  Right away Iman made connections to how she felt starting school coming from Pakistan.  As she read the first part of the book to me she made comments about the mean attitudes of some of the classmates and later inferred that the girl had never seen snow saying, “I guess Vietnam doesn’t have any.” She solved several words quickly on the run using meaning, structure, and visual information.  As she left to finish the book on her own, she said, “You know my mom bought me this book last year and I never wanted to read it. But now I see it’s really interesting.”  I wondered what made the difference for her.  Was it because of the book introduction I did that allowed us a few minutes to chat and get ready to read?  Or was it because a visiting teacher had showed some interest in her as a reader?

Listening to capable students read and discuss texts and observing them with an eye and ear toward strategies and reading process helped me form the vision of what is possible for all readers at this grade level. The experience revitalized me, making me realize that the excitement, interest, and proficiency that these two girls showed is what I want for every student in the class.

How are you maintaining a clear perspective on what is considered “proficient for your grade?”  Are you including more than numbers and levels in that vision?

I heard some incredible literacy folks speak at the recent Reading Recovery conference in Columbus, Ohio.  I’m just now finding some time to review my notes and reflect on some great lines I jotted down. Linda Dorn said in her keynote address, “The effectiveness of our teaching is measured NOT by what the child can do with us, but by what he can do independently.”

That really makes me think about my teaching.  Am I teaching in ways that the child will take on and try what I am asking him to do?  Will Eric dip down into his reading process system and try to put in a word that makes sense and then check to see if it looks right as I’ve been practicing doing with him?  Will Rachel keep a constant check on herself to see if she is understanding what she is reading?  Will Marcus listen to himself reading and stop if he thinks his reading sounds choppy and go back and try it again.  Dorn further suggested that if the teaching has been precise and the scaffolding has been supportive and right on target for what the child needed, then the child will take on the strategic action or behavior that we were focusing on.

In another session, MaryAnn McBride mentioned that the two most important things a teacher can do for a struggling reader is to be reflective and responsive. We all complain about never having enough time to be as reflective as we want to be.   And yet, what good are we doing the child if we don’t take a few minutes to look over our running records? We’re not just taking a running record to make sure the child is in the right level book.  Rather we can use these records to zero in on what the child needs to learn next. Being responsive to each struggling reader means tailoring our teaching, thinking about what he can do, can almost do, and cannot do.  Careful analysis of our on-going assessment leads to teacher decisions about instruction that make a difference for children.  Betsy Kaye once said, “Children learn from where they are, not from where we are.”

Mary Fried reminded the Reading Recovery teachers in her audience that not only is reading a problem-solving activity, but that teaching, too, is a problem-solving activity.  It’s our job to figure out what a struggling child needs and then “teach for the greatest payoff.”  She warned against getting too comfortable with the routines of a Reading Recovery lesson and teaching on automatic pilot, rather than staying fresh and putting forth your best teaching effort at every moment.

All of these speakers seemed to have an underlying message of the urgency with which we must teach struggling readers.  We have to be our best teaching selves in order to help them succeed. When I come from conferences like these I always feel inspired to do my best work. Are you ready to be the best you can be for the kids who are having trouble with literacy acquisition in your classroom?

I was listening to David, a second grader, read the other day.  He was reading a book about scientists finding dinosaur bones.  I could tell he was very interested in it; he had read it many times before and chose it as one of his favorites.  David asked questions as we read. “But wait, are there really no people here when the dinosaurs were here?”   “Well, then, who was the first person here?”  “How did the scientists know that dinosaur was a meat eater?”  By his questions, comments, and self-corrections as he read, I could tell that David was self-monitoring his comprehension.

A little later that day, I read with Frannie.  She read a book about a class taking a trip to the veterinarian’s office.  She read ‘chart’ for ‘clinic’ in the phrase “we went to the vet clinic.”  On another page she read ‘musta’ for ‘machine’ and ‘place’ for ‘picture’ in the sentence “The x-ray machine takes a picture of the dog’s bones.”  She continued on although it made no sense whatsoever.  Frannie was not self-monitoring and it was a big red flag for me.

Paying attention to a student’s self-monitoring ability, or lack of it, is high on my list of things to watch for as I read with students.  Since reading is about making meaning of print, we want all children, even beginning readers, to think about what they are saying as they read. From the very earliest reading experiences that we have with children, we need to send the message that reading is supposed to make sense and that it’s their job to be checking that their reading IS making sense.  We usually think of self-monitoring as ‘checking on one’s comprehension,’ however, there are lots of ways that children self-monitor:

• In early pattern books we want them self-monitoring for 1:1 matching.  Sometimes they use their finger to help themselves with voice/print matching.
• Beginning readers need to learn to monitor that the words they are reading make sense, sound right, and look right.  They learn to cross check one source of information against another.
• We want all students to self-monitor for punctuation cues that can help them make sense of text.  Take, for example, sentences like “Look – a dog park!” or “He roamed through the countryside, hungry and tired, until at last he saw a small hut.”  We know that the punctuation is important for reading each of these correctly.
• Each student also needs to learn to monitor his own pacing and phrasing.  We need to support students as they learn to self-monitor their own fluency.  I always tell them, “If you catch yourself sounding a bit choppy, go back and put it all together.”
• In longer texts, readers self-monitor as they are constantly thinking: Am I  following the storyline? Keeping track of which character is which? What’s happening in the plot? Where are the characters now (setting)?  Who is the narrator? and so on.
• As readers read non-fiction texts we want them automatically thinking: Am I understanding this?  Is this new information for me? Does this part seem really important? If there are bolded words I’m unsure of, am I checking to see if the meaning is somewhere embedded in the text?

Are you observing carefully enough to notice which of your students are reading for meaning and which are just reading words?  What do you notice when listening to students read to you?

When I finished “Room” by Emma Donoghue the other day, all I wanted to do was talk about it with someone who had read it or suggest the title to others who hadn’t read it. Real readers do like to talk about what’s going on in their books.  So I’m renewing my efforts in the New Year to make sure that kids get enough share time at the end of Reading Workshop.  Some days can be very open-ended by merely saying, “We have 6 minutes, boys and girls, turn to a partner and share something about the book you were reading.”  Or it could be more organized like the suggestions below.

Here are three different ways that teachers organize their 10 minute share at the end of Reading Workshop – 1) having selected students share, 2) having all students share with partners, or 3) do a “whip around the circle” share.

Selected students (ones you’ve encouraged to share as you were meeting with them in small groups or one-on-one) could share about something connected to your mini-lesson from that day:

* Something new they learned from a non-fiction book today

*  A part where they were able to visualize or a connection they had

*  A place they inferred the meaning of a word

*  A prediction they are making for the ending of their book

*  Or, just recommend their book to the group by telling why it’s a great read

All students can share with a partner about:

*  The setting, narrator, or problem in their book

*  Something about a character

*  An exciting part of their book

*  What they would like to ask the author of their text

*  Something they did well as a reader today

*  A new insight/discovery they made about their book today

Whip around the circle, giving each child the opportunity to share or pass, on topics such as:

*  A line you liked

*  The title, author, and genre of your book

*  A line of dialogue from your book

*  Something you noticed about how reading workshop went today

*  What you plan to read next

Of course, these are only a few of the many ways to get kids talking about their books.  What ideas do you have for share time at the end of Reading Workshop?

By the way, I’m 150 pages into “Rush Home Road” by Lori Lansens and really enjoying it.  Anyone want to talk?

As I was sitting in For Eyes the other day waiting for my new glasses, I noticed the wallpaper was composed of running words that were synonyms for the word “look,” very apropos for an eyeglass store.  Written continuously it said, “peep, spy, view, gander, glance, survey, scan, investigate, skim, gape, google, peer, look, stare, gaze, inspect, scout, notice, glimpse,” and there were many more.  Who knew there were so many varied meanings for basically the same word!

As I left, I couldn’t help but think about our English Language Learners (ELLs).  There is so much vocabulary for them to learn!  But I also thought about how important it was that we continuously expose them to new vocabulary, not white out or cover up unknown words in the books they are reading.  It is through frequent exposure that they will acquire such synonyms or varied connotations of vocabulary words.  As teachers, we need to provide experiences with new vocabulary within the context of reading real books and writing authentic messages together.

When we are reading with a child, we try to be aware of:

1) when the child can pronounce the word but is confused because the word means something different in this situation, or

2)  the child has the concept of the word, but the particular vocabulary word in English might be new for him, or

3)  the child has neither the ability to recognize or pronounce the word and also does not have a concept for that word.

For each of these situations our support would differ.

In the first instance, the child may be able to read “’Come quickly!’ she cried’” but may only know the word “cry” as “shedding tears.” Teacher support may be necessary for helping the ELL understand that the word is being used in a new way.  In the second instance, the child may be able to figure out what the word might mean by using context clues.  He may know that something very funny just happened in the story and that’s why the character said, “That was hilarious!” even though the word hilarious is not in his speaking vocabulary.  Support from the teacher may be necessary to help the ELL realize the connection between funny and hilarious.  In the third situation, the ELL might not have the concept of the word as well as not being able to solve the word.  For example, some children may be unfamiliar with a hearth or a scarecrow or a skyscraper.  In this instance we not only have to help the child with word solving skills to be able to pronounce the word, but we also have to build the meaning of the vocabulary word with pictures or gestures or a more detailed explanation.

This week try paying close attention to the English language in the books your students are reading.  What examples are you noticing of vocabulary that might be tricky for an English Language Learner?

For further reading on this topic, see Chapter 7 of One Child at a Time (Stenhouse) where Pat and Katie work together to improve their book introductions for ELLs.