Yesterday, I opened a conversation about the roles that assessment and intervention play in attending to the needs of struggling and reluctant readers. Would you like to know the most important thing I’ve learned over the years? That it’s important for me to put what I believe and what I’m passionate about aside in service to others. When it comes to assessing the needs of readers, the data we’re looking at don’t provide answers either.…
When we first meet a reluctant or struggling reader, sometimes our first impulse is to act in service to this reader. We are teachers. We want to help, and we know a great deal about how to do that, after all. So we act on what we know, and sometimes, what we know does help. But all too often, it doesn’t. All too often, what we know gets in the way of finding out what we need…
I’m wondering what the unintended consequences might be of mandating the removal of any one of these parts from the whole? But I’m also wondering what the unintended consequences have been of putting a reading block that looks like this in place without using assessment to inform how each event is serving learners best and adjusting how they operate in response to what is learned. Lately, I’m often asked whether or not teachers “should”…
When we’re paying attention, we learn things about our students that we’ve never considered before. Over the last three years, I’ve conducted lesson studies in roughly fifty classrooms with over 700 students. As “in the moment” formative assessment assumed a greater role in this work, teachers began to make some powerful discoveries about readers that inspired very specific and effective shifts in curriculum design and instruction. These are some of those stories: 1. Each time,…
Yesterday, I described the pivotal role that assessment plays in defining the unique needs of readers. Today, I thought I would share a tool that emerged from inquiry work I facilitated in several local districts three years ago. Take a peek: GRInterventionIdeas A little bit about that: as teachers began expanding their definitions of what it meant to be a “successful” reader, the assessments they used to define the strengths and needs of those they were…
How do you distinguish reluctant readers from those who struggle? How great is the overlap in the venn diagram that represents these readers as they present in your world? Which type of reader do you have the greatest success serving? Why? How? And most importantly: how do you know? In my world, reluctant readers are those who can read but who, for many reasons, prefer not to. In order to intervene well, I need to…
Last week, Kim Yaris and Jan Burkins invited me to begin this conversation about text complexity and cognitive dissonance on their blog. Over the next few weeks, I’ll share more about this here and return to this space to link up the posts below as I go. Much of what I’ve been learning has emerged from my work with reluctant and struggling readers in classrooms. Curious to know what others are discovering as well.…
Overheard: “I’m noticing that a substantial number of kids are struggling to distinguish the topic of a passage from the claim that is being made. They seem to know what the reading is mostly about, but they are confusing that general topic with the more specific claim that the author is making it. I wonder why this is happening.” “Why don’t we ask the kids why they think it’s happening?” “Do you really think…
I’ve learned that data aren’t necessarily the engine of a powerful inquiry team. The team is, and teams are often comprised of very diverse members, particularly if every teacher serves on a team (and in my experience, this must be the case if we’re aiming for systemic improvement). When I leverage the diversity of the group and promote it as a strength, our work becomes very productive. When I allow my personal beliefs and passions to…
“The simple answer is that, in most cases, schools have made mistakes. In fact, this statement isn’t terribly helpful; after all, every school makes at least some mistakes. When it comes to data-driven instruction, however, the type of mistake that a school makes goes a long way toward determining whether or not it will succeed.” Paul-Bambrick Santoyo, Driven by Data: A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction. According to Bambrick-Santoyo, these are the eight mistakes that…