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JANINE WALKER CAFFREY - EDUCATION INNOVATION
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last bell

6/4/2016

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We are at that wonderful time of the “last bell” of the year. If you’re a parent or teacher, your world is shifting from a regimented routine to a more relaxed time. The days are longer, the air is warmer and there is no shortage of good times ahead. Anything feels possible right now. But don’t get too comfortable...we know from experience, summer is fleeting and we’ll soon be back to the grind. Anticipation of heading back to the classroom leads us toward education reflection. We think about what worked for our kids last year and what lies ahead for the next. For young elementary kids, our educational focus is usually on reading. Are they where they need to be? Will they pass state tests? Do they love to read? These questions run through your brain all summer as kids are reading for fun (fingers crossed) and completing (maybe) the dreaded summer packets. Here’s an overview of some common classroom practices to ponder as you ease into summer.

Leveled Libraries

These coded book collections (using letters, colors or numbers) are all the rage in many schools. The idea is for kids to find “just right” levels of books to read, based on an assessment from the teacher. For independent reading, we want kids to be able to read almost all the words without struggle. We usually push them one level higher during small group instruction when the teacher can support and assist. Some teachers do this in their individual classrooms and some schools have entire school libraries set up this way. If your reading program includes this approach, you may want to rethink it. There are question marks about this approach which may indicate it is actually holding our kids back. Perhaps we should instead focus on helping kids find books that are worth reading in their minds. Interest in a subject is a powerful thing. If you have ever seen kids fighting to read Harry Potter books, which could be way above their “just right” levels, you know what I mean. Maybe next year we might focus on helping our kids get excited about a book - any book - regardless of the level.

Explicit Phonics Instruction

The evidence has been clear for a long time on this topic. We need to include systematic, explicit phonics instruction in our K-2 classrooms. Older kids in need of remediation, special ed students and English language learners can benefit from phonics instruction during latter elementary school years and beyond. But here’s the problem. Many teachers only rely on the phonics built into a basal reader or simply have a “word study” or “working with words” center in their classrooms. If you have a basal series, you likely ignore much of the phonics instruction that is built into the lessons. AND, in many basal series, phonics instruction is spread out across all of the elementary years. Students don’t get the explicit instruction when they need it; during the critical time when they are just beginning to read. If you are using a “balanced literacy” approach you likely have a center in your room dedicated to phonics. But, you are not likely to provide systematic, explicit instruction in phonics. In all cases, you have probably not taught a critical phonics skill; syllabication. The omission of this skill in most phonics programs and approaches is startling. We have to teach kids how to break a newly encountered word into its parts because we can only decode one syllable at at time. This skill must be taught well if we want kids to get beyond a 2nd grade reading level.

Read Aloud
If we want kids to become great readers, we need to expose them to content they cannot yet read. For young elementary students, this means we have to incorporate listening into our curriculum. Think about read aloud time in your classroom. Are you strategic in your selections? Do you use this time to increase exposure to topics in science and social studies? Do you read complex text to students - more complex than they can read themselves? As teachers and parents, we often think about reading aloud to our kids as a fun activity. And it should be. But we should also use this precious time to share information about the world that will spark their imaginations, engage them in meaningful conversations, and introduce them to words and texts they would not otherwise know.

Reading Workshop

Reading workshops can be a great part of literacy instruction. Kids love this time when they discuss literature with their peers. Teachers love this time when kids can work independently so they can focus on small groups. But...if this is the only time kids are grappling with comprehension issues, it can lead to a suppression of text complexity. In order for students to stretch in their understanding of more and more complex texts, they need support from someone who can help them make sense of it. The biggest growth in comprehension comes when kids are supported in reading texts that are MUCH more complex than they could read independently. We have to make sure we are sharing texts with our kids that are worth reading and support them to engage successfully with the texts. This is how they become better readers.

Reflect, Reflect, Reflect

Is it working? How do we know? There seems to be way too much data that may or may not lead to improvement. How can we easily understand if kids are making good progress? Too many assessments sometimes complicate our understanding and rob us of instructional time. All we need to know is how much our kids are reading and what they are choosing to read. If they are choosing more complex texts (assuming we don’t confine them to levels) and enjoying them, they are making good progress. That is really all we need to know. We may want to consider focusing on reading logs and reading conferences more than other assessments to get at the heart of reading. This will help us understand if kids are becoming more confident and joyful readers.

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Limping 

5/25/2016

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This great blog post from Jen Hatmaker has made me laugh for a few years now. Jen talks about how a parent feels at the beginning of the school year through the end of the year. She describes “limping, limping across the finish line.” I remember that feeling all too well....as a mom and a teacher. As a mom, the homework folders, lunches, notes and forms just got to be too much. I found myself blindly signing whatever was placed in front of me at the breakfast table. My daughter, tired of the signing ritual, learned to forge my signature by age 8. I secretly thought, “That’s good. Now I only have to worry about the other kid.” As a teacher, the homework folders (including the dreaded reading logs) were the bane of my existence. I knew what the parents were doing by the end of the year. Just like me, they had at least one kid who could forge their signature - or were blindly signing - or were lying so they wouldn’t look bad in the eyes of the teacher. I even had some parents who would sign the reading logs in advance. I have to say I admired their moxy.

The problem for parents and teachers alike is that we are taking responsibility for the child’s learning. If we are going to help our kids become independent learners, we need to find ways to get them to hold themselves accountable as early as possible. We need to connect the work with the learning. If they don’t see the connection, perhaps what we are asking them to do is not so important after all. As we limp, limp across the finish line of the school year, let’s reflect on what was asked of students this year. Did all of the assigned tasks truly move students toward learning goals? Did our rituals and routines promote independent learning? Were we holding kids accountable with carrots and sticks - or did we encourage them to hold themselves accountable?


After you cross the end-of-the-year finish line, take some time to breathe and enjoy the lazier days of summer. Then think about what we can do differently next year so we won’t be limping across the finish line again.

​#jenhatmaker #reading #classhopperapp #schoolyear #edchat
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Teachers know best

11/21/2015

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It was great to finally read a story about someone who is offering a solution to our student assessment mess. We all lament about how broken the system is, about how much instructional time is being lost and about the damage we are causing to our students. However, there are seldom officials who offer a potential solution. Steve Luikart, Chairman of the Pasco County Board of Education in Florida wrote a position paper, providing suggestions. He says we should use teacher feedback on student performance to track student progress toward learning standards. How refreshing to hear that we should respect teachers enough to allow them to assess their own students. Steve should know. He was an educator for many years before serving on the Board of Education.


Steve suggests we utilize technology to monitor student progress; specifically, a tablet-based program that teachers could use for ease of documentation. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I have been working to create just such a system, called Classhopper. Our first app is now available in the iTunes App Store, and will expand to other platforms soon. This new app, called Bookmark by Classhopper allows teachers to evaluate student proficiency on reading comprehension standards (aligned for every state) based on students’ independent reading. Next, we will be developing software for in-class tracking of phonics and comprehension skills. This type of software can be utilized for all subject areas. The end result will be that we once again respect the expertise of our teachers, while making their jobs just a little easier. Most importantly, we will be eliminating the ridiculous testing practices that have overwhelmed our public schools and impeded learning. It is time to recognize that school time should be used for learning and that teachers really do know best.
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Rime Time

4/9/2015

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Phonemic awareness is part of a strong foundation that needs to be in place before children become successful readers. The word "phonemic" comes from the word "phone" which means sound. Think of the word "telephone" which means to send sounds. During the preschool and kindergarten years, parents, teachers and caregivers naturally work to build this foundation through songs, poems, stories and games. We do this constantly with children without even thinking about it. As each child moves closer to reading independently, we should intentionally teach phonemic awareness to ensure that each new reader will be able to transition seamlessly to connecting sounds to symbols.

In the video that follows, these kindergarten students are being introduced to the concept of rimes. A rime is a set of words that follow identical spelling patterns; think cat in a hat. All rimes rhyme, but not the other way around. Watch how I use the story to allow children to hear the similar sounds, and then connect the sounds to their symbols. Finally, I group examples of rimes for four separate vowels. A follow-up to this lesson would be for children to write examples of rimes themselves, and to read examples in other texts.
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Righteous Leadership. Brave Leadership.

4/3/2015

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For more than 30 years I have been working in schools. I have had the privilege of visiting hundreds of public, charter and private schools and working in more than a few. My career has taken me to over a dozen states, the Cayman Islands, Sweden and Belize. Every time I go to a new school I marvel at how the school culture is immediately apparent. In just a few minutes with kids and educators, I can tell you about the school's leader. A school really embodies its leader in a way that few other organizations do. There are two main things that become almost palpable in a school: the level of bravery of its leadership, and where the school places children in its priorities. These two things are inherently related, and are usually greatly influenced by the district leadership and the culture of the community.

You might imagine that a school will always put kids first. Certainly we have seen life and death situations like Sandy Hook where teachers sacrificed their own lives for their students. It's easy to readily see kids' needs in a horrible crisis such as this, and it never surprises me to see educators willing to sacrifice their own lives when faced with unimaginable violence. However, it is not so easy to see kids' needs when a crisis is far in the future. It takes a special leader to truly see how everyday decisions like scheduling, curriculum development and discipline will impact individual children as they move toward adulthood.

Unfortunately, there are many school leaders who do not think of children's needs when they make decisions. This is especially true in school districts where a culture of fear, intimidation and punishment has been created by a board of education populated by those who seek power above all else. You see in many places, particularly where unemployment is high and the school district may be the largest employer, someone sitting on a board of education has immense power. A board member can get you a job and help you get promoted. A board member can ensure you get particular teaching assignments. If you are a math teacher, for example, this could translate into a cushy gig teaching Calculus to small classes of 12 or so highly motivated seniors instead of Algebra classes of 35  unmotivated freshmen. A board member can get you some extracurricular work like coaching. This could make the difference between living paycheck to paycheck, and becoming a little more financially comfortable. While there are certainly incredibly wonderful, altruistic people who serve on school boards in order to serve their communities, there are also some who are really only interested in amassing power and moving up the political ladder.

When terrible things happen in schools, we are usually quick to blame those closest to incidents. It is very easy to make one or two heads roll than to look at the context in which the incidents occur. Are children, parents and employees respected in this district? Are decisions made based on the best interests of the students, or is the happiness of the adults the driving force? Do decision-makers consider what is right, ahead of what is politically advantageous? School districts in which politics, jobs and happiness for adults trump the education and well-being of its students, will have a culture that encourages the mistreatment of children. The only way to change this is for the community to rise up and insist upon Righteous Leadership. Brave Leadership - that focuses on what should be the sole mission of schools: to educate children. We will have the schools we demand.
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My Thoughts on Assessment

3/15/2015

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As March Madness continues, here are my thoughts on student assessment:
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March Madness

3/2/2015

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We have come to know the term "March Madness" as a description of our national college basketball championships. But this year, the term may better describe standardized testing that is gripping public schools in much of the nation. Today is the first school day in March and the first day (outside of piloting done earlier) of PARCC testing in many states. There is much angst about our new standardized tests, which is supposed to measure student performance related to Common Core State Standards.

Many parents and educators are saying no to this test, and the other version called Smarter Balanced, for a variety of reasons. There is concern about the test itself and whether it truly measures the standards. There is concern that the standards are not developmentally appropriate. Some people believe the process used to develop the standards was flawed, making the standards themselves flawed. This is a high stakes test that will be factored into teacher evaluations and decisions regarding student placement, graduation, and the future of individual schools. And then there's the technology. Schools and districts have spent an tremendous amount of money upgrading their hardware and infrastructure just to be sure students will be able to take the test. There is fear that students' lack of basic computer skills or preparation for the test (which includes specific computer functions) may negatively impact scores.

If you have a child enrolled in public schools, are an educator or a taxpayer where these tests are being implemented, you need to know they are influencing just about everything related to public education. The debate is hot and heavy and likely will not let up any time soon. If you would like to know what all the fuss is about, go to the PARCC website and take a sample test. See if you agree these tests will help us prepare our kids for college and career, or if you agree with Louis CK who says it is nonsense with questions like, "
Bill has three goldfish. He buys two more. How many dogs live in London?"

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The Dress

2/27/2015

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The dress pictured above nearly broke the Internet. People argued day and night to decide what color it is. Blue and black? Gold and white? Orange and blue? Turns out there is a scientific explanation to our differences in visual perception, that is related to context. Our eyes are trained to filter things in or out, due to backgrounds and lighting. So, what we see is very much a product of the environment we find ourselves in at any point in time, and what our experiences have been in the past. Turns out this dress is kind of a metaphor for our perceptions of life in general. How we view the world is a sum of all of our experiences combined with our current environment.

Reading instruction can be a platform for helping our kids understand the points of view of others. These second grade students are comparing and contrasting a story told in the context of two different cultures. Very simple questioning allows them to discover the similarities and differences of the stories. This is the beginning of cultural understanding. Don't get too excited, though. It won't help you convince anyone of the color of the dress.
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Suspensions Hurt Everyone

2/26/2015

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When most people think about school suspensions, they think they are necessary to maintain order in the classroom. We have been programmed over the past couple of decades to demand "zero tolerance" for certain behaviors. Originally, we were addressing the presence of drugs and weapons in schools. But, somehow over the years, this concept of zero tolerance has shifted to include other less egregious behaviors. Unfortunately in many schools, the go-to disciplinary procedure is suspension. Suspending a student is serious. It means we are denying a child's civil rights by removing his or her access to a free and appropriate public education. A child who has experienced suspension becomes likely to develop continuing difficulties in school and becomes at greater risk of failing and/or dropping out of school. I learned about this in a very personal way in my early days of teaching. I was a resource room teacher in a public high school which prided itself on zero tolerance. At this school, zero tolerance included almost all behaviors. It is important to note that enrollment at this particular school was highly integrated, split about evenly between very poor Black kids and very wealthy White kids. Enrollment was where integration ended. Students were "tracked" into basic and honors classes, which translated into Black and White classes. Certain sports such as football were Black sports and others such as soccer were White sports. When a Black student got into trouble he (it was usually a boy) was almost usually suspended, and when a White student got into trouble, there was usually a warm and friendly phone call to his parents.

One of my students named Dante was Black. He came from a very poor family that lived on an island in the middle of a river. Dante had to take a boat to get to the bus that brought him to school each day. He often arrived hungry, without clean clothes. Although our school was just a mile or two from one of the best beaches on the East coast, Dante had never been there. Like most of the Black students in our school, he believed the beach was not a place he was supposed to go. Dante played football and he was quite talented. The football field was the place where he really shined. He lived to play and was willing to work hard in class to maintain the grades necessary to stay on the team. One day Dante was in English class and he did not have a pencil. The teacher of that class had a zero tolerance policy for being prepared for class. Any student who arrived without a pencil (not a pen) or a specific notebook was required to serve a 30 minute detention. On this particular day there was an away game. Dante knew that if he attended detention he would miss the game. He was supposed to start as quarterback for the first time, so this was a really important game. Dante skipped detention and went to the game. The teacher referred him to the principal for skipping detention. The principal had a zero tolerance policy for skipping detention. He issued a one-day suspension for Dante. The next day, Dante tried to come to school. The security officer knew he was not supposed to be there and brought him to the principal. The principal then gave him a five-day suspension for attempting to come to school and threatened to have him arrested if he showed up on school grounds again. This time Dante complied. By the time he returned to school he had missed a couple of tests which he was not permitted to make up. His grades plummeted and by the end of the first marking period he lost his eligibility to play football. Within a week Dante dropped out of school. All because he forgot to bring his pencil to English class.

While Dante's story is extreme, it is not unique. I wish I could tell you that I never saw anything like this happen to any other student, but that would not be true. I have seen horrible abuses of power by school administrators over and over throughout my three decades as an educator.


Many years later I became an administrator in a district that had a suspension rate of 39% for high school students and a suspension rate of 17% for middle school students. This translated to 1,339 students being suspended in a single year. I considered this a crisis and worked to change it immediately. We took several steps to remedy the problem. First, we defined what behaviors could potentially result in a suspension. These included possession of drugs and weapons, extreme violence (not just a shove in the hallway) and significant, severe disrespect or disruption that could not be remedied through multiple attempts using other efforts. Next we created a procedure to ensure we were only suspending students when it was absolutely necessary to maintain safety and order in the schools. Any administrator who wanted to suspend a student was required to engage in a conversation with a designated central administrator about the incident. Together they debriefed what had happened and why the suspension was necessary. Together they determined the minimum number of days that would be necessary in order to address the issues that had caused the behavior. Finally they determined the re-entry plan for the student which may include restorative meetings with other students or staff, additional supervision for the suspended students, making up work, or revised scheduling. The re-entry plan was intended to ensure the safety of all students, to prevent the behavior from recurring and to help the student back on track. The results were immediate. Our suspension rate for the high school fell to 5% and the middle school rate fell to 3%. Instead of 1,339 students losing their right to an education
as had happened in the past, only 141 had that experience. At the same time we reduced the suspensions, we saw a marked decrease in violent and disruptive behaviors. It seemed that FEWER suspensions resulted in BETTER behavior.

We now know that suspensions also hurt "well-behaved" students.
The problem in many places may even be
evident in elementary schools. Schools that overuse student suspensions create a culture that is oppressive to students. We know that kids need a safe and caring environment in order to learn. When you just throw kids out every time they have a behavioral issue, they feel unsafe and don't believe teachers and administrators care about them.
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In Kindergarten, Comprehension Comes First

2/18/2015

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If you have been following the national conversation about the Common Core, you have probably heard how teachers of kindergarten students worry that too much is being expected of our youngest elementary kids. I DO agree that we need to allow kindergarten kids to move more and have a learning environment that more closely resembles an early childhood classroom. I just shudder when I walk into a classroom for five-year-olds that includes little desks and chairs. These kids should have activity centers full of great learning opportunities. They shouldn't be asked to face the front of the room as they sit in individual desks and hear a teacher lecture. They ABSOLUTELY should not be exposed to multiple choice tests.

However, when it comes to reading, I don't think the Common Core is asking too much. I have spent a great deal of time understanding the standards for reading, and believe they are appropriate and will provide students with a solid foundation for greater learning in the years to come. If anyone disagrees, I would love to better understand the issues of concern. If you wish to help me understand your concern(s) with the standards (not PARCC or teacher evaluation - that is a completely different issue), please cite the kindergarten reading standard, what you believe is inappropriate about it and why, in the comment box below. I hate that I have to say this, but PLEASE refrain from reducing our conversation to name-calling, irrational rants, or other non-productive practices.


The Common Core provides expectations of reading comprehension before students really learn to read. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, it actually makes perfect sense. I don't think anyone would argue that we should be reading to our kids from the time they are babies. We know from experience and from research that this practice improves oral language skills and, later, reading skills. In kindergarten, the teacher begins the year by reading stories TO students, with a strong focus on phonemic awareness and comprehension skills. Students can understand stories long before they can read them on their own, so she will spend most of her guided reading time helping children understand the story. During kindergarten, we are expecting students to transition to reading very simple stories independently. To illustrate what happens at the beginning of the kindergarten year, I am providing this video of our youngest students learning how to identify key ideas and details and character motivation. Please note the repeated use of the word "evidence" which lays the foundation for citing evidence in text as students develop greater competence. This lesson is less than 15 minutes long and is about the longest amount of time students of this age should be focused on this type of activity. The text and the learning objectives are consistent with Common Core expectations for this grade level.
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    Janine Walker Caffrey writes about reading, education and a few other topics related to happiness and life in general.

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