​
JANINE WALKER CAFFREY - EDUCATION INNOVATION
  • Lexplore
  • Who is Janine?
  • The Today Show
  • Contact

last bell

6/4/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
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.

0 Comments

Teachers know best

11/21/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
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.
0 Comments

Just Right Reading

10/24/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
For decades teachers has been trained to provide "just right" reading materials to their students. The conventional wisdom has been that students should operate within what has become known as the zone of proximal development or ZPD. A student should be assigned independent reading that has just a little bit of challenge so that learning occurs without frustration. As a result of this thinking, many school and classroom libraries have been organized around a leveling system. Students are aware of their reading levels and directed to read books that are at just the right level. I thought much of this was solid educational practice until my own son began to read.

Daniel was just finishing first grade when he discovered an illustrated version of Lord of the Rings on the book shelf in our home. He started asking about the book and my husband described the story to him. He said, "I am going to read this book." Keep in mind that Daniel was not even six years old at the time. He was just beginning to read very simple books by authors like Dr. Seuss. Although he was doing well, he was not exceeding first grade expectations. Books by an author like Tolkien would certainly not have been within his ZPD at the time. When he announced he would be reading this book, I just said, "OK," thinking that he would likely just look at the pictures, ask questions and allow us to read to the book to him. But that is not what happened. The summer between first and second grade was the summer that Daniel read Lord of the Rings. He asked for help of course...a lot in the beginning. As the summer progressed he asked for less and less assistance to read the words, but was increasingly interested in talking about the story. He wanted to understand character motivations and plot structure. He craved more information about the fictional world which the characters inhabited. Daniel's interest in the story propelled him far ahead of what he should have been able to read. He finished the book that summer and continued to be an exceptionally strong reader and writer. Daniel is all grown up now and writes for a living. He lives to tell stories and create exciting new worlds for readers and audiences. I shudder to think what may have happened if we had steered him away from the book that drove his obsession with story telling. 

By now you may be thinking that my son is the exception. It is a rare child who will read Tolkien before turning six. While that is true, I have seen this sort of scenario play out over and over again. Do you remember when Harry Potter was first published? If you had been around any elementary school kids at the time you would know that reading this book became sort of a right of passage. I personally witnessed many struggling readers begin to find reading independence through the Harry Potter series. It was suddenly very cool to be a reader and kids just craved these stories. Even if they weren't great readers yet, they would struggle and work and struggle some more so they could read Harry Potter. Children who had never before read a whole chapter book, were suddenly devouring a 312 page novel. 

Unfortunately, I also witnessed many kids completely shut down in the wake of the Harry Potter wave. The first book in the series was published just as many school libraries were being "leveled." Some teachers and librarians, in their quest to get kids reading "just right" books, denied kids access to Harry; instead directing them to books that were shorter and easier to read. Children were told they weren't good enough at reading yet to read Harry Potter. The adults missed a golden opportunity to create lifelong, enthusiastic readers, that would likely never happen again.

There is research to help us understand the role that interest plays in reading. This article by Denise Johnson and Anne Blair provides a good overview about the role of self-determination and reading success. What we know is that students who are allowed to read what is interesting to them will read more and will naturally choose things with varying levels of difficulty. If we want to help children become lifelong readers, we must help them find joy in reading. Books that are truly "just right" are the ones the kids really want to read.
0 Comments

Minimally Invasive Education

2/14/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
The image above is the "hole in the wall" that was created by Dr. Sugata Mitra in India. Dr. Mitra simply placed a computer in the outside wall of his office, and allowed anyone to use it. This was significant because his office is located in a slum in India with some of the worst living conditions in the world. He deliberately placed the computer at the eye level of children so they could access it. What happened there, and later in several other locations in India, exceeded his expectations. Kids were able to figure out how to use the computer in just a few hours, even though they had never seen one before, and lived in a place with no modern conveniences. Soon the children were teaching each other, even helping one another learn to read. After seeing this happen again and again, Mitra created new learning centers called SOLEs, meaning self organized learning environments. Each SOLE is a desk with a computer that is large enough for 3-4 children to work together. Children are asked a big, complex question and then left on their own to find the answers. As the children worked, Mitra realized they needed just a little encouragement, so he created "Granny in the Cloud." Volunteers talk to the children via Skype, on a large monitor on the wall. These "Grannies" just tell the children they can do it and prompt them to keep working on the problem. Mitra described these experiments in 2010 in a TED Talk:
Encouraged by these results, Mitra has now created a "School in a Cloud" to bring his idea of minimally invasive education to more children. He has also created a SOLE Toolkit for parents and educators who want to create similar programs in their homes or schools. 

Dr. Mitra recognized that the Internet has changed everything. Teachers are no longer the purveyors of knowledge. Children can learn whatever they want, whenever they want, if they have access to the web. If you doubt a child's ability to learn and engage digitally, just watch a one-year-old with an iPad or smart phone. At about 15-18 months, toddlers are able to open apps and engage in games and content. If our digital natives are to benefit from schools, it is time we redesign learning environments and learning activities. Schools must require children to become responsible for their own learning and provide the tools necessary for them to do so. A minimally invasive and personalized approach is needed to move education into the information age.
0 Comments

Yes, and...

2/10/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Throughout my career I have had the privilege of visiting lots of amazing places where caring adults are doing great things for kids. Some of these places are charter schools, while others are traditional public schools. Some are private schools while others are non-profit organizations. Whenever I am with a group of educators who visit in order to learn and get new ideas, I often hear someone say, "Yes, but..." This person will then end the sentence with the reason the new approach will not possibly work at home. "Yes, but our classes are so much bigger." "Yes, but we don't have the technology to pull that off." "Yes, but our teachers would never go for that." "Yes, but these kids choose to be here." Upon return to their home schools, it is rare that educators will actually implement something truly innovative because of all of the "yes, buts" that immediately come to mind when seeing something new.

Now when I make these visits, I coach my colleagues to replace their "yes, but" thoughts with "yes, and" thoughts. When we see a place that is having great results, we say, "Yes, and that idea of individualization could be translated to a bigger class." "Yes, and we could dedicate our federal money to increasing technology so we could do that." "Yes, and we could find a small group of teachers to volunteer to pilot this." "Yes, we could allow our kids who want to try this to do so." It is important to find small ways to implement new things to keep your school moving in the right direction. I was reminded of this when I read an article about firefighters mentoring students at Perth Amboy High School's Personalized Learning Academy. When the school's leader, Dr. Senovia Robles, first visited another school that had implemented the Big Picture Schools model, she focused on what she could do at her own school to begin achieving better results. She knew that she couldn't fully implement the flexible scheduling that was recommended. So she figured out a small way to begin. She started by creating block elective periods two days per week to begin a mentoring program. Then she worked with business leaders in the community and her colleagues throughout the school district to find opportunities for students to get "on the job" experiences close to home. The following school year she worked with union leadership to create a little more flexibility in the school's daily schedule and to create added time for students to connect with their teachers. She created incentives for kids to come to school and arrive prepared to learn. In just a short time the results began to show. Attendance and uniform compliance improved. Then grades started to improve. Test scores and graduation rates are sure to follow this year. All of this is happening because Senovia said, "Yes, and..." when she saw something that was working someplace else. 


0 Comments

Don't waste my time.

2/5/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
There has been much written about differentiation in the classroom. When teachers think about differentiation, they generally think about providing three levels of instruction: on level, below level and above level. We are trained to gear the bulk of instruction to the middle. These are the "typical" kids who fall within the expected level of functioning for their grade. We then adapt the instruction to meet the needs of kids who may be below level, and extend the learning for more advanced students. If we do this well we will have decent results in terms of achievement. However, we will not engage all learners effectively. What is really needed in schools is a personalized approach to learning. The goal of personalization is to not waste the learner's time. We want every student to be fully engaged in learning all the time.

This idea is incredibly important when it comes to reading. Students who grow into lifelong learners with a love of reading need to be allowed the time and space to read as much as possible when they are young. It is very unusual to find a preschool or kindergarten child who doesn't love books. They love it when we read to them, engage them in choral responses to books, and talk about stories. They are just naturally drawn to it. However, if they fail to master the basic decoding skills in first or second grade, reading becomes laborious and tedious. They start hating it and usually don't catch up if they don't master the basic skills by grade 3. Advanced students have the opposite problem. If they are forced to work on basic skills for too long, they become bored and will disengage from all reading activities.

Every classroom in the early years should include explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics (decoding skills). Although many people will tell you that the English language is challenging, it is still quite simple. There are a finite number of letters and sounds. There are very predictable patterns, with a few teachable exceptions. Once a child has mastered these, she should not be forced to continue instruction in decoding. Unfortunately, many classrooms either fail to explicitly teach basic decoding skills, teach them in a non-systematic way, or continue teaching them as part of a "basal" series long after they have been mastered. What is needed is a completely individualized system that will provide explicit instruction over a period of time. This instruction will have an end point. A good example of such a system is Reading Horizons. Once this instruction is completed, the child will be free to engage in a host of other literacy experiences that are critical to future learning and to develop a love of reading.  

Instructional time is truly a precious commodity. We get 180 days of school each year. There are usually about 10-15 days when instruction is interrupted by testing, assemblies, bad weather, or other unusual events. Instructional time for literacy is generally 90 minutes (1.5 hours) per day. That means that we can only count on about 247.5 hours per year. If you were to calculate that according to a standard 40 hour work week, it would only equate to a little over 6 weeks. Think about your work like. How much can be accomplished in 6 weeks? In order to ensure success, we must manage instructional time in such a way that it is never wasted for any child. 
1 Comment

    Author

    Janine Walker Caffrey writes about reading, education and a few other topics related to happiness and life in general.

    Archives

    June 2016
    May 2016
    November 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    September 2013
    May 2012
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009

    Categories

    All
    Achievement Gap
    Adult Learning
    Arts
    Civil Rights
    Common Core
    Differentiation
    Discipline
    Federal Aid
    Grand Parenting
    Happiness
    Lead By Example
    Length Of School Year
    Middle School
    Parent Engagement
    Parenting
    Personalized Learning
    Phonemic Awareness
    Phonics
    Reading
    Reading Horizons
    School Finance
    School Reform
    School Spending
    Social Justice
    Special Education
    Student Engagement
    Summer Slide
    Suspension
    Teaching
    Technology
    Tiger Mom
    Title IX
    Traffic Light

    RSS Feed