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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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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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The Missing Link

2/9/2015

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Sometimes there is just one little misunderstanding that leads to great educational difficulty. A small skill that has a huge impact on reading is syllabication. This is the ability to divide words into syllables. A syllable is a group of letters that contains a single vowel sound. Many of us were taught to "clap out" the syllables in spoken words, but very few of us were taught how to divide unfamiliar words into their respective parts. As students move from single syllable words to more complex words, we begin to see reading difficulties. This usually happens at the end of first or beginning of second grade. Many kids just get stuck; unable to apply what they have learned about vowel sounds and consonants. Their frustration can lead to anxiety and even behavioral issues, further preventing them from moving forward in learning. Syllabication is often the "missing link" that allows a beginning reader the ability to fearlessly engage in more challenging texts.

If you are evaluating a new reading series or instructional approach for reading, either for beginning readers or older reluctant readers, consider the issue of syllabication. Is it explicitly taught in order for students to become better readers? Many reading programs will include this as a spelling skill, but omit it when students are learning to decode words. Is the teaching method for this skill simple and clear? It should have just a few steps such as this:

1. Identify how many vowel sounds the word has. Every syllable must have one (and only one)vowel sound. Vowel combinations like the "oa" in boat only count as one sound. An "e" at the end of the word, that you know will be silent, such as like, doesn't count.
2. If a word has only one vowel sound, you can rest assured there is only one syllable and no need to divide.
3. If it has two or more vowel sounds, you must look at the consonants following each vowel sound and apply these two simple rules:

*One must run.
*Two must split.

For example, in the word "beside," the first vowel sound will be represented by e. Only one consonant follows the e, and then there is another vowel, signaling another syllable. So...one (consonant) must "run" to the next syllable. The word is divided into two syllables - be-side.

An example that follows the "two must split" rule is "subject." In this word, the first vowel is a u. Then there are two consonants before we come to the next vowel, signaling a new syllable. The word is split between the two consonants - sub-ject.
 
That is really all there is to it. If you are frustrated by a lack of reading proficiency and not sure what the problem is, consider syllabication. It might be the missing link for your students.

Watch this blog tomorrow for the next installment of Reading Teacher Tuesday to see syllabication in action with some beginning readers. You might also want to check out Reading Horizons to view their reading workshop on this topic.







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The Code

7/7/2014

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There are some students you just can't forget. One of my students, Marisol, came to me at age 16. By this time she had been tossed out of two schools. She had taken to throwing things at her teachers and was a very angry person when I met her. I conducted a reading assessment and quickly learned that Marisol did not even know the sounds that all of the letters make. I showed her the test results, which of course were no surprise to her, and promised her that she would learn to read. Marisol became very motivated just by learning that she could acquire these skills. Within about six months, she was reading very fluently. After a year she began accelerating her course work so she could catch up on the high school credits she was lacking. By the time she was 18, Marisol was taking courses at the local community college and was on her way to a promising future. This was all because she finally learned the code.

The English language is based on a simple code. It has 26 letters which make 42 sounds. That's it...just 26 letters that make 42 sounds. You can determine which sound is which by applying 5 simple decoding rules to each syllable. You can determine where a word is broken into syllables by applying just 2 simple rules. Yes, there are a few exceptions, but really just a few. I have personally taught this code to countless children, teens and adults. I have never met a student who couldn't learn the code. This includes people on the autism spectrum, people with cognitive differences, and those with severe dyslexia and ADHD. 

Yet, if you hear some people explain our language, you would think it is impossible to learn. It is not uncommon to hear teachers tell students that it is the hardest language on Earth to learn, or that our letters make hundreds of sounds, or that there are more exceptions than rules. The truth is that it is highly predictable and can be taught in a relatively short period of time. We now live in a country where over two thirds of children do not have the reading skills they need by the time they enter fourth grade. It is time we embraced the code and ensured that every child learns it. The future of every "Marisol" out there depends on it.

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The Great Distraction

6/28/2014

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There are many arguments in the United States about education. School choice, teacher tenure, school funding, testing , Common Core, school hours, school calendars, LIFO rules (last in, first out) are some of the things that educators, politicians, pundits and celebrities discuss. There is rarely middle ground or logic to these discussions. We get caught up in the rhetoric and our own perspectives, based on personal ideals of democracy and the true purpose of education. The result of all of this are schools that are not meeting the needs of most children and educators getting caught in the crossfire. I admit to being someone who has willingly participated in these arguments in a very public way. But I am done. I am done worrying about whether or not an individual teacher gets tenure or what standards each state chooses. I am done thinking about if and how school choice works. I am done demanding funding for underfunded schools and screaming about how funding doesn't equate to results. 

These arguments have become a distraction to the real issue. We are failing America's kids in a very big way. There are a few facts that are not argued very often, because most of us understand they are simply facts. About 80% of the kids who make it to high school will graduate from high school in four years. This is a well researched fact. We don't have to know why or think about the political implications. We can accept this as a fact. Yes, it is better than it has been in the past. We are definitely graduating more kids on time, thanks to the efforts of many individuals and organizations. But, I think that losing one out of every five kids is a disaster in a country like ours with so many resources. If you disagree, please read on. We also know that about 42% of high school graduates will be in college sometime between the ages of 18-24. Again, this is really not disputable. It is well researched and based on actual enrollments at real colleges and universities. Whether you think this is an appropriate percentage can be debated. We can argue that college is not right for every student, but we can't argue about how many people attend college. So, if you do the math you will see that just over a third of our high school students actually complete high school and go on to college. I will leave it up to you to decide if that is a good number. Finally, we know that about 60% of the students who go to college will require at least one remedial course once they get there. It is higher and lower in some places, but overall we know that more than half of our kids who make it to college are not prepared. If you do the math one more time, you will discover that just over 20% will graduate high school and go to college with adequate preparation. So there you have it. Only one in five of the kids who start high school in the United States will be end up fully prepared for college. You may say that is okay. You may believe that college is really only for an elite group of 20% of our kids. If so, you don't need to worry about the American educational system. It is working just fine. But if you believe like I do, that education should provide all kids with a solid foundation so they can do whatever they want with their lives, you will want to help find a way to improve it.

From this point forward I will be focusing on solutions for the real teachers in real classrooms who are engaged daily in the mighty struggle to educate our kids. I don't care to fight any more about school choice or teacher tenure or funding or calendars or anything else. I accept that others will continue to engage in conflict about these things, but I believe at this point they have become a distraction from the real issue. There is widespread agreement that our problem begins in the early elementary years. If children are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade, they are very likely to have big problems later on. That is because our system makes a huge shift at the beginning of fourth grade. Each student is expected to move from learning to read, to reading to learn. Once they are in fourth grade, we expect they will be able to read well enough to learn from the printed word. Even kids who do not have access to a formal education can learn beautifully if they can read and have access to information. There are correlations to reading success in third grade and almost every other indicator. When you look at the statistics on third grade reading, all of the other problems come into focus. More than two thirds of our third graders will NOT get the reading skills they need for success later in life. That means only one out of every three kids will be reading well enough by the end of grade three.

It is surprising that we are not focusing more on this issue. I believe it is because most people who know the truth don't think we can do anything about it. We talk a lot about poverty, which plays a huge role in this problem. There are many people who believe that you can't teach kids to read unless you fix the poverty. I believe that we won't fix poverty until we teach kids to read...ALL kids. So from this point forward I will be focusing on solutions to our great American reading crisis and leave the distractions to others.

Check back here in the coming weeks to learn more...

Sources:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014391.pdf
http://www.highereducation.org/reports/college_readiness/gap.shtmlhttp://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372
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Don't waste my time.

2/5/2014

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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. 
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We can solve this.

1/29/2014

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When the federal program called No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was envisioned over a decade ago, one expectation was for all children to learn to read proficiently by the end of third grade. We know from a great deal of research that children need to do this in order to continue learning the necessary skills and content to prepare them for college and career after high school. While NCLB has its champions and critics, what is clear is that our kids are still not reading by the end of third grade. Some of the most challenged districts only get about 20% of their kids to that milestone. According to a recent Annie E. Casey Foundation study, about two thirds of our nation's children are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade. These children are three times more likely to drop out of school. Those with the lowest skills are six times more likely not to make it to high school graduation. The consequences of leaving school early are astounding. Less than half of dropouts are employed, and male dropouts are 47 times more likely to go to jail or prison than their counterparts who graduate from high school. Those who drop out are much more likely to have children without the means to support them, perpetuating the poverty cycle. It seems clear that we must impact reading skills if we are to reverse these trends. Yet, despite over a decade of NCLB, we are not making a dent. 

The United States has a long history of solving social problems through its public schools. We ensure that children in poverty get free lunches, breakfasts, and in some places even dinner. We use schools to eradicate childhood disease by requiring immunization. When these ambitious initiatives were first launched, we didn't even blink. We knew our children were hungry and we fed them. We knew that childhood diseases were devastating, so we did what was necessary to keep our children from harm. Yet when it comes to the most basic thing that a school is here to do, we have accepted failure decade after decade. 

We do know what to do.

The worst part about this problem is that we do really know what to do. Teaching children to read is not some great mystery. Yes, the community and parents need to play a role. Yes, poverty influences this problem. But the truth is that if teachers are given the right tools and training, they can impact this tremendously in the classroom. There is money available. There are tools available that work. There are countless teachers who are desperate to get their students to a level of proficiency. Solving this problem takes focus and will. Here is a list of schools that have solved the problem. These approaches can be used all over the country, if only those in charge would move their schools in the right direction.

If we can solve homelessness, we can solve this.

Our country is in the process of solving the problem of homelessness for veterans. This started with a federal push, and then local communities taking a stand, beginning in Phoenix. The good people of Phoenix decided they would not stand for this and became determined to solve the problem. NCLB was supposed to be the federal declaration for education, and the local communities were supposed to take it from there. However, it instead became a mandate in order to receive federal funding, complete with carrots and sticks. What has been missing in reading is a moral imperative. Each community needs to decide that it is simply indecent for children to fail to learn to read. Once this is decided, we can solve this.
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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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