Note taking lesson - II

Starting Monday, the students are going to take the notes they have written and plug the note numbers into a 4-square.  After that, they're going to construct an outline, edit it, and finally write a short paper on wolves. 

Keep your fingers crossed.  I'm hoping modeling the process for them and then having them work with me will give them a leg up on research writing.

Judy

note-taking lesson

Some of the standards for ELA cover researching and writing papers.  I did a lesson today on notetaking that seemed to help get them started in the right direction. 

First - I found some general directions on notetaking - skim first, look at headings, captions, structure of passage (bold print words, etc.) before starting to take notes and put it on a Word document so I could project it.

Next - I cut / pasted three short passages on wolves into word document - with web addresses

I put the first page of directions on the screen and just briefly read over them with the kids.  Then I put up the passages.  As per the directions, they could tell me what they needed to do first.  I modeled skimming and thinking aloud about the structure / headings.

Next they got out a sheet of paper and we practiced taking down just facts from what we read.  (Somewhere I saw to explain to them it's like texting: you don't text whole sentences, just facts / key words.) 

We only did the first passage today, so I'm going to move on to the 2nd and 3rd tomorrow.  I think notetaking was becoming a bit clearer.  I hope so; they have a major research paper they will be starting for science in a few weeks!

Judy

"Strategies that Work"

I have this book in the first edition from when I took Literacy Coach training several summers ago.  It has very workable things to do with the students in a regular class, not just for when you have the staff to pull out small groups for individualized attention.  Not only do they describe the strategy, they also explain how it works in a real class, and show you examples of student-generated work.  According to the website, the newer edition has more strategies and even has a free PDF study guide to go along with it.  Doc, the strategies will work with higher grades as well - they aren't just elementary.

Judy

http://www.stenhouse.com/shop/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=0&idproduct=310


 

Strategies That Work

Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement, Second Edition

Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis
Since its publication in 2000, Strategies That Work has become an indispensable resource for teachers who want to explicitly teach thinking strategies so that students become engaged, thoughtful, independent readers. In this revised and expanded edition, Stephanie and Anne have added twenty completely new comprehension lessons, extending the scope of the book and exploring the central role that activating background knowledge plays in understanding. Another major addition is the inclusion of a section on content literacy which describes how to apply comprehension strategies flexibly across the curriculum.
View the study guide that accompanies Strategies That Work. The guide is in PDF format so you will need the free Acrobat Reader on your computer.

• Related Titles

Common Core website

When I was going to the CC website, I typed in the address wrong...and ended up at a site run by teachers sharing ideas on the CC.  Go to http://www.commoncore.org/ instead of the http://www.corestandards.org/ we've been using.

QRI-5

I've just finished the introductory pages.  I found "look-backs effective grade 3 and higher" very interesting.  Especially since I've been very frustrated with the inability many of my social studies students to NOT be able to do jsut that. 

We only have "Coach" style books to use for textbooks, and whatever we are able to glean from the internet.  The book has the standard in a grey box with a short (1-6 paragraph) minilesson underneath.  That is followed by a few multiple choice questions.  I find that even when we go over the mini-lesson, and I give them background to help them understand, many are unable to find the answers in the short passage above.  None of my group exceeded the standard last year, and 7 did not meet.  I'm using all sorts of tricks - charts, graphs, etc.  Very frustrating.

I have this group for reading as well, and this 9 weeks is a non-fiction focus.  Maybe getting it in 2 classes will help!

Proust and the Squid

I went to the library here in Rome and got their copy of Proust and the Squid.  I didn't think I'd have time over hte break to read it, but with grades being "captured" Wednesday instead of Sunday, it looks like I'll have the break to read it!  I started chapter 1 ont he way home - yes, I read at redlights - and it sounds pretty interesting.  I'll keep you updated.

Guided Comprehension

I don' know if anyone still has a copy of this book - we got it as a "free" gift for attending a staff development activity years ago.  Even if you don't want to set up your classroom by their guidelines, the section in the middle has a wealth of activities for before - during - after reading both narrative and expository text.  I've used several in science classes as well as reading/literature.  When you see my book sets with post-it strips hanging out it's because we were using activities from this book.

 At the Academy I could put each class in a different book since each was a different grade level. They knew what number they were assigned (books did not go home), so the notes in each book were theirs.  They could go back and find specific items easier, making review and discussions flow better. ..not to mention they were not writing in my books!

(You can find the book used pretty cheap online.)

Reading in the Disciplines - vol. 3

I'm sorry this is taking so long, but there is SO much meat here!

Reading in Literature

1. this section primarily focuses on high school literature, but there are things that could also apply to middle school classes.

2. "Reading in Literature" at first seems sort of obvious, but the research shows that there is a vast difference in the level and variety of texts used from AP classes to remedial, from affluent to poor schools.  the underlying problem remains "insuficient attention in literature classrooms to the nuts and bolts of how to read a range of literary texts (Lee, 2011, 2004; Smith & Hillocks, 1988)".  For instance, teachers may ask students to find the symbolism without sufficiently modeling for the student.

3. the writers then present a laundry list of items students in high school literature classes must have prior knowledge of : recognize irony, use of unreliable narration, magical realism, science fiction, allegory, fable, myth, mystery, haiku, sonnet, ballad, epic, how emotions can lead to actions (good and bad), symbolism, satire, problems with point of view, inter-textual links / allusions, character types, and archetypal themes.  Whew! Satire is particularly hard, evidenced by trying to teach A Modest Proposal to my 10-12th graders.  They SO did not get Swift was being sarcastic!  I had a lot of convincing to do on that one!

4. Archaic language presents a problem when reading older works, even for good readers.  I really like the NoFear Shakespeare series by SparkNotes.  They're side-by-side translations - really helped me teach Romeo and Juliet to 9th graders. Greek tragedies are a bit difficult for students, as are other works from times with different class structures from what students are used to today.  Oedipus was mentioned specifically as a difficult text because of the elements of a tragedy.  My students were shocked we were reading a story with incest in it, even if it was not known at the time it happened.

5. A good argument for reading literature is made on the basis that major challenges to the human condition happen across times and lives.  In reading these, students may get insight into their own challenges.  Often the poor readers see themselves as having challenges in their lives, and can thus relate to characters who also have challenges.

Reading in Mathematics

Oh, my goodness!  Did this section ever blow right by me!  Let's just say this section was definitely written for math teachers at the high school / college level.  I get math has a specialized vocabulary and skill set, and some books have more opportunities to read than others.

1. "...by successfully navigating high school mathematics courses young people will typically form a lifelong habit of reading newspaper adn magazine articles that draw on mathematic evidence more critically, and this ability will help them to act as informed citizens."  I agree with this.  As a matter of fact, I've heard several commentators over the past couple of years talking about economics issues and the fact that some of the numbers don't add up.  Citizens were urged to take closer looks at stories and be sure they were presenting accurate statistics. Can't do that if you're mathematically illiterate!

Summary
1. Box 9 on page 16 of the aritcle give a summary of the generic strategies, and discipline specific reading strategies the writers believe should be taught to students, and the types of texts that should be used (texts, newspapers, magazines, historical documents, etc.

2. CC writers also ADMIT the pressure of teaching standards and helping struggling readers is complex and will require teachers to map out ahead of time the selections they will use.  The suggested plan is to start building prior knowledge with little reading over the first part of unit, then increase in complexity and use more reading as you move forward.

The last bits of the article are thick with suggestions for teaching content strategies - you pretty much just need to read the section and take notes on what you think will owrk for you.  A listing of existing interventions and the groups promoting them are also included.

2nd 9 weeks we will be focusing on nonfiction so this will be a perfect time to have them bring content textbooks to class and work on the strategies.

Reading in the disciplines cont

Back to Reading in History:
14. Beck and colleagues (1991) were quoted as saying there were common patterns found in science and SS textbooks that interferred with student comprehension:
    * Failure to make logical connections between propositions explicit.
    * Use of references that are ambisuous, distant or indirect.
    * The inclusion of information that is irrelevant to the main ideas.
    * Density of ideas within individual sentences.
(each of these points was also referenced)
Books like this are actually called "inconsiderate texts". (sorry; just strikes me as funny)

I will admit to telling kids to just ignore stuff on the page, or even cover it up, to reduce distractions.  Some textbooks are too busy, especially if you have ADD kids- you can see their eyes jumping all over the page.

15. [para] Content area teachers should be well versed in their subjects and able to judge ahead of time what sections have the potential to give students problems and help them to understand the text/ document.  In teaching the Declaration of Independence, I would read a section, stop and say, "Okay, that was clear as mud!  Let's pull this apart and see what he was really saying...." The kids also needed reminding about the various Acts that had the colonists in a fury - background knowledge - so they would understand they were politely saying enough was enough.

16. CC ends this section by stating they are NOT saying remedial classes should be discontinued.  They are saying it needs to be added to so students have the skills to tackle the various contents - and the content area teachers are the logical ones to teach them. That will go over like a lead balloon!  I've heard content teachers declare they were NOT reading teachers!  Might as well be a "professor".

Reading in the Disciplines

Reading in the Disciplines – Carnegie Corporation

I chose this article because it seemed to go well with the transcripts from the Content Area Literacy Conference.

1. Older students with reading difficulties have fallen through the cracks in the latest round of programs.  Not only do they have the same types of comprehension problems as younger kids, the complexity of the text has increased greatly due to “read to learn” in the various content areas.

2. That is the focus of the article – reading to learn.  Disciplinary literacy / content area literacy deals with the types of reading skills needed depending on the content students are reading.

3. NAEP – has three levels of proficiency: basic, proficient, and advanced.  In a survey of 17 year olds, the following was found: basic – majority of students (regardless of race of SES), proficient -  “stark differences aligned with race or SES (but they do not explain), advanced – less than 10% are able to comprehend complex texts (regardless of race or SES).

4. C.C. study says this suggests students learn basic skills, but do not learn skills that are content specific, thus hampering their comprehension at the higher grade levels.

5. Prior knowledge is one of the basic foundations of comprehension and includes 1) words and word forms, 2) sentence structure (syntax), 3) text structures or genres, 4) topics

6. [para.] Comprehension is a dynamic relationship between reader and text, combined with the demands of the text, plus prior knowledge and goals of the reader.

7. Generic skills do not go far enough – students also need techniques that are subject specific. Strategic Literacy Initiative is mentioned as one of the few programs designed to teach not only generic strategies, but also content specific ones as well.

8. The next section of the article goes into detail about “Reading in Science”.  I did notice there was information here that I had read in the “Content Area Literacy Conference” transcript. 

                * science textbooks are “text heavy” – pages can contain pictures, graphs, fact boxes, etc.

                * Comprehension can also require math literacy as well as visual literacy (to understand the                                        graphs, charts, etc.)

                * Syntax in textbook is much more difficult.

                * Latin & Greek word parts plus content specific meanings for words that is different from                                          common language.

                *Much of the taxonomic vocabulary is very abstract

                * Relationships may be inferred from word choice but not stated explicitly in the text.

I would like to interject that I teach Greek and Latin parts to my science students and show them the relationship to other words. Then I refer them back to those parts when we encounter them in new vocabulary.  I also point out words that have a different meaning in science from common usage. In the current text I would point out sections where they would have a graphic on one page and paragraphs explaining the same thing on a facing page, then tell them the way that made the most sense to them was the one they should use – that everyone’s brain works a bit differently.

9.  American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993 – benchmarks for 12^th graders require them to be able to do a high level of critical thinking, including taking studies and pulling them apart to examine them in detail. – Goal is to have scientifically literate adults.

10. Reading in History – this section repeated, once again, several points made in the conference notes.  One thing is that historians challenge texts, looking for bias, comparing facts against other sources, where scientists are expected to take texts more at face value.

11. the authors consider social science classes the training ground for citizenship, and schools have the opportunity to reach across ethnic / SES lines.

12. Side note – teens know about Vietnam War from films, not primary sources.  Adults of the time use film as a basis of fact, even when their own experiences contradict the film.  C.C. says film not a good choice to relay information. – I’m not sure why if you’re using newsreels, military films, etc.  instead of theatrical versions….

13. Historians use primary and secondary sources to not only get to details, but to get to the why of events.  Schools, on the other hand, present history as basically a timeline narrated by the text that should not be questioned.  (maybe this comes from the idea “anybody can teach history”).

14. CC points out that Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech is a rather good one to use to examine political issues since it was a campaign speech, not one given after he was in office.  Comparisons can be made to Douglas’s speeches and other historical documents from the time.   ( point of view, intended audience, etc.)

15. Textbooks for elementary students come under fire next.  According to studies quoted, in attempting to simplify texts, so much is left out that comprehension breaks down.

More to come.....

vocabulary lesson

We are reading The Outsiders in my 7th grade reading class.  I wrote the 10 words for chapters 9 and 10 on the board and told them to put them in their notebooks with space for definitions.

I then told the kids to skim the chapters until they found one of the words and let me know.  When someone found a word they had to read the sentence where it was and tell what was going on at that point.

 I then asked the class what they thought the word meant in the context of the story.  With very little help from me they were able to get pretty good definitions/descriptions of the words. 

And they were proud of themselves.

Content Area Literacy Conference

Where to start?

I'm not finished with the article yet - there is so much here you have to take it a few pages at a time and digest before you can move on to the next pages.  Marsha is starting with the ACT article since I've started with CALC.  We keep discussing facts and figures we discover, comparing notes, etc.  These have definitely sparked a LOT of conversation!

Someone is FINALLY listening to middle and high school teachers who have been saying for years, "The kids cannot read the textbook!"  We know they can read, just not the books.  The speakers are pointing out the strategies needed for students to comprehend content- heavy  texts; some are generic and some wil be content specific. 

TExtbooks are a specific genre all to themselves (according to Dr. Carol Lee) with their own structure.  Teachers above 3rd grade need to teach the genre or kids will never understand.  Therefore - content area teachers HAVE to teach kids how to read in their classes.

One suggestion is to give them something to do as they read - such as teach them to do an outline so they can see how the big ideas relate. (personally I like power outlines)

I'm going back to reading now.  There is just so much here it's hard to get my thoughts organized - but in a good way!

dyslexia article

This sin't the one from the Yale site, but it's a really good article by Shaywitz onthe topic of dyslexia.  The level of language is very much aimed at people who do not have a lot of prior knowledge - such as parents, education students, and teachers taking reading endorsement classes.

The article has the same brain pictures Dr. Neslin has shown in class, as well as lists of signs to look for. The scientific basis for accomodations is explained - which I've never seen.  All in all, it's a very informative piece.
http://knol.google.com/k/dyslexia?collectknol=1#done

another website

I find the neatest stuff when I'm looking for something else!!
I jsut had time to cruise through a tiny bit of this site, but it looks really good.  It's a friendly site, not clinical, with sections for parents and professionals.

Just click on the "For Teachers" tab at the top, scroll down and look at the topics in the middle written in orange.  "Classroom STrategies" has each of the areas we're studying (print awareness, phonological awareness, phonics, etc.) and lists of strategies to develop those areas - it even says whether it's before-during-after reading.

You could literally spend hours here. Awsome site!


http://www.readingrockets.org/

http://theteacherscafe.com/

If you haven't been on this site, please go and take a look.
The homepage has quick links.  But if you look at the top, y ou have hot buttons to "high school", "middle school", 'pre-school", "home school", "k-5 Math", etc.  You get the idea.  Each hot button takes you to a list of links for that particular area.  It's a good site to just cruise around.

phonics and Sunday School

I teach kindergarten through 2nd grade in Sunday School.  This past Sunday, there was a fill in the blank activity on their lesson sheets.  It gave a sentence, the first letter of the word for the sentence, then the word at the end scrambled.  It looked sort of like:  I can s____ a song.  NIGS

I found myself sounding the letters for them so they could write the fill-in words correctly( I remembered to stretch out the sounds and link them together like you've been doing in class).  I even remembered to tell them that WRITE had a vowel-consonent-vowel pattern so the I said it's name. 

Just another way to put into practice what we've been doing in class!  I just thought I'd share.

What happened to the post?

I was so happy I finally got my comments to post.  Now the last update about the read-alouds put in the headig without the actual comment.  Sigh!  I jsut can't win!

Round two!

In reading the article on “Revisiting Read-Aloud”, the phrase “preaching to the choir” came to mind. 

A few years ago I took a class with Toni Macglasker (don’t think I spelled it right!) who was an assistant principal at Allatoona Elementary at the time.  We examined test data, did running records, compiled data notebooks for reading and writing, did student goal setting, and how to do read-alouds. 

I have used “making connections” , but not the “alpha-boxes”.  Wednesday, after we got back from the library, I had the students review the first four chapters of The Outsiders and complete the organizer for characters, settings, and major events. 

Results:  They are really getting in to it.  It’s more like a puzzle instead of a review sheet to them.  I'm doing the organizer with them to let them have a model for how theirs should look.  They got a kick out of giving an answer I didn't have and seeing me write it on mine.

I sent the template out to the rest of the school so others can use it in their subject areas.  I can see definite subject area possibilities.  In fact, I'll more than likely use it to review religions in the Middle East in my Social Studies class.

University of Kansas - good stuff

Revisiting Read Alouds - article and activity

reading screening online

http://www.readingscreening.org/index.aspx

This site is open to parents and teachers for kids 5-12 years of age.  the cost is $5 to register, then $20 per child to test.  I'm not sure schools will want to do this, but a parent might if they suspect there is some difficulty the child is having.  According to what I could access, there are several tests the child will be given, and the testing can be paused to give the child a break.It takes 45 minutes to test and the results are available immediately.

THEY DO TEST FOR DYSLEXIA: 

Dyslexia is defined as a learning disability marked by an inability to read well. Dyslexia essentially means difficulty reading words. Researchers have now furthered the definition to include not only reading difficulties, but impairment in areas of language development that is observed when the individual begins learning to read. These skills are measured in the Reading Screening assessment.

The testing is apparently administered by CARRD - Center for the Assessment and Remediation of Reading Difficulties

I'm not sure how I feel about this...On one hand, it's accessible by parents.  On the other hand, I wonder just how good the tests are....

Screening Tests To Identify Children With Reading Problems Are Being Misapplied, Study Shows

Screening Tests To Identify Children With Reading Problems Are Being Misapplied, Study Shows

This is a facinating article. If you go past the headline and get into the depths of the piece, you see they are advocating oral and silent reading along with evaluating how much the child comprehends through re-tellings. they are NOT advocating - as might be implied from the title - getting rid of oral reading tests.

If you look along the right side there are several related articles on reading comprehension and phonics, parents reading to young kids, and the connection between reading and writing.

The Children's Reading Foundation- http://www.readingfoundation.org

I found this site while looking for information on corrective reading for middle school.  I seem to find most of my stuff by accident!  Anyway....It has pages for parents and educators. 

On the parent page, it gives a list of what the average child should be able to do at certain points prior to pre-K.  Clicking on "school age" will give checkpoints for K-3rd.  It also has a page of ideas for grandparents, typical rhymes (nursery rhymes), etc.   

The section for educators is anything but fluff.  It's a very to-the-point long list of exactly what the current situation is and what each level - superintendent on down - needs to do to make things better.  They were very specific as to what they saw as a lack of emphasis at the system level, board/superintendent attitudes, principals, and teachers. 

Just like we were saying in class tonight, some things may have to be cut to give the students the time they need to make necessary gains ( pet projects, social networking, and so forth).

article - boys and reading

I was trying to do a Google search today for leveled reading passages for middle school - couldn't find any - and I ran across a piece from the New York Times written by Robert Lipsyte - He's a writer of books aimed at middle / high boys.  It's a really good article on what he sees as the problem connecting boys reading and the current publishing climate.  According to him, boys aren't reading because 85% of the books being published lately are aimed at girls.  AMEN!  I think he's right on the money with this one.  If you want to turn a boy off to reading, try to get him to read a "touchy-feely" book!  He also points out other things he perceives as problems for boys and books.  I'm definitely going be looking closer at my reading choices.

trouble posting comments

I've been through help menus to no avail. I am reading blog posts, I'm jsut unable to post comments.

Doc - I agree.  I was a bit skeptical, but I used "Top Cat" with my 7th graders for literary terms, and they really enjoyed it.  I, too, think I'll use them more often.

I really liked the "alphablocks" activity, and can see where it could be used in the content areas as well.

Beth - I was reading your post about DIBBLES - I have had to explain about that to some team mates when they saw it in an SST file.  At least I know HOW to explain!  The work you do in elementary school certainly gives us middle school teachers good information on our kids.  Thank you.

website for literacy issues

http://www.literacy.uconn.edu/adolit.htm

This URL leads to the University of Connecticut page for Adolescent Literacy, but if you scroll down and look on the left side, there are hot buttons for all grade levels, special needs, ELL, and adult literacy.

At the bottom of the page, there are numerous sites with suggested reading lists for adolescents.  I did find one broken link, and another that was an internal site for an organization; but, the majority were working sites with lists and reviews.

In the other sections, many links take you to sites with even more links to articles on literacy and teens - both saying there is a problem, and ways to help.  There is an amazing amount of information here!  Parents might find the information a bit overwhelming since these articles are directed toward teaching professionals, and not always in "parent friendly" language.  You could literally spend hours on this site.

Please take a few moments and browse through.  I think everyone int he class will be able to find something here, regardless of grade / area.

Judy McPherson

Learning to read words: Linguistic units and instructional strategies. Juel, C., & Minden-Cupp

I've started plowing through this VERY long article. 

In the opening, the researchers start by discussing various theories of teaching phonics, infering specialists are not sure HOW to go about teaching phonics.  Everyone does at least seem to agree it should be taught.

One problem mentioned by Juel and Minden-Cupp is that there are so many variables  it is difficult to say exactly which instructional format is best for each child.  They listed four basic strategies: 1. traditional phonics approach; 2. identifying unknown words with analogy to known words; 3. emphasize meaning level of the text; and 4. self-teaching hypothesis.

For the exeriment they used 4 first grade classrooms somewhere in the SE United States.  Two schools were close, all were 70% free/reduced, 60% Black, 36% White, and 4 % other ethnic groups.  All four teachers were white females with no more than 10 years experience (at least 5 of which were at the test school)  The goal was to follow the teachers through a school years, making observations in Language Arts classes of 1 hour per week. Each classroom had 3 reading groups: low, middle, and high. At the end of the year, all the data collected was compaired and conclusions drawn.

The article is very detailed and tells exactly how the data was collected, what they were collecting, and how each teacher taught their groups. 

The results are summarized, and one finding that stood out was that lower levels students who enter with few skills proceed best with intensive instruction in sounds and blending.  Only one class used intensive instruction in these areas, and they scored the highest.  The lowest class used memorization of patterns with no emphasis on sounds and blending.  The teacher must provide LOTS of instruction in phonemes and blends; peer tutoring is not enough with delayed students.

The researchers freely admit this is a limited study and more investigation is needed.  (I really appreciated their openness in that respect)However, the results do require a thoughtful evaluation.  As students are progress monitored, we must be willing to change our approach if the results are not headed to the approapriate end-of-year goals.  These teachers "stayed the course" in the lower achieving rooms, even when it was very obvious the results were less than stellar.

picture book

Our first unit, as per the county, is Characteristics of Literature.  I was reviewing a few terms required for the lessons with them: plot, setting, conflict, climax, plot maps, antagonist, and protagonist.  to reinforce the terms, I read the picturebook Top Cat. At first I think the kids thought I was crazy; but they quickly saw the elements in somehting as simple as the picture book.  It was so unexpected in a 7th grade classroom, I think it will stick with the majority of them.

The 90% Reading Goal

https://readingfoundation.mmaweb.net/store/goal.jsp

This is the url to a review of a book we used in one of the Literacy Coach training about 7 years back.  This system had around 14,000+ students back in the mid 90's.  The system actually starting meeting the NCLB  standards way before the federal gov't started requiring  them.  The system had 90% of their 3rd graders reading at or above grade level by the end of the their 3rd grade year. 

"We have learned that for 90% to 95% of poor readers, prevention and early intervention programs...can increase reading skills to average reading levels. We have also learned that if we delay intervention until nine years of age, approximately 75% of the children will continue to have difficulties learning to read throughout high school."G. Reid Lyon, Director, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

The book is digest size and not very thick.  It is written in an easy to follow style, and not a lot of jargon to interfere with understanding for those of us without specific training.  It's a fascinating  book. And, no, this isn't a system in an affluent area.  These are kids much like ours.

http://virtual-institute.us/90%25.htm - has a review of the book with numerous chapter excerpts.  It's an excellent introduction to the Kennewick School System in Washington state, and what they did to turn their system around.

A follow up book called  Annual Growth for All Students; Catch-up Growth for Those Who Are Behind has also been written by the same authors.  In that book, they also address the needs of secondary learners.