Got Comprehension? ..In the Beginning of the Year

Good comprehension is like cuddling with a soft puppy.  It just makes life better.

Comprehension was the most difficult skill for me to teach when I was first teaching.  I had A TON of enthusiasm, which probably saved me when I just didn't know any better. Unfortunately, graduating with a teaching degree didn't prepare me for everything.  I graduated when worksheets and whole book learning were the methods taught to prepare a future reading teacher, but my teachers in grade school taught me in differentiated homogeneous groups.  Did I, as a student, know who was in the top reading group?  Absolutely and so did everyone else.  Did kids know who were the better readers when I taught whole group reading?  Yes.  Did I feel like I was REALLY teaching kids how to read and how to comprehend what they read when I taught whole group reading?  No.  Luckily, I was able to go to a lot of workshops and training after I graduated from college and I was able to learn more effective ways to teach this incredibly important skill.

I am NOT an expert, however I LOVE teaching reading.  The best way I've experienced teaching reading is making small groups of homogeneous levels, especially when students need extra help.  However, once they are adjusted to REALLY experiencing good comprehension practices, mixing it up is great!  There are specific ways I've mixed it up, too.

ASSESSMENT

Within the first two weeks of school, I assess students' reading levels. This helps create the reading groups.  I have had experience with Rigby Assessment Kits and Fountas and Pinnell Assessment Kits.  Our school uses the Fountas and Pinnell Assessment Kit, Levels L-Z, Grades 3-8.  I like this because it offers two stories per reading level - one fiction and one non-fiction.  I also like it because it's easy to use if you read the directions.  I've created an assessment binder for my class that includes the word lists, directions how to give the tests, a section for each student to keep the tests I gave and scored, and one copy of each of the tests that I typically give in the grade I'm teaching*.)  *If I'm teaching third grade, I will not test a student above an "R" level.  At that point, a student is reading above grade level and I don't want to take away from tests an upper level grade could give to the student.

(Our reading specialist uses DIBELS to assess the lower elementary grades.  I am not familiar with it, but the lower elementary teachers like it.)

CREATE SMALL GROUPS

After I've assessed the students, I create small groups based on their reading levels.  Sometimes, if I have a low "outlier," I'll place that student in two groups:  one-to-one work with me and in the lowest group, as well. I do not like my groups to be larger than 6 kids, however it has happened when the students are "on-grade" level.  In this case, sometimes I split the larger group into two smaller groups.  They can stay the same during the entire novel, or the students can mix throughout the novel if they are reading the same one.

Once the students are in levels, I find appropriate books for them that are a little above their "Independent" reading level.  At this point, it's probably important to mention that the majority of workshops and training I've had is based on this book:  Guiding Readers and Writers by Irene Fountas, Gay Su Pinnell - Heinemann Publishing, and I have experienced tremendous success implementing this.  I've watched many students grow from reading below their grade level to reading at or above grade level in a year or two.  If you have not read this book, I absolutely recommend it.  I also think you should observe schools that do it.  Last, find workshops you can attend to help you learn more about it.

TEACH YOUR STUDENTS WHAT TO DO DURING READING WORKSHOP

There are different methods to organize your classroom using Guided Reading / Reading Workshop.  One is the Four-Blocks method.  Another is The Daily Five.  You can use the way Fountas and Pinnell suggest in their book.  I've used The Daily Five and Fountas and Pinnell's methods of organizing.  Another way is suggested by Laura Candler with The Power Reading Workshop.  I know there are a ton of others.  I chose to include the ones I did in my post because three of them I've read about extensively or experienced.  One, in addition, has recently grabbed my attention. Here are links to all of these:


Virtual Workshop on Four Blocks Model

The Two Sisters and The Daily Five

Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell - Heinemann Books

Fountas and Pinnell on Twitter

Laura Candler Power Reading Workshop - Book Preview

Down and Dirty Summary of Those Methods to Organize Your Classroom During Reading Workshop:

• The Four Blocks program -- integrates four language arts areas into reading instruction. Those areas are: guided reading, self-selected reading, writing, and working with words.  Children rotate between those areas during the time allotted.  Guided reading is done with a teacher in small groups.  The rest are self-directed activities.  I read the book many years ago and was interested in it, but have not implemented it into my own classroom.
• The Daily Five - Read to Self, Word Work, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, Read to Someone are the choices that students are given to make when they are not meeting in small groups for Guided Reading with the teacher.  Word Work can be spelling.  I utilized this in a third grade classroom and it worked well to organize the children and give them focus during our Language Arts time.
• Fountas and Pinnell - Students are meeting with the teacher in a Guided Reading group or they are reading independently.  I appreciated the simplicity of this and used it in public school for third graders.
• Laura Candler - Utilizes a Reading Workshop format with Guided Reading, as well as "extras" that she intriguingly calls the Power Reading Workshop.  I'm interested in learning more.

MY EXPERIENCES LED TO THESE CONCLUSIONS:

• Choose a method to organize your students during Reading Workshop, whether it's one from the above I mentioned or another one you found or adapted, and teach your students specifically what they should be doing during Reading Workshop time during the first few weeks of school.  You may feel like you are "wasting reading time," but you should also be assessing your students and getting to know them.  This time is invaluable later.  I've never regretted having it as a part of the beginning of my year.  
• Be consistent.  I found that it's best if the students monitor each other, like in The Daily Five, than if I'm having to monitor the students when they are not meeting with me.  This helps with consistency throughout the year.  If taught properly, it doesn't lead to tattling either.
• It's helpful if your school chooses a method and all of the teachers buy into it and effectively use it rather than having a few teachers utilizing The Four Blocks while others use The Daily Five.  (That's just an example, but you understand.  However, if lower elementary teachers use one method and the upper elementary teachers implement it with adaptations for age and abilities, that works well.)
• "Reading Folders" that follow the kids as they move from grade to grade are useful tools for the teachers.  These should include any assessments and a list of books the student read throughout their time in elementary school.  I think there's an example of this in the Guiding Readers and Writers... book by Fountas and Pinnell.  It helps to see the growth in students and to see who is struggling as a reader year-to-year.
• If your school adopts one way to assess the students from PK to the end of elementary school, that is also helpful.  It gives teachers a more vivid picture of each reader as he/she has grown.  It's also easier for everyone to understand each child's reading ability level and to have conversations from grade to grade regarding reading levels.
• Having a book room that teachers share, where the books are leveled and activities are kept with the books is a fabulous way to encourage sharing and community among the faculty.  We had this in one of the schools where I taught and started it in another.  6-7 copies of each book were placed in zip-lock baggies and leveled A-Z by Guided Reading Level in small tubs.  Allowing older students to help organize it works well, too.  Plus, it was great to see what activities other teachers used with books and made it easy to keep students reading at a level that was effective for them to learn and grow quickly.  It also saved money for teachers so they didn't have to use their own.  This was great, too, because a second grade teacher may use a book for his/her high-level readers, but a fourth grade teacher may need that book for his/her struggling readers to teach them where they are now.  This is where the Reading Folders come in handy, so teachers can see what books their students have read and they don't repeat the same books for the same students.
• The organization methods mentioned above really help keep students on task.  They also helped keep me on task.  I didn't have students interrupting me during small groups or one-to-one work.  Students were able to problem solve for themselves instead of needing me to do it for them, and they could read for long periods of time.
• I do not share specific letter assessment levels with parents (unless they know a lot about Guided Reading Levels.)  It's not to discriminate, but the letters are not helpful to parents, as a general rule.  Most parents want to know if their child is reading below, at, or above grade level and how I'm helping him/her grow as a reader in my classroom.  They do not care if Bobby is reading at a level J in Kindergarten.

My first grader can decode The Cricket in Times Square, BUT she cannot comprehend it.  She will not benefit from reading that story at all.  She found a "Just Right" book with Kristen: An American Girl.

I think that summarizes how I begin my year and tips that I learned from my experiences.  Specific lessons that I teach during Reading Workshop come from the organization methods.  There are elements of The Daily Five that I really like, but some tend to be a little "young" and silly for fifth graders who are soooooo cool, dontcha' know?  Again, I am NOT an expert.  I'm just one of the many teachers who has experience with implementing an organization method that I like to make my Reading Workshop a place that grows successful readers.

Fluency - How to Teach It

Having taught for 16 years, mostly in upper elementary, fluency is so important for kids to have good comprehension.  Many teachers don't take the time to teach good fluency.

How do I teach fluency?

1.  Read-alouds - I love reading books out loud to kids, even fifth graders.  Utilizing "Interactive Notebooks" and read-alouds along with reading novels in small groups really helps to teach fluency and specific comprehension skills, like making inferences and summarizing.  Read-alouds model proper fluency.

2.  Shared Reading - This is like a read-aloud, but each student has a copy of what I'm reading. Sometimes I read it wrong and see what they think about how it sounds versus reading it correctly.  This is great for shared reading, but not for read-alouds, because the students benefit from seeing and hearing the words I read.  It helps them see how one way is wrong, but another is correct because they can see the punctuation and other text effects.

3.  One-to-One Reading - Wherever the student chooses to sit that day during independent reading, I find him/her and I listen to the student read. I occasionally stop the student to ask if what he/she read made sense or we discuss something specific that I notice he/she did well and something that needs work.  These things include: pausing for commas and other punctuation, like... or -, phrasing correctly, learning how to transition from one page to the next smoothly, having appropriate expression, reading at a good speed for the text, accurately reading words or going back to self-correct when he/she makes an error, and many other practices that affect fluency.

4. You Read, I Read - this is like one-to-one reading, but I don't give a lot of feedback until the very end of the time we read together.  I will tell the student two places where he/she read a passage well (or the novel he/she is reading) and one place to improve.

5.  Partner practice - This is done as a class activity in the beginning to teach specific fluency practices.  The students sit "EEKK," which is elbow-to-elbow, knee-to-knee.  I think that came from The Daily Five.  (Those ladies are fabulous!) The students read together, one reading and the other listening.  The listener gives feedback on the reading for the skill we're practicing - one place the reader practiced the skill well, another where he/she could use some practice.  The reader then reads it to him/herself two times, and then reads it aloud again.  The listener compliments the reader and then they switch roles.

6.  Read to the animal / the recorder / the stuffed animal / the fish / etc... - Sometimes, I have the kids who don't like to read with me sitting next to them do these activities until they are more comfortable with me.  I have been known to "overhear" them read something well when they do this and let them know later.  This encourages them to keep the good habits I hear, and eventually be willing to read to me once they know I'm not going to bite them while they are reading to me.  I am a scary lady....

Reading to the Scary Dog

7.  At home practice - I have sent a sheet home with a letter to parents where their homework is to read a passage every night.  The student reads it first, and then the parent tells the student one skill they did well and one that needs work.  The student reads it to him/herself two times with that feedback in mind, and then reads it aloud again.  The parent compliments one specific skill and they practice it again in the same way the next day.  They can time the reading every night or not.  I will time them reading it on Monday and again on Friday.  So, the homework lasts Monday through Thursday nights.  This seems like a silly and useless drill, but there is research that shows improvement with this assignment.  I do include a list of the elements of fluency and a few that we've practiced in class together to help the parents give good feedback to their children.  This is not my favorite way to increase fluency, but if you have motivated parents and students, it does work well.

8. (My favorite) Songs - fifth graders, yes these cool and aloof, wondrous beings, enjoy singing in the morning.  We have a fifth grade songbook full of fun songs to sing and we sing every morning (LOL) after we say the morning pledges for our country and our class.  We have special songbooks for the holiday weeks and it's more fun when there's music for the songs.  I am a TERRIBLE singer, but even fifth graders don't care.  They say I sing well, and I love them for that.  They also say I look 29, so I know they are good at questionable compliments and are practicing the art of hyperbole.

9.  Decoding / Phonics Skills - This should probably be #1, however it's late at night and the Carmelicious from Scooters is wearing off...I do specifically work with all of my students using different methods and materials on phonics and decoding.  There are many methods I've employed, and I typically use them in small groups and short lessons before we begin our guided reading small group.  This is a topic that could be explored in it's own post, too.

10.  Readers Theater - Students don't typically need costumes and backgrounds for this.  It's just a practiced reading of the parts for fluency, not for visual appeal.  There are many resources for this online that can be purchased and ones that are freebies, too.  This is great to use when you have a short week or as an activity after a novel.  There's no end to the good times Readers Theater can be implemented into your classroom.

How do I "test" fluency?

I listen to them read.  It's best to use an "on-grade-level" reading to get a more accurate picture of the class as a whole and of each student as an individual.  When I've had students that are not reading at grade level, I've had them use a passage from the level they are reading, as well.  While they're reading, I do a quick assessment by having a copy of the passage they read and checking off the words they read correctly, crossing out words that are skipped, and putting a line above words that are misread and writing above the line with the pronunciation/word they used.  They do this for one minute, and I do time it because it's easier to calculate the words per minute (WPM) read by counting the total number of words and subtracting the number of errors they made.  Errors include: mispronouncing, substituting, skipping, inserting, mixing word order, and struggling more than 3 seconds.  I do not count errors when students correct themselves while reading, if it's corrected quickly.  I do count an error when students repeat words or phrases, but I only count it as one error for each phrase (consecutive words) repeated.  I like to record these as it creates a helpful record and could be used in a digital portfolio for conferences. (I have not done that...yet.)

Tim Rasinski has done a lot of research on this and written countless books, as well.  I've used one of his books for this "test."  Rasinski,T., & Padak, N,.(2005). 3-Minute reading assessments: word recognition, fluency & comprehension. New York, NY: Scholastic.  It was very user-friendly.  I've also had the pleasure of hearing him speak and I think he's awesome!  

Dr. Tim Rasinski - Reading and Fluency

Here's a 3-Minute Reading Assessment published on an online school's website, too.

Basehor-Linwood Virtual School, by Victoria Dodds

Here's some fluency practice passages online.

Reading A-Z fluency practice

ReadWorks.org, select reading passages and choose your level

McGraw-Hill Publishers

Comprehension

What does fluency have to do with comprehension?  A lot, I say!  Typically, if a student has developed good fluency, he/she has good comprehension.  If not, we work on that.  I'll blog about it next time.

Disclaimer

I would like to note that this has been my experience, and I am not an expert.   I've had some great teachers who have helped me, and I've had the benefit to attend many workshops and other training, as well.  I also employ "Google" and other research methods, like teacher friends.  You may have better ideas or different experiences.  Feel free to give your suggestions, but please be kind.  I have garnered success with the above practices in a public school where many students were receiving assistance and homework was considered taboo and in two different private schools where homework was required, as well.  Most of my experience has been in private schools.

Resources to Plan STEM Lessons

Why does this ball float on the pedestal at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, NE?

https://www.teachengineering.org/             
This is a great website and well-organized.

http://tryengineering.org/lesson-plans         
Another easy-to-search website with great activities

http://mysteryscience.com/                         
This one is great, as well.

http://www.pbs.org/parents/fetch/activities/ruffguide.html     
Ruff Ruffman activities

The Science Penguin blog                                                   
This is more for upper elementary school.  She has items for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers, too.  I haven't purchased them yet, but I've heard they are awesome!

NGSS Standards based lessons                                         

NC State University ideas / plans

Pinterest - my page
I started pinning on 6/24/15.


and you can Google anything...

Do you have other ideas? Please comment because I'd love hear your ideas on how you plan STEM lessons or resources you use.

Coaching App Used for Teaching? What?

Ubersense Coaching App

SLOW MOTION EXPERIMENTS!

Ever want to slow down an experiment?  Do you wish you could show exactly when and where the change took place in the chemical reaction?  Your students made a rocket and launched it?  Do you want to see it in slow motion?  This coaching app by Uber Sense is what you need!  You record the video.  When you replay it, you can see what happened and when it occurred by replaying in slow motion.  FABULOUS for kids and for teaching!  If you happen to have a kiddo of your own in sports, like me, it works for that too.  I can video my son shooting a basketball, and then search for pros that are doing the same.  We can watch the pro and my son shooting simultaneously or just watch my son in SLOW-MO.... It's AMAZING!

Here's a link to the app.  FYI - The company is changing it's name to Hudl Technique on July 16th.

Uber Sense / Hudl Technique News and App

STEM - Science Technology Engineering Math

 I spent two weeks training at Wichita State University learning how to implement STEM using the 5E model and inquiry based learning.  It was AWESOME!  The instructors were fabulous.  The coaches were wonderful.  More than anything, it was great to meet new teachers from other schools, especially other fifth grade teachers.

What did I walk away with from the experience?

Here's my top 10:

10. How to plan a STEM lesson using the 5E model

9. Go Pro video camera!

8. a multitude of technology resources

7. tons of great lesson plans already made by fabulous teachers

6. the support we’ll get from our coach and WSU

5. NGSS Standards

4. the 5E’s and returning to Inquiry

3. the money - for materials and being paid to be here

2. meeting a tons of great teachers

1. knowing I’m not alone

Here's a lesson I created from MysteryScience.com :

Mystery Bridges
Topic Students will use engineering and problem solving skills to create a paper bridge		# of Class Periods 60 minutes
Resources Videos  and bridge challenge worksheets (2) http://mysteryscience.com/forces/mystery-2/balance-of-forces-engineering/43?r=715435#slide-id-0 paper, books that make 2 equal stacks, scissors, pennies, rulers,
Students Who Demonstrate Understanding Can… construct a bridge across a six-inch span of three-inch high stack of books that will hold as many pennies as possible. explain and draw a diagram of the forces that are at work which make the bridge support the pennies. Support an argument that the gravitational force exerted by Earth on objects is directed down.
Disciplinary Core Ideas 5-PS2-1. Support an argument that the gravitational force exerted by Earth on objects is directed down. 3-5-ETS1-1 Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost. 3-5-ETS1-2 Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem. 3-5-ETS1-3 Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.	Cross Cutting Patterns Cause & Effect Scale, Proportion, & Quantity Systems & Models Energy & Matter Structure & Function Stability & Change		8 Practices Questioning & Defining Problems Developing & Using models Planning & Carrying out investigations Analyzing and interpreting data Using Mathematics Construct Explanations & Designing Solutions Evidence based Arguments Obtaining, Evaluating & Communicating information
Engage: giving students materials with the parameters of building a bridge between two stacks of books that supports as many pennies as possible in 5 minutes (or less)
Explain: watch first three mystery videos on SmartBoard discuss forces at work to make the bridge support pennies / cars, etc. **all four videos are about 16 min and 30 seconds
Elaborate: new challenge of building a paper bridge (video 4 explains this)

Book for teaching compare and contrast in Social Studies - colonial life

I love teaching reading skills with picture books, and fifth graders like it too.   A great book that goes with our social studies curriculum and teaches comparing and contrasting life in England versus in the colonies is William's House by Ginger Howard. the book discusses how William needs to build his house differently in the colonies than his father's in England due to the weather and other factors.

It was interesting and effectively taught the reading skill while incorporating our social studies curriculum.  I'm grateful for our wonderful librarian who found it for me.

Reading Fun

To teach kids how to write effective questions, prove their answers using the text, and how important it is to read the book, I play "Stump Mrs. Mulder."  Kids make up questions, and I have a certain amount of time to answer it.  Their questions have to be specific, and they need to know the answer and the page number to prove it.  They may make up inference questions, and I make a big deal if they do, but they still need to know the page that caused them to infer the information.  I typically let them win once.  We don't play it a lot, but it's a great game for Mondays when we need to refresh their minds.  It's also fun on Fridays, too.