He calls me his superhero. I feel like I've failed him. Why is there this disconnect?
To Daniel, I might be one of the few teachers who has talked to him frankly about his learning gaps and said directly that we would work together to fill in those gaps. We followed a model presented to me last year through BAYCES' Impact 2012 initiative. In this model teachers select a group of students who fall outside of the "sphere of success." These students are called "Focal Students." Daniel was my first pick focal student because I rarely understood what he said in class because he covered up his English language skills with jokes and laughter. I also chose him because his older sister had been the previous year's Valedictorian. The gap between what she had accomplished and what he was lacking was astronomical to me.
After diagnosing his learning gaps through the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI), I discovered, along with the help of some BAYCES coaching, that Daniel was at a second grade reading level and his primary struggle was decoding. More specifically, Daniel didn't know all of the ways an English vowel could be pronounced, far more than the variations available to him in his native Spanish.
For the last few months, I spent 20-40 minutes a week working with David on his short and long vowels. He amazed me with his speed. Through a sorting activity he easily identified patterns. For example, ai makes the long 'a' sound but so does ay. If a week had gone by between one session and the next, he would impress me with his ability to retain and build on the patterns he had learned before. We quickly moved on to the long 'o' and the short 'o'. He gained confidence when we were together one on one.
When I retested Daniel at the end of the school year, he'd moved three grade levels to a fifth grade reader! This is fantastic news for Daniel. He is proud of his growth and so am I. On average, with no intervention, students increase one reading grade level per year. Anything more than one grade level is considered an accelerated pace, which is essential for students who are behind. Together we had accelerated his learning!
He calls me his superhero. In a focal student panel with the rest of the staff, he announced that I "saved his life." This gratitude and enthusiasm bolsters me up and makes me happy, but simultaneously saddens me.
Daniel now reads at a fifth grade level. He is about to be a tenth grader. He is still five grade levels behind. In order to close the gap between where he is now and where he will need to be to graduate, Daniel needs a lot more intervention and soon. If I follow the model I started two years ago, I will be able to impact students like Daniel for a few months at a time, give them a taste of acceleration before passing them off to the next grade, but then what? If no further intervention happens, the best case scenario is that Daniel and students like Daniel will reach an eighth grade reading level by the twelfth grade. The chances of him being able to graduate are slim. His curiosity, innate intelligence, and quick retention of new information may be depleted by lack of confidence or low self-esteem.
Daniel was the first student I was able to systemically intervene with. It took me four years of teaching, lots of professional development, intense instructional coaching, and the right learning partnership with a student for it to happen. Now that I know it is possible, I feel a moral imperative to not only continue intervening with Daniel but to intervene with the next crop of Daniels who come to me next year. I said it aloud at our staff meeting last week, and I'll repeat it here: what will we (our staff, our district, our public education system) do to systemically support the work of accelerating learning for students like Daniel?
If we can answer that question, we will be real super heroes who make sustained changes in our students' lives rather than comical renditions of ourselves, swooping in to patch up an error here or there.
Showing posts with label struggling readers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label struggling readers. Show all posts
19 May 2010
03 October 2006
Thank You, Bluford
Most people can admit to not finishing at least one book they were assigned in high school. For me it was Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.” My own adventures keep me alert with eyes wide open, but action and adventure movies and books bore me for some reason. The other book I dared to skip was Nathanial Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” I couldn’t stand the puritanical language. I found it hard to follow and irritating. As a junior in Honors English, I decided not to read it until one day it occurred to me that even though I could bullshit my way through the daily comprehension questions, I could not bullshit my way through the essay we were inevitably going to have to write. So, I picked the book back up. I was always good at English, but it certainly wasn’t my favorite high school class. I preferred Physics and Spanish.
And yet, it always saddens me to learn that my students have not ever enjoyed reading. Many have never finished a complete book. We’re not talking about books by dead white guys, either. The majority of my students score at about a fifth grade reading level. For many of them, this is right where they are expected to be because they’ve only been speaking English for a few years. For others, this low reading level can be attributed to myriad causes: revolving door substitutes, under-prepared teachers, a home culture that does not include bedtime literacy or early childhood education, reading disabilities, attention deficit, etc. Whatever the cause, the result is that my room is full of ninth graders who have never finished a book. Until now…
Three weeks ago I spent a portion of a lesson showing off the books I had chosen for my students. I did mini-book talks on each of the books and talked them up as if they were my best friends. I’ve learned in the last year, that I’m responsible for holding the enthusiasm for learning. If my students don’t have that enthusiasm, I overflow with it and hopefully it will be contagious. This seems to work, despite my skepticism. Included in my book talks were paperbacks from the Bluford Series. These books are written for young adults. They contain themes that appeal to teenagers, especially urban teens, but they are written at an elementary/middle school level particularly for struggling readers. I held several of the books up and I said to the class, “Some of you have never read a book. Next week, you will read one of the books in this series in just five days!” In my mind, I was hopeful that I could carry this through rather than offer them up another academic disappointment. But in my speech, there was nothing but certainty that they could, in fact, read the paperback in one school week.
Soon thereafter, students signed up for the book they most wanted to read. I organized them into small Book Groups of between three and five students. The following Monday, the collective ninth grade was reading thirteen different books from the same series. As a second year teacher, all of this felt like a big risk on my part. I’d never tried small Book Groups, and I’d never read any of the thirteen books in the series. I simply knew they were popular and had been successful elsewhere. I borrowed the idea of a Book Journal, or Dialogue Journal from a friend who is a reading specialist at a nearby school. By the end of the first class period, students were signing up to take home the book journal and write about what they had read to their small group. Their job was to return the next day with questions, comments, and ideas about what they had read and pass them off to the next person in the group. The idea is to capitalize on ninth graders’ propensity to pass notes, and turn it academic. The results were good. Each group completed their journal. There were only a few exceptions of one student in the group not participating at all. No journals were lost at home or eaten by dogs. On the last day, the group collectively had to design the cover, thinking of a symbol to characterize the book and by pulling a representative quote from the book and rewriting it on the cover. They thought it was fun, and I thought, “Yes, they are doing literary analysis without even knowing it! I’ve tricked them!”
Some days a few students hadn’t done their homework, so they were behind on the reading. But more often than not, students were reading ahead. These books were so engaging that students wouldn’t put them down. They wanted to check out the next book in the series before finishing the first. A young woman nicknamed Danielle (for the sake of this blog) swore to me she’d never read a whole book before in her life, except the care guide for her new Chihuahua. But on the night of Back to School, I saw her in the back row with her nose in a book. I met her mom later that evening who told me she’s never seen Danielle read, ever. She was beaming. So was I. Another student, Carlos, who had made it perfectly clear to me early on that he was a “bad kid” last year with multiple suspensions and horrible grades, went out of his way every day to tell me how much he loved his book. I saw him at the taco truck one lunch period and he announced to all of the kids around him, including some of my students from last year, that English was his favorite class because it was “hella fun.” By the end of the week, every group had finished their book!
Tonight as I’m finally reading the finished Book Journals and grading their final books tests (where most students are scoring at least twenty-five out of thirty points), I’m learning from them that they loved reading in small groups because it was social but also supportive. So many reported that when they got stuck, their group members could help them out. This is from the group of ninth graders who wrote into their culture that “None of us is smarter than all of us together.” That's Vygotsky’s “Zone of Proximal Development” from the mouths of babes.
In my class reading is cool! I can hardly believe I’m lucky enough to see this happen in my class. My students have the skills to become better readers. The main thing they need to do is just read, and read, and read some more. That they have found some books they like and have learned that there are even books out there worth liking will go a long long way towards them choosing to continue reading. While the Bluford Series is far from lofty literature, it is the gateway to other reading. It’s the beginning. The bridge I’m trying to build now is to Anna Deavere Smith’s “Twilight Los Angeles.” I’m building the bridge on our practice of poetry in the early weeks and the urban setting of the L.A. Riots. My students understand police brutality better than me. They know racism deeper than I do. They are crossing the bridge. Duc asked last week, “When are we going to start the next book? Can’t we hurry up and read?”
**************************************************************************************
Find out more about the Bluford series by visiting www.townsendpress.com Teachers, schools, and even students can write to them and ask for a free sample of books. Teachers can buy books directly from their website for only $1 a book. Definitely worth the investment!
And yet, it always saddens me to learn that my students have not ever enjoyed reading. Many have never finished a complete book. We’re not talking about books by dead white guys, either. The majority of my students score at about a fifth grade reading level. For many of them, this is right where they are expected to be because they’ve only been speaking English for a few years. For others, this low reading level can be attributed to myriad causes: revolving door substitutes, under-prepared teachers, a home culture that does not include bedtime literacy or early childhood education, reading disabilities, attention deficit, etc. Whatever the cause, the result is that my room is full of ninth graders who have never finished a book. Until now…
Three weeks ago I spent a portion of a lesson showing off the books I had chosen for my students. I did mini-book talks on each of the books and talked them up as if they were my best friends. I’ve learned in the last year, that I’m responsible for holding the enthusiasm for learning. If my students don’t have that enthusiasm, I overflow with it and hopefully it will be contagious. This seems to work, despite my skepticism. Included in my book talks were paperbacks from the Bluford Series. These books are written for young adults. They contain themes that appeal to teenagers, especially urban teens, but they are written at an elementary/middle school level particularly for struggling readers. I held several of the books up and I said to the class, “Some of you have never read a book. Next week, you will read one of the books in this series in just five days!” In my mind, I was hopeful that I could carry this through rather than offer them up another academic disappointment. But in my speech, there was nothing but certainty that they could, in fact, read the paperback in one school week.
Soon thereafter, students signed up for the book they most wanted to read. I organized them into small Book Groups of between three and five students. The following Monday, the collective ninth grade was reading thirteen different books from the same series. As a second year teacher, all of this felt like a big risk on my part. I’d never tried small Book Groups, and I’d never read any of the thirteen books in the series. I simply knew they were popular and had been successful elsewhere. I borrowed the idea of a Book Journal, or Dialogue Journal from a friend who is a reading specialist at a nearby school. By the end of the first class period, students were signing up to take home the book journal and write about what they had read to their small group. Their job was to return the next day with questions, comments, and ideas about what they had read and pass them off to the next person in the group. The idea is to capitalize on ninth graders’ propensity to pass notes, and turn it academic. The results were good. Each group completed their journal. There were only a few exceptions of one student in the group not participating at all. No journals were lost at home or eaten by dogs. On the last day, the group collectively had to design the cover, thinking of a symbol to characterize the book and by pulling a representative quote from the book and rewriting it on the cover. They thought it was fun, and I thought, “Yes, they are doing literary analysis without even knowing it! I’ve tricked them!”
Some days a few students hadn’t done their homework, so they were behind on the reading. But more often than not, students were reading ahead. These books were so engaging that students wouldn’t put them down. They wanted to check out the next book in the series before finishing the first. A young woman nicknamed Danielle (for the sake of this blog) swore to me she’d never read a whole book before in her life, except the care guide for her new Chihuahua. But on the night of Back to School, I saw her in the back row with her nose in a book. I met her mom later that evening who told me she’s never seen Danielle read, ever. She was beaming. So was I. Another student, Carlos, who had made it perfectly clear to me early on that he was a “bad kid” last year with multiple suspensions and horrible grades, went out of his way every day to tell me how much he loved his book. I saw him at the taco truck one lunch period and he announced to all of the kids around him, including some of my students from last year, that English was his favorite class because it was “hella fun.” By the end of the week, every group had finished their book!
Tonight as I’m finally reading the finished Book Journals and grading their final books tests (where most students are scoring at least twenty-five out of thirty points), I’m learning from them that they loved reading in small groups because it was social but also supportive. So many reported that when they got stuck, their group members could help them out. This is from the group of ninth graders who wrote into their culture that “None of us is smarter than all of us together.” That's Vygotsky’s “Zone of Proximal Development” from the mouths of babes.
In my class reading is cool! I can hardly believe I’m lucky enough to see this happen in my class. My students have the skills to become better readers. The main thing they need to do is just read, and read, and read some more. That they have found some books they like and have learned that there are even books out there worth liking will go a long long way towards them choosing to continue reading. While the Bluford Series is far from lofty literature, it is the gateway to other reading. It’s the beginning. The bridge I’m trying to build now is to Anna Deavere Smith’s “Twilight Los Angeles.” I’m building the bridge on our practice of poetry in the early weeks and the urban setting of the L.A. Riots. My students understand police brutality better than me. They know racism deeper than I do. They are crossing the bridge. Duc asked last week, “When are we going to start the next book? Can’t we hurry up and read?”
**************************************************************************************
Find out more about the Bluford series by visiting www.townsendpress.com Teachers, schools, and even students can write to them and ask for a free sample of books. Teachers can buy books directly from their website for only $1 a book. Definitely worth the investment!
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