Happy New Year to all & a brief message about my upcoming speaking engagements: By Dr. Sam Bommarito
I want to wish you all a very Happy Happy New Year. In the coming months, I will be doing more blog posts about my centrist position on the issue of how to teach reading. I’m also lining up interviews of authors of new professional books. The books will include a wide variety of topics and points of view.
For your information, I am starting the new year by speaking at two different literacy events. Here is some information about them:
I’ll be a featured speaker at LitCon in January. LitCon has changed to a virtual format this year. I hope you can come to my session. You can also come for the session I’m doing in collaboration with Paul Thomas. Both have to do with the efficacy of Reading Recovery and the issues surrounding the teaching of beginning reading.
I’m also presenting in March at the Write to Learn Conference in my home state of Missouri. My session at that Conference is “Helping All Readers (Especially Older Readers) Improve Both Their Decoding and Comprehension Skills.”
In this session, I will share highlights about what makes for effective instruction in decoding and comprehension. I will address what to do for older students who missed out on such effective instruction. Below you will find information about this in-person conference and a link to the conference.
Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the centrist who uses ideas from all sides to inform his teaching
Copyright 2021 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following the blog to make sure you won’t miss it. Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.
Happy Holidays to all & a brief message about my upcoming speaking engagements By Dr. Sam Bommarito
I want to wish you all a very Happy Holiday season. I also want to thank you all for taking the time to consider the centrist message from this blog. There have been over 50,000 views this year- a new record!
For your information, I’ll be speaking at two different literacy events. Here is some information about them:
I’ll be a featured speaker at LitCon in January. LitCon has been changed to a virtual format this year. I hope you can come to my session. You can also come for the session I’m doing in collaboration with Paul Thomas. Both have to do with the efficacy of Reading Recovery and the issues surrounding the teaching of beginning reading.
I’m also presenting in March at the Write to Learn Conference in my home state of Missouri. My session at that Conference is “Helping All Readers (Especially Older Readers) Improve Both Their Decoding and Comprehension Skills.”
In this session, I will share highlights about what makes for effective instruction in decoding and comprehension. I will address what to do for older students who missed out on such effective instruction. Below you will find information about this in-person conference and a link to the conference.
Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the centrist who uses ideas from all sides to inform his teaching
Copyright 2021 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following the blog to make sure you won’t miss it. Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.
An interview of Laura Robb and David L. Harrison, authors of Guided Practice for Reading Growth. Interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito
I’ve known David and Laura for a very long time. Here are links to their bios LINK1, LINK2. In writing the book Guided Practice for Reading Growth: Texts and Lessons to Improve Fluency, Comprehension and Vocabulary, they had a perfect collaboration. Laura’s years of working with teachers in classrooms and familiarity with the latest research on how middle school children learn, helped her create the kind of lessons teachers need to help their older readers. David’s ability as a writer and poet is unmatched anywhere. He has been the poet laureate for my state (Missouri). He has collaborated with our state’s professional reading journal, The Missouri Reader, to produce two different special issues around how to use poetry in the classroom LINK1, LINK2. That background makes him the perfect candidate to write poems around content area topics needed for this project. The project uses a method I’ve reported on extensively: repeated readings of short text to improve fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. The guru of that method is Tim Rasinski. A good resource for more information on implementing that method is Rasinski and Chesman’s The Megabook of FluencyLINK. My blogs around this topic included the work of Rasinski, LINK, Kraus and Kay LINK, and Litwin LINK.
What Laura and David’s series brings to the table is a ready-to-use, complete program, with lessons designed for students in grades 4-8. The lessons were modified during field testing. They work. Laura and David do an amazing job during the interview of explaining how and why the lessons were written as they are. The series provides short texts for each and every lesson. Most of the content area poems were written by David, especially for this series. The book also includes helpful videos to explain and support the implementation of the lessons.
While visiting sites where reading specialists gather to talk about their craft, I’ve often seen the question raised of what is an effective intervention to use to improve middle school students’ reading. Now I have at least one good answer to that question- Robb & Harrison’s Guided Practice for Reading Growth series. Let us see what Laura and Robb had to say about their book.
Here is a jpg of the book’s cover and a link to use in order to obtain the book, LINK:
Now let’s look at the interview:
INTRODUCTIONS 01:07
What is guided practice? Where does it fit in the curriculum? 05:00
Why did you write this book? 05:00
Why do you use the term developing readers? 12:00
Who needs guided practice? How did David select topics for poems and short texts? 12:00
Why poetry and short texts? 12:00
Why are you building background knowledge with videos? 13:50
Why do you have students write in notebooks and teachers model with their teacher’s notebook? 13:50
Is guided practice enough? What else do all students need? 24:00
Do teachers do this all year? How do they choose lessons? 024:00
A very special thanks to Laura and David for doing the interview! There is a lot to unpack. Looking ahead, I’ll be taking a break for the holidays (Happy Holidays, Everyone!). I am already in the process of getting in contact with more authors. There are many more great books out there to report on. I’m also getting ready for LitCon. LitCon has been changed to virtual this year. I hope some of you can come to my session. You can also come for the session I’m doing in collaboration with Paul Thomas. Both have to do with the efficacy of Reading Recovery. Here is a link to register for the conference. LINK. Here is a link to additional information about the conference LINK. (please remember the conference has been changed to a virtual conference this year).
So, Happy Reading and Writing. I’ll end with the thought that using methods like those employed by Laura and David can make learning to read a JOYFUL experience. That is as it should be. I look forward to talking to you soon!
Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the centrist who uses ideas from all sides to inform his teaching
Copyright 2021 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following the blog to make sure you won’t miss it. Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.
Taken from a friend’s notes about what Paul had to say on this subject:
Generalizations are very dangerous in education. Very few of us teach students and a danger of one area of “science” is that they don’t allow for outliers.
My blog interview of Paul- Includes links to his site (click on the box with the interview to go to the interview). Remember that both Paul and I will be presenting at LitCon. We each have our own session and we are also doing a joint session. Hope to see you there! Dr. Sam
A new look at Brain Research Part Two- Additional information about the impact of music on reading fluency/prosody: A Video Interview by Dr. Sam Bommarito
The Story Behind this Interview
For several years, I have used the ideas of Dr. Tim Rasinski as I work with my students in grades K-3. Those ideas include:
Use of repeated readings to build fluency. These are done with short reading passages, poems, or songs.
Measuring prosody using the rubric from Tim and Melissa Cheesman Smith’s Megabook of Reading. LINK
Teaching my students how to “read like a storyteller.”
Teaching my students to “read to remember.”
Having my children sing excerpts from selected songs.
Using the method of “read to perform” (explained below)
As a result of the use of these ideas, I became familiar with a wide range of poems and songs. These came from friends like Eric Litwin and David Harrison. These also came from Tim’s Megabook and Phonics Poetry. Students invest about 5-7 minutes a day 5 days a week practicing their piece. At the end of each 2-week cycle, they perform their piece (read to perform). The results have been impressive both in improvement in prosody and in improvement in comprehension. BTW- Dr. Rasinski reports similar positive results from the use of this adaption of repeated reading. For me, this was a case of using research to inform my instruction. But what I didn’t know at first was that the research base supporting these practices was much larger than I realized.
Enter Ann Kay. Ann made me aware of the fact that there is a large body of brain research that supports the idea of using music and poetry as an integral part of the process of teaching reading. I interviewed Ann at length about how she uses music in her reading instruction. Here is a link to that first interview LINK. Ann was especially excited about the work of Dr. Nina Kraus. She drew heavily upon Dr. Kraus’s work as she carried out her own projects. She said she might be able to arrange a second interview with Dr. Kraus and herself and, of course, she did (Thank you Ann!). I’ll now let Ann tell you about herself, the work of Dr. Krauss, and her use of that work.
Information provided by Ann Kay
Dr. Nina Kraus
The biography was taken from the Northwestern University website:
Nina Kraus, Ph.D., is a scientist, inventor, and amateur musician who studies the biology of auditory learning. Through a series of innovative studies involving thousands of research participants from birth to age 90, her research has found that our lives in sound, for better (musicians, bilinguals) or worse (language disorders, concussion, aging, hearing loss), shape auditory processing. Kraus has invented new ways to measure the biology of sound processing in humans that provide unprecedented precision and granularity in indexing brain function. With her technological innovations, she is now pushing science beyond the traditional laboratory by conducting studies in schools, community centers, and clinics.
The Brainvolts Website has tremendous information: LINK
Ann C. Kay
Ann is the co-founder of The Rock ‘n’ Read Project, LINK, a Minnesota nonprofit organization dedicated to using singing to unlock children’s potential for reading and learning. She leads educational development and makes presentations and teaches courses for parents, preschool and elementary classroom teachers. Formerly, Ann was a K-6 classroom music teacher, choir director, and associate director of graduate music education at the University of St. Thomas.
How does Dr. Kraus’ research about auditory processing impact the teaching of literacy?
Ann Kay says Dr. Kraus’ research is different than MRI studies because they track how the brain processes frequency. This has helped us understand that auditory processing is the key to language acquisition and literacy, and making music is the primary means of developing it. Her research studies have found that children who do not process sound effectively and those who cannot keep a steady beat (beat synchronization) will most likely struggle with reading. In an article, “Beat Keeping Ability Relates to Reading Readiness,” she writes:
The synchronizers also had higher pre-reading skills (phonological processing, auditory short-term memory, and rapid naming) compared with non-synchronizers. Overall, the results supported the idea that accurate temporal processing is important for developing the foundational skills needed in order to learn how to read.
We must be intentional about helping students develop their sound processing, phonological awareness, auditory working memory, and beat synchronization. The most effective activities are chanting rhythmic poems and singing folk songs while keeping the beat with two hands on their laps and playing singing games that require keeping a steady beat, such as hand-clapping games and jump rope rhymes. Later, students can use those games for practicing reading skills, such as letter sounds and sight words. Then, they can read the singing games, in this way they go from sound to sight, reading and re-reading words their brains already know.
The Music and Mind video that Nina referred to LINK. In this video, a panel of experts talks about all the research supporting the idea of using music as part of a literacy program.
Another video detailing Dr. Kraus’s research is this one: ARTSpeaks Full Lecture: Music and the Brain (Nina Kraus) LINK
Thanks again to Ann for providing all that background. Now let’s have a look at the interview. Here are the questions we covered.
Dr. Kraus:
What is the relationship between language and music in the brain? 02:30
In terms of brain development, what is the difference between making music vs listening to it? 05:00
How is the ability to keep a beat and play rhythms related to reading achievement? 09:50
How does having better auditory processing, auditory working memory and beat synchronization impact reading achievement? 19:30
Ann Kay:
Given the science, what do you suggest that parents and teachers do to help enable all children’s brains for reading? 21:30
Tell us a little about the work you’ve done with using music to teach reading. 29:00
Dr. Krauss just published a new book. Here is a screen capture of the book cover:
Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World
One of my readers- Mark Pennington made this remark on Facebook. Specials thanks to Mark for sharing these resources- Here are two sets of songs link in blog articles, which reading teachers may freely use with their students.
The first resource includes two videos of speech articulation songs (vowels and consonants) with mouth formations and sound-spelling cards:
I’m not sure that most practitioners in the reading field are aware of just how extensive brain research around the use of music in the teaching of reading is. What I find most intriguing about the use of songs and poetry is the high impact I’ve found from using “reading to perform”. This is a method that can be used for students of all ages, and it is especially effective for helping older readers who need further development in decoding skills. The beauty of it is that it only requires an investment of 5-7 minutes a day of classroom time. Additionally important is that students love doing this.
During the interview, I noticed Dr. Krauss viewed teaching as both art and science. So does Dr. Rasinski. Taken together I think the ideas of these two researchers can really inform us on how to teach reading in a way that is effective and appealing to students. As a practitioner, Ann Kay is on the cutting edge. I hope this interview has provided lots of new ideas for you to unpack. I also hope you will have a look at Dr. Kraus’s new book. Every time I read it, I find new ideas and insights.
Next week I’ll be sharing my interview with Laura Robb and David Harrison about their new book Guided Practice in Reading Growth. Until then
Happy Reading and Writing (and Singing too!)
Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the centrist who uses ideas from all sides to inform his teaching
Copyright 2021 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following the blog to make sure you won’t miss it. Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.
An interview of the authors of “Intentional from the Start: Guiding Emergent Readers in Small Groups” by Carolyn Helmers and Susan Vincent. Interview done by Dr. Sam Bommarito
When I found out that Susan Vincent had co-authored a book with a friend and colleague, I knew that I wanted to interview them because their book would be of great interest to many of my readers. Both authors graciously agreed to do the interview. I want to thank them both for that. So, let us have a look at what I learned about them and their new book.
Here are a few facts about Carolyn taken from the Stenhouse website. Click this LINK for more information about Carolyn.
Here are a few facts about Susan taken from the Stenhouse website. Click this LINK for more information about Susan. In addition, click this link to see my previous interview of Susan as she talked about the efficacy of Reading Recovery and the success her former district had using the program. LINK.
As you can see from their biographies, both Susan and Carolyn have extensive, successful experience teaching emergent readers. After presenting about their work at a conference, they were approached about doing a book designed to give the teachers of young beginning readers insights and ideas for helping them to help the children they work with. The result was the book Intentional from the Start: Guiding Emergent Readers in Small Groups. I think my readers will find it to be a treasure trove of practical ready to use ideas about how to work effectively with young children as they begin the reading process. Here is a screen capture of the book’s cover and a link for previewing/ordering the book LINK.
In the interview, Carolyn and Susan talk about their book and the best practices they recommend based on their considerable successful experiences working with young children as those children begin the journey of becoming successful lifelong readers (and writers!). Here are the questions from the interview. They are time-stamped so you can go first to the parts of the interview that interest you the most. ENJOY!
Each of you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you as a person, you as a teacher. (00:29)
Give us “The Big Picture” of the book. Talk briefly about Figure 1.1. (03:52)
Talk to us about the characteristics of an emergent reader. What advice do you have for teachers to become “intentional from the start”? (06:45)
Give us some key takeaways from your book, things teachers could begin implementing next week. (09:00)
What about the dyslexic child? What advice do you have? (13:21)
Closing thoughts ( 16:40)
I hope you found some useful ideas in the interview. I am currently working with emergent readers. I found Susan and Carolyn’s ideas about how to work with them in small group settings quite valuable. The book is now on my professional bookshelf and has already become a “go-to” resource for me.
Over the next few weeks, I will be continuing to interview literacy leaders about their newest books. Next week I talk to Ann Kay and Dr. Nina Kraus about the topic of using music to teach reading. Nina is a well-credentialed researcher. She talks about her new book Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World. The book details her extensive, innovative brain research around sounds. Ann Kay has taken that research and done some highly successful workaround using music to teach reading (and writing!). The week after that I talk to David Harrison and Laura Robb about their new book Guided Practice for Reading Growth, Grades 4-8: Texts and Lessons to Improve Fluency, Comprehension, and Vocabulary. In it, they detail how they use poetry David wrote for their Close Reading program with intermediate-level students. David wrote the poetry to provide short passages to use in teaching the various topics that Laura identified as ones her 5th graders needed most. Both of the upcoming interviews include many useful takeaways for teachers. So, until next time- Happy Reading and Writing.
Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the centrist who uses ideas from all sides to inform his teaching
Copyright 2021 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following the blog to make sure you won’t miss it. Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.
