Applying Gradual Release is crucial to choosing which texts to use in your lessons: A teaching tip from Dr. Sam Bommarito

During my 50-plus years in education, I’ve taken many reading courses and attended (and have given) hundreds of hours of PD training. I will share with you the one piece of advice I was given that has been the most useful in helping me help my students. Here it is:

When designing lessons, make sure you know what work you are leaving for the student and why.

If you follow the above advice, you will find yourself using the gradual release model developed by P.D. Pearson and others in 1983. The key here is properly scaffolding the instruction. Over-scaffold and you can create learned helplessness. Under-scaffold and you can create frustration for the student.

One immediate use of this line of thinking has to do with choosing what text to use in your lesson. If your current goal for a student (or group of students) is to teach the application of decoding skills, then teaching from a decodable text makes perfect sense. Not all decodable texts are well done (that’s true of every text form). You want to choose a decodable text that makes sense and has a storyline. You also want a text that provides multiple chances to APPLY the particular decoding skill you are trying to teach. (e.g., decoding short-a words or final-e words).

There is also a place for leveled texts in some lessons. Leveling systems like those done by F&P go beyond simple ranking books by decodability. They also include information about various text features. At the beginning levels it might be a feature like return sweeps. At higher levels it might be looking at the features of different kinds of texts. for instance learning about expository vs narrative texts. Assuming your lesson goal is to teach students how to handle such text features, you would want a text that is easily decoded for the students but includes the relevant features so they can focus their energy on learning and applying the strategies needed for texts with those features.

Finally, there is always a place for trade books in lessons. At the end of the day, we want students who want to and can read trade books. As they do, they should apply both the decoding and comprehension strategies you taught them. Remember that there is more to teaching reading strategies than simply naming them or describing them. You must teach the students to internalize and use each strategy. Be sure to assess whether or not they are doing that. One simple way to do that is to periodically provide time for the students to share with you and the class what strategies they used each week and how they used them.  By the way, using a variety of texts (as opposed to focusing on using only one kind of text) is supported by the latest research; for example, see the 2022 research review by Birch, Miller, Ritchie and Ledger.

As we get closer and closer to the start of school, I’ll try to continue to share some of the best teaching tips I have gotten over the years. I’m also trying to line up additional interviews with literacy folks. So, until next week:

Happy Reading and Writing

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the middle taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2024 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. The views/interpretations expressed here are solely those of this author and do not necessarily reflect those of any other person or organization.