Happy Thanksgiving from Dr. Sam Bommarito

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. In these times of trouble, it is important that we still take time to find the things to be thankful for. I am thankful that I was able to have friends and family over for a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.  I will see you next week.

Dr. Sam

Dr. Noella M. Mackenzie talks about the new edition of her book Understanding and Supporting Young Writers from Birth to 8, an interview by Dr. Sam Bommarito

The connection between reading and writing instruction is well-known and well-documented. Helping kids learn the strategies to become good writers also helps them become good readers. I remember when I first learned that good readers learn to read like writers. I began seeing the writing craft contained in all the things I read. I began thinking of myself as a writer, something I’d never done in my early teaching career. Over the years, I’ve learned from experts like Lucy Calkins, Katie Ray Woods, Isoke Nia, Leah Mermelstein, Gravity Goldberg, Janet Steinberg, Ralph Fletcher and others. Taking advantage of the symbiotic relationship between reading and writing has helped me help my kids. Today, I’m adding one more expert to the list of folks who help teachers to do just that. Her name is Dr. Noella Mackenzie. She is a widely published professor from Australia. See the biography below for details. She has spent a lifetime teaching teachers the benefits of teaching their kids how to write. She has also helped teachers to overcome their fears about teaching writing. The main audience for her work has been in Australia. I thought it important to share her ideas and resources with an American audience. She just released the second edition of her book, Understanding and Supporting Young Writers from Birth to 8. In today’s interview, she talks about that book and the ideas and resources from that book. Her biography and the YouTube interview now follow:

BIOGRAPHY

Dr Noella Mackenzie is an Associate Professor (adjunct) in the School of Education at Charles Sturt University, NSW, Australia. She is also a Senior Fellow with the Australian Literacy Educators Association (ALEA) and an independent consultant. Noella is an experienced literacy educator and researcher. Her research has focused on teachers and the learning and teaching of multimodal text creation, the relationship between drawing, talking and writing, and the transition from drawing to writing. Noella has worked in both California and Canada, been on study trips to Finland, Scotland and New Zealand, and has presented keynotes at conferences as far afield as Iceland. She has co-edited three books, written numerous invited chapters and published many papers in professional and research journals.

Here are the timed stamped talking points for the interview (so, you can go to the sections that interest you the most first)

Here is a link to the U-Tube Interview:

Link to the book: LINK

Link to Website (contains resources explained in the interview): LINK  

Link to her blog: LINK

My Thoughts about the interview:

The folks in the United States are not the only people concerned about the issue of best practices in teaching reading and writing. I thought my readers would enjoy a fresh perspective on that topic. I find several encouraging things in Dr. Mackenzie’s work. Her blog posts around literacy issues add new ideas and information. The resources from her book and the free resources from her webpage will give teachers many useful things they can “use on Monday.” Dr. Mackenzie has done many keynote speeches. She shared that duty with Tim Shanahan in one of her recent ones. She reported that there was common ground and common research-based practices in their two presentations. In addition, she is hopeful that ideas like Seidenberg’s take-off point, where he says there needs to be a transition from explicit to implicit instruction, open up the possibility that the discussions can lead to greater agreement. As a centrist, this encourages me to continue to make my readers aware of several ideas and possibilities.

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. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views 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 it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

Highlights from my presentations at the MARRE conference: In Defense of Balanced Approaches to Literacy by Dr. Sam Bommarito

This week, the MARRE (Missouri Associations of Reading Recovery Educators) conference was held in Springfield, Mo.

I had the honor of making two presentations at the conference, and I would like to share some highlights of what I said about the importance of having a balanced approach to literacy. This was from my first presentation:

I explained that, as a centrist, I believe that going to extremes is not the best path to literacy. Overdo phonics, and you create word callers. Overdo meaning, and you create word guessers. The best path is to include elements of both. That way, you can create engaged lifelong readers.

Meaning Matters:

There is really more to comprehension than building background knowledge. As Shanahan points out, focusing comprehension instruction solely on building background knowledge ignores many issues and studies.

I talked about the Science of Reading comprehension and the many resources available to implement that science,

I talked about how developing fluency does not automatically lead to developing comprehension.

I also talked about Reading Recovery Teachers’ success in creating students who are readers, not just word callers. Reading Recovery has a strong research base and record of success if you look at all the research.

The folks at this session learned how to make elevator statements. They created and shared those statements. Here is a sample of one (used with permission)

In the other session, we discussed how to Sing and Perform Your Way into fluency.

Based on the work of folks like Tim Rasinski, Chase Young and Eric Litwin, we shared ideas about resources for sing-alongs and readers theatre. We also broke into groups and performed some Readers Theatre pieces.

We shared research showing the power of repeated reading.

We shared a new book by Rasinski et al., which gives you everything you need to implement a Fluency Development Lesson (including word ladders, content area poems, and more!).

I want to thank the MARRE board for the opportunity to give these presentations, and of course, I’d like to thank all the RR folks for their enthusiastic participation in these events. These highlights provide many ideas to unpack. If you want copies of the full presentations, write to me at bommaritosam@yahoo.com with the subject line Springfield.

Happy Reading and Writing,

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

Copyright 2024 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views 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 it to ensure you won’t miss future posts.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

Let’s Use Common Sense to Find More Common Ground in the Reading Wars by Dr. Sam Bommarito

Next week, I’m off to the MARRE Conference, where I will speak about the current state of the world of reading. I’m also scheduled to speak at the Write to Learn Conference in the spring on the same topic. Both these conferences are held in my home state of Missouri. Considering the current polarized state of our country, does it still make sense to try to find common ground in the various positions folks are taking on the important issue of best ways to teach reading? I think it does. I think it does because the fact remains that different kids have different needs. If we ignore that fact and try to go to one-size-fits-all approaches, we are bound to help some kids and not help others. Consider this quote from a Washington Post Newspaper article LINK. The authors of that article are all top researchers in the literacy field and are convinced that taking polarized positions hurts kids in the long run.

Nuanced. Remember that word

That is why, when it comes to reading wars, I am a centrist, and I continue to be a centrist. What do I mean by the term centrist? This is taken from one of the slides I’ll be using in my upcoming presentations:

Let’s remember there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that failure to include enough phonics instruction can result in students having ongoing problems reading LINK. It is clear that for various reasons, many students didn’t get the kind of instruction they needed. However, it has also become increasingly clear that the jury is still out on what constitutes a strong and appropriate phonics program. There is also doubt about what constitutes an effective program for promoting comprehension.

SOR is not the monolithic group that some make it out to be. Some SOR advocates call for using speech-to-print phonics rather than print-to-speech phonics, which synthetic phonics advocates champion. LINK

On the other hand, it is clear that the use of synthetic phonics is not the cure-all it is sometimes made out to be. Synthetic phonics does improve decoding but does not always produce gains in comprehension. A number of folks have found the exclusive use of synthetic phonics questionable. They base their concerns on things like the less than stellar results using that approach has had in England over the last decade. LINK.

For yet another view about things, consider these two slides from Seidenberg’s presentation at the Accelerated Literacy Conference this summer. (Here is a link to more information about that conference LINK).

I interpret what Seidenberg is getting at in these two slides as follows: He is saying there comes a time when the need for direct, explicit instruction diminishes (ends?). His use of the term “achieve escape velocity” is revealing. In the end game of reading instruction, skilled readers “continue to increase reading skill, knowledge of language, knowledge of the world. Entirely implicit. No Teacher. Feedback is self-generated:” (bolding is mine).

It is in this newest development that I find some hope. If one views the extremes of the current reading wars discussion, one group essentially underemphasizes phonics and overdoes comprehension. The other group overemphasizes phonics and underemphasizes comprehension. The time has come for those of us in the center to say both sides are right AND both sides are wrong. If we make our voices heard on this point, there may be real hope for finally finding a middle ground, a common ground we can all agree on.

At the start of this essay, I reminded the readers of the importance of the word nuanced. We need a nuanced approach. What fits one child and one group of children doesn’t necessarily fit the other. Folks have to consider ALL the research. They must see how that research might best be applied in their particular settings. In sum, both sides (all sides) have gotten some things right and some things wrong. I strongly feel that we must reject each side’s extreme views and start conversations about what works for each child.

I will explore that topic in depth at these upcoming conferences. After doing those presentations, I’ll have much more to say about finding common ground. I think we can and will find it if we are willing to avoid extremes and move to the center. Dare to dream.

So until next week- Happy Reading AND WRITING!

Dr. Sam (the guy in the middle happily taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2024 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s view and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

Don’t forget to vote by Dr. Sam Bommarito

Before I was a reading teacher and a reading professor, I taught government and history at a high school for five years and was also a small-town alderman for six years. So, over the years, I’ve learned many lessons about why voting matters. Please take the time on or before Nov. 3rd to let your voice be heard.

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

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