Reading Aloud with Children in a Teacher Education Program

By Dr. William Kerns

Today Bill takes a turn at the blog and talks about reading aloud and encouraging a love of reading

 Last week this blog featured pictures highlighting the International Literacy Day Intergenerational Read-In that took place September 6 at Harris-Stowe State University. This activity was organized by my friend and colleague, Betty Porter Walls, who is an associate professor in the College of Education. Volunteers were encouraged to bring a favorite book to read aloud to preschool children. Books were also available for section on the occasion. This is one of multiple activities in which we in the College of Education encourage reading aloud with children. Other activities include service learning in the community. I am honored to participate. In this week’s blog entry, I will briefly reflect on strategies for reading aloud as well as the importance of reading aloud.

Choice in readings is so important. If you are a K-12 teacher or teacher-educator, I strongly recommend researching available books that work well in read aloud activities (Trelease, 2013). Additionally, I recommend collaborating with local authors who take care to produce and seek out books that avoid far too common cultural stereotypes that are contained in books that purport to promote an appreciation for diversity but fail to accurately or sensitively reflect a cultural group (Nieto, 1996; Reese, 1999).

We are fortunate in the College of Education to be able to work with community organizations such as the St. Louis Black Authors of Children’s Literature Initiative. Members of this group routinely participate in read aloud activities while providing books to read that are sensitive to the needs and interests of African-American children. This is so critical given a long lamented scarcity of children’s books that give voice to people of diverse backgrounds (Tunnel & Jacobs, 2008), including books that portray the history of a group and that portray the current lived experiences of members of a cultural group (Yokota, 1999).

Keys to reading aloud with children include conversation that draws upon and builds background knowledge. This dialogue might include strategically thinking aloud about contents of the text (Ness, 2018), prompts and questions that but also fun, engaging stories and songs. Let children have fun with the book or the story. Let reading be playful, because after all, play is the work of the child. During read-aloud activities, teachers (and peers) can model strategies for reading increasingly challenging content in texts. Reading aloud can include the explicit modeling of reading strategies, the teaching of vocabulary, reviewing of text structure (van Kleeck, Stahl, & Bauer, 2003), while asking guided questions that prompt students toward predictions and analytical thinking (McGee & Schickedanz, 2007; Reutzel & Cooter, 2008).

However, there is a mistake that I have too often observed. Sometimes adult readers will focus on the strategies while children are bored. I wish to stress the importance of helping children love books and love reading. If we focus on strategies but children hate reading, we have failed in the read aloud.

The varied language arts skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) should be honored. This happens when the teacher (or other adult) who is reading aloud prompts children to use make meaning of a text through cues that involve viewing, listening, and reading, and to communicate through opportunities to speak and write. Movement can help a child to engage in reading. So, allow children the opportunity to sway with the wind if that’s part of a story. Or to stand like a tree. Encourage students to roar like a lion. Suddenly students are having fun while enjoying the text. Reading aloud doesn’t need to be teacher-centered, remember, it can be student-centered, with the children prompted to actively participate.

My areas of specialization are Secondary English Language Arts as well as literacy.  I view reading aloud as a key topic for secondary language arts and literacy, not just early literacy (Coyne et al., 2009). Reading aloud exposes children to literary skills and contributes to a child’s achievement in literacy and the language arts (Farrant & Zubrick, 2012; Swanson et al., 2011). Reading aloud doesn’t need to stop in the primary years through the strategies should change given different ways that young children learn compared with adolescents. Young adult novels, short-stories, and varied texts from diverse cultures offer rich opportunities for reading aloud activities. Language arts and literacy activities should continue to be engaging and active in high school.

An effective language arts or literacy teacher is an active participant in the classroom and a skilled observer of the learning process. I want to see students engaged in literacy and language arts activities that are engaging, inspiring, and that help them to stretch their skills and abilities. Notice a phrase that I did not use: “best practices”. This phrase means many things to many people. Often it is imbued with echoes of the debates sparked by the National Reading Panel and phrases such as “gold standard of scientific research” which tends to mean the medical model of research, with randomized participants and control groups. “Best practices” means something different to a social-constructivist than to a behaviorist. I am, unapologetically, of course, a social-constructivist. Progress in learning should be regularly assessed (before, during and after activities) using both formal and informal means. Reading aloud and participating in dialogue with children helps to build literacy skills, including fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

References

Coyne, M. D., Zipoli, R. P., Chard, D. J., Faggella-Luby, M., Ruby, M., Santoro, L. E., et al. (2009). Direct instruction of comprehension: Instructional examples from intervention

research on listening and reading comprehension. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 25, 221–245.

Farrant, B.M., & Zubrick, S.R. (2012). Early vocabulary development: The importance of joint attention and parentchild book reading. First Language, 32(3), 343–364.

McGee, L. M., & Schickedanz, J. A. (2007). Repeated interactive read-alouds in preschool and kindergarten. The Reading Teacher, 60, 742-751.

Ness, M.K. (2018). Think big with think-alouds, grades K-5: A three step planning process that develops strategic readers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Nieto, S. (1996). Affirming diversity. White Plains, New York: Longman.

Reese, D. (1999). Authenticity & sensitivity: Goals for writing and reviewing books with Native American themes. School Library Journal, 45(11), 36-37

Reutzel, D. R. , & Cooter, R. B. (2008). Teaching children to read: The teacher makes the difference. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education.

Swanson, E., Vaughn, S., Wanzek, J., Petscher, Y., Heckert, J., Cavanaugh, C., Kraft, G., & Tackett, K. (2011). A synthesis of read-aloud interventions on early reading outcomes among preschool through third graders at risk for reading difficulties. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 44(3), 258–275.

Trelease, J. (2013). The read-aloud handbook (7^th Ed.). New York, NY: Penguin Random House.

Tunnel, M. O., & Jacobs, J. S. (2008). Children’s literature briefly. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall.

van Kleeck, A., Stahl, S. A., & Bauer, E. B. (Eds.). (2003). On reading books to children: Parents and teachers. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Yokota, J. (1999). Japanese and Japanese Americans: Portrayals in recent children’s books. Book Links, 8(3), 41-53

Getting by with a little help from my friends- reading to children at the Harris Stowe State University preschool

“When I say to a parent, “read to a child”, I don’t want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.” – Mem Fox

 I just spent the morning on Thursday at Harris Stowe State University in St. Louis.  For quite a number of years, Dr. Betty Porter Walls, an associate professor at Harris Stowe, has organized “read ins”, where community volunteers come in and read to the children at the university’s preschool.  On Thursday, we did an early celebration of the International Reading Day by having such a read in. Over 20 volunteer readers participated.

Since the preschool population is young, ages 2-5, readers are instructed to do simple book introductions/picture walks.  They do not read the entire book, rather they highlight talking about the book, perhaps reading a passage or two from the book. Betty makes it clear the key goal is to get the children interested in literacy.  For the university’s preschool children reading really does “sound like chocolate, not medicine!”

I brought along a copy of a book I recently purchased for my own grandchildren. It is Eric Litwin’s newest book called “If You’re Groovy and You Know It, Hug a Friend!” Like all of Eric’s books, it is both educational and engaging.  The words of the book are sung to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”.  The children seemed to really enjoy themselves as they listened to a couple of verses and clapped along as I “sang” the book.

Readers at this event usually work in teams, with each team member reading a book. I was fortunate to have Candy Pettiford on my team.  She is a children’s author and a former member of the St. Louis Black Author’s Association. She gave a lively rendition of a book she wrote called “Oh the Things You can Do! (When you Don’t Watch TV). Her book also included a song.

Pictured above is the cover of her book and a picture of the two of us together after the read. Pictured below is Julius Anthony, president of the St. Louis Black Authors, myself, Dr. Bill Kerns who often authors things for this blog, and Dr. Betty Porter Walls organizer of this event and many more like it.

Today’s event was a reminder of the importance of reading to children. Doing that is the key to creating lifelong readers. We’re fortunate in St. Louis to have many educators and others who are willing to do that for our area children. All in all, it was a very good day.  You can’t go wrong when you share good books with children.

Happy Reading and Writing

Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the book reader

To contact Candy Pettiford about her books, e-mail her at candygram2008@live.com

Copyright 2018 by Dr Sam Bommarito who is solely responsible for this content.

The call for a reading evolution part two: And yes, I still mean evolution not revolution

By Doctor Sam Bommarito

After almost 50 years in the field of education, and almost 40 years focusing on literacy education I am quite tired of the ever-swinging pendulum.  Among the top items on my bucket list is to do what I can to help bring the pendulum to rest in the middle, where I think it should have been on along. Big task, not a lot of time left. One of the things that must happen for this dream to come true is the Great Debate in reading needs to become the Great Dialogue in reading. The two sides need to stop arguing and start problem solving.

I’ve given my view of who the two sides are before. However, many of my new readers may not have seen it. On the one hand are the “phonics cures all folks”. They are strong advocates of synthetic phonics. Philosophically they are empiricists and favor direct instruction for all, all of the time.  On the other hand, there are the discovery learning folks. Philosophically they are constructivists. They favor teaching as needed analytic phonics. They favor inquiry learning. I often find myself being a kindred spirit with them.  I feel these two points of view have been around for quite some time. Think Aristotle and Socrates. I expect both points of view will be here long after all of us are gone.  I’d love to see some great thinker unify the two points of view into one consolidated theory of learning. I don’t see that happening any time soon, certainly not in time to fulfill my bucket list wish. Based on research- which side should prevail?

Let’s look at one of the most contentious of the issues the two sides deal with that of phonics- when and how phonics should be taught.  My view is that research demonstrates both sides are correct. It also demonstrates both sides are incorrect.  How can that be? This is explained in detail in the blog post Bill Kerns and I did (https://doctorsam7.blog/2018/07/27/the-reading-wars-circa-2018-why-is-the-pendulum-still-swinging-and-how-can-we-stop-it-by-dr-sam-bommarito-with-commentary-by-dr-william-kerns/.)  The upshot of it is this: Synthetic phonics helps most but not all readers.  Many readers for whom synthetic phonics fails to do the job can be helped with analytic phonics or other forms of phonics instruction.  I think we are perfectly capable of designing educational programs that take all this into account. I’ve talked about what they might look like in previous blogs.

Here is the heart of the matter. We need to have a reading evolution. When something fails to work for every child stop jumping on to something brand new to replace the “failed practice”. In point of fact, the “failed practice” is often working for most, just not for all. Instead we need to learn to tweak things. My notion is this.  The best level for program adoptions in not at the national one size fits all level. The best level is with local school districts who know their kids best. They need to adopt as good a balanced literacy program as they can find. Good means it fits their kids.  Good means that it succeeds for most kids (90-95%).  Then include RTI for the kids for whom the main program isn’t working (read Mary Howards stuff, she has some great ideas around this).  If some aspects of the program aren’t working, then tweak them. A specific for instance- recent research is indicating that using small group instruction hasn’t worked the way we wanted- especially in the poorest school. Burkins and Yaris recently published ideas on how we can change how we use our time in guided reading. They talk about how we can teach in a way that leaves more work for the kids leading to more growth for the kids. Their book provides a pretty good blueprint on how to tweak guided reading/reading workshop. Don’t replace things, fix things. Do it at a local level. What works in one district might not work in others.

Most important in all this is call a “truce” in the reading wars. Each side needs to admit their practices have limits and limitations.  Synthetic phonics has been adopted nationwide in England. Yet there are some children that fail to thrive. I strongly suspect those many of those children would thrive if teachers were taught alternative methods of teaching phonics, including analytic phonics, and allowed to use that knowledge with selected children. Advocates of analytic phonics need to address the fact that adopting such a program for all children often results in many children having large gaps in the knowledge about phonics. Phonics programs really do need to be systematic.

Some children really do learn to read no matter what methods we use.  Others need aspects of one approach or the other to succeed. Both sides have got to agree to stop insisting that all teaching be done with their methods and only their methods. Both sides need to agree when their favorite methods aren’t working for all kids, that teachers should be allowed (and encouraged!) to use methods from the other sides.  Specifically, teachers need to be taught about all the ways to teach phonics. Districts need to adopt programs that seem to fit their population the best. Whichever emphasis the final adoption might take, practices from “the other side” should be allowed and encouraged for the selected students who need them.

In the next few weeks I’ll be exploring what a reading evolution might look like.  I’ll be inviting reader comments. I’m asking that advocates of each side be respectful of the points of view of the other.  Let’s give this a try. Let’s tweak things instead of replacing them. Let’s start the Great Reading Dialogue.  Let’s have a Reading Evolution!

Dr. Sam Bommarito (a.k.a, person with a bucket list and a dream)

ABOUT THE BLOG- The response to the blogs around Reading Recovery have been amazing- over 4000 readers in the past few weeks. It will be a while before I publish a blog that deals directly with RR so I would encourage readers who found their way to this post through the RR Facebook page to please follow the blog.  I think you will enjoy the future discussions of what I hope will become a reading evolution.

Copyright 2018 by Sam Bommarito who is solely responsible for its content.

What I Learned from Reading Recovery and How It Helped to Inform my Classroom Practices

by Dr. Sam Bommarito

I’ll begin by saying what this blog entry is not about.  It’s not about trying to move Reading Recovery practices directly into the classroom or to create some pseudo Reading Recovery program. As I said in an earlier blog if you want Reading Recovery like results, then get your teachers trained by certified RR trainers and implement RR with fidelity. This blog entry is about following the advice I received at my very first RR conference. Before trying to move any Reading Recovery practice into the classroom, first visit the theory behind the practice and then adapt the practice classroom setting.

Like Dr. Mary Howard and many others, I mark my career in two parts, how I taught before my recovery training and how I teach now. What now follows are reflections on some of the most important takeaways I have from RR. They are things have helped me become a better teacher and a better teacher of teachers.

Takeaway one- I learned to be a kid watcher and to make effective use of my knowledge of the three cuing systems. Fit the program to the child, not the other way round.

Yetta Goodman coined the term kid watcher and laid the foundations for the science of miscue analysis. Her initial observation was simple but profound.  You can’t read a child’s mind. So, you can’t directly see how a child is thinking and problem solving as they read. You can however observe the child’s actions as they read.  By seeing what the child is trying (or not trying) as they problem solve their words you can get a sense of what strategies the child is (or is not) using as they read.  Quite a number of years ago at a Mid Missouri TAWL conference, Yetta reported that Marie Clay and her husband Ken Goodman concurrently came up with the idea of using the three cueing systems. Ken used the names given to the three cueing systems by his chosen field of linguistics. They were Semantic, Syntactic and Grapho-phonemic. Concurrently Marie Clay began looking at what I think are the very same three cueing systems naming them Meaning, Structural, and Visual. Both Clay and Goodman used the notion of miscue analysis.  By looking at what cueing system the child was using when making an “error”, one can tell which (if any) of the three cueing systems the child was using. So, for Clay and Goodman, errors were not really errors at all. They were attempts to use the cueing systems that misfired. Hence the name miscue.

By systematically recording which cueing system (if any) the child was using when their attempt misfired (miscue), teachers can glean a lot of information on what the child is attempting to do as they problem solve their words. Teachers can also tell whether the child is crosschecking, i.e. using more than one of the cueing systems at the same time.  Suddenly teachers could know what the child was thinking as they problem solved their words. By careful observation and record keeping (especially the use of running records) teachers can get ideas on what the child needs to learn to make a balanced use of all three cueing systems. Our field abounds with excellent sources on how to make use of this incredibly valuable information.  It seems to me that by using this information teachers can become mind readers after all!!

Takeaway two- I learned how to prompt and most importantly learn how to prompt near point of error.

F & P and Calkins have written extensively about prompting. F & P even have charts and apps to help the teacher to know what to say.  Key prompts for problem solving words would include- Does that look right? (does it look like the word you just said), Does it sound right? (is that syntactically correct, is that the way we usually talk), Does it make sense? (does what you just said make sense, fit how the story is going?). Prompting to crosscheck includes calling attention to the cues not used. For instance, if a child says a word that fit the picture but did not fit the letters in the word you might say “What you said makes sense, but does it start with the right letter? What word would also make sense but start with this letter <point to the letter, maybe even say the letter sound>.  There are a host of other ways to prompt, including prompts to help comprehension, but right now I’m focusing on prompts for problem solving words.

It is crucial that prompts be done NEAR point of error, not AT point of error. That means waiting. Wait to see if the child self corrects on their own.  That means, when possible, you must allow the child to read past the error. Praise the child if they spontaneously correct the error (I like the way you fixed that!!!) Early in my training I learned that encouraging self-correction is GOLD.  For many children, when they start self-correcting, that is the turning point in their ability to read and to learn new words from when the read.  That is why determining self-correction rate is one of the things we include on the running record form.

There is a major problem in using prompting routinely in the classroom.  It is best used one on one. It is best used in that teachable moment when a child makes a miscue. How can one have a significant number of such moments in a regular classroom setting?  One answer I learned that increases the number of those teachable moments is to use staggered starts when doing small group reading. Here is how that works. Do your usual introduction/teaching point in your small group. Then announce that today we are using staggered starts in this group. The first time you use staggered starts you will have to take extra time to explain it. After using it a couple of time, most groups learn what is involved. DON’T OVER USE IT. Use it when you need more teachable moments in selected small groups. These are the groups whose members included children that need more work on problem solving their words. Here are the steps:

1. Each child learns they are not to start reading until you say. When they read, they are to read aloud in a whisper voice. I have them use whisper readers (see picture). I sometimes face them in different directions. Both these teaching moves are designed to lessen the effect of having everyone read at once.

2. Let the children know that once everyone is reading you will come around to work with some students individually. Let them know that EVENTUALLY everyone will get a turn, but it might take more than one session to do that. Also let them know that if the finish the story they are to IMMEDIATELY start from the start and read it again (and again, and again). They don’t stop reading until you say.
3. Once all the children in the group are reading (I recommend using a group of 3-5), you are then free to circulate and sit in with selected children. I usually don’t do every child every time. BTY, besides getting in my chance to prompt with selected student, I sometimes use this same technique to get in a teaching conference with selected students. DON’T OVERUSE THIS, but it can be handy in a pinch!
4. BOOK SELECTION IS CRITICAL FOR THIS TO WORK. Pick an instructional level text where the students are likely to make several miscues.  If there is a sound you are especially concerned with, pick a text that uses that sound a lot.  I use both predictable and decodable books during such lessons.
5. You can stop circulating any time after you are sure that every student has been through the story at least once.
6. Once you say stop, continue with the lesson as usual.

I’ll say this one more time. DON’T OVERUSE THIS. Use it when you genuinely need to do some one-on- one-word work with selected students who are having exceptional difficulty with problem solving their words.

Take away three- I learned to help kids write their way into reading. Doing the Elkonin boxes and writing short phrases was a powerful part of my recovery lessons. The general principal here is to sometimes let the kids write using the high frequency words they need to know. I currently use Rasinski’s Fry List phrases http://www.timrasinski.com/presentations/fry_600_instant_phrases.pdf. I ask them to copy a phrase and then write more about it.  I also do whole group story writing where I have selected Fry list words (or Dolch list words) posted on a chart and then and ask them to join me writing something using as many of those words as possible. This can be followed by them writing stories on their own, again trying to use some of the high frequency words in the story. This is not the only writing the kids do, but it is writing that helps build their sight word knowledge.

Takeaway four– I learned the value of observation as a part of ongoing assessment.  I think that today we over test and underteach. Constant summative assessments take away from teaching time. They can become counterproductive. Think about it. If you spend most of your time doing summative assessments eventually what you will find is that since you have not taken the time to teach something new, your students are not growing as readers (or writers). Now that I’ve had my chance to vent a little, lets be clear that assessment is necessary.  As a recovery teacher I learned that authentic ongoing assessment can be a very powerful tool. There are “assessments” that are not paper and pencil tests. They are instead rooted in careful and systematic observations.

I was brought into the world of workshop teaching, kicking and screaming. At first, I thought it would turn out to be a waste of time. Found out instead it was a way to become the ultimate kid watcher. It led to my learning to do systematic observations that became defacto ongoing assessments. It has become second nature to my teaching. F & P, Calkins, and Serravallo all have written extensively about how to systematically gather information about your students and to use that information to inform your teaching in a workshop setting. RR was my first experience in doing this. It made me more open and understanding about doing this when I did my workshop training.

There are many other takeaways from RR, takeaways I had as a teacher that I adapted into classroom use. I just gave my top four. I would love to hear from other RR teachers about their takeaways from RR, and how what they learned help to improve their classroom teaching. Please do chime in and make some comments!

So, until next week this is Dr. B. signing off,

Happy Reading and Writing

Dr. Sam Bommarito, (a.k.a., the Kidwatcher)

Copyright 2018 by Dr. Sam Bommarito who is solely responsible for it’s content

The response to last week’s post about Reading Recovery was overwhelming. It set all time personal records on both my Twitter and WordPress accounts. Over 6000 impressions in one day on Twitter. Over 1182 people came to read my latest post on WordPress. The message was from the readers was clear. My readers LOVE Reading Recovery and found that it forever changed their lives as teachers. That change was very much for the better. I’m turning the rest of this blog over to my readers, so you can hear all the wonderful things they had to say about Reading Recovery   So…, for my friends on the RR site, know that what you do works, that it is appreciated and that it helps you become better teachers so that you in turn can help the kids.  This is my thought for you as you start the new year:

Well done!

Here is my “summary of findings” based on what RR teachers had to say:

Finally- In the original article, I reported on research demonstrating that reading recovery is the most successful early learning program around. It results in improved student performance in both decoding and comprehension.  To cap things off, here is one more piece of evidence provided by fellow a fellow blogger, Rhonda from Literacy Pages. Thanks to her for letting me repost her remark.  The remarks are on a screen capture so link she gives doesn’t work, but I’ve provided a working version of that link at the end of the blog.

EPILOGUE: I’ve been posting my blog entries on the Reading Recovery Facebook site.  That is because the last few blogs have been surrounding RR teachers and what they do. The blog will now be turning to more general literacy topics that focus about finding common ground, good literacy practices and growing lifelong readers.   Should I ever have a blog post that directly relates to RR I’ll definitely post that on the RR Facebook site again. I will of course continue to read the RR Facebook site and make comments outside of my blog entries.  Remember that it was a comment by a RR teacher on the RR Facebook page that got the ball rolling on this project. THANKS to all the visitors to the blog (over a thousand in the past couple of weeks). I would love to have some of you follow the blog and join in our ongoing literacy discussions.  So to see future posts please do subscribe to this blog. I promise you that Bill Kerns and I still have lots more to say about literacy and helping children become lifelong readers.

Happy Reading and Writing

Dr. Sam Bommarito (so grateful that he become a Reading Recovery teacher)

The link from the Literacy Pages blog 

http://www.cpre.org/sites/default/files/reading_recovery_final_report.pdf

Special Thanks to Rhonda at Literary Pages for use of her remark and for providing the link.

Special Thanks to Dr. Mary Howard for her encouragement in this project and for taking up this topic on her facebook page.

Special thanks to all who posted on facebook and twitter about my original blog on Reading Recovery. 

And a very Special thanks to all the teachers currently implementing Reading Recovery.  You are changing the world one kid at a time. And that is exactly how it should be!

Copyright 2018 by Dr. Sam Bommarito, who is solely responsible for it’s content