Every one of us recognizes the book introduction as a key aspect of the “before” reading component in guided reading. Imagine you are introducing Native Americans at the Time of the Explorers to a group of 3rd graders. You activate their schema about Native Americans, tapping into their prior knowledge and making connections to their life experiences. You frame it this way: “Tell me some things you know about Native Americans.” Their responses vary, most are on point, a few surprises! In other words, a typical beginning to your small-group lesson and one that starts your students on their journey of successful reading into the world of Native Americans. All is well, right?
These students most certainly are being set up for success in this reading, of this book, on this particular topic: Native Americans.
Could we be doing more for our students? Could we get more from these instructional minutes? I think so! And the answer lies in portable strategies, focusing on strategic moves successful readers make whenever they read.
The shift is small. In addition to the particular book and its theme or focus, what if we also considered the reading behaviors of successful readers at the strategy level? With this small shift in our thinking, changing our focus and language only slightly, we change the game significantly for our students.
Portable Strategies
Let’s keep our lesson and small group-text the same, Native Americans at the Time of the Explorers. We recognize that good readers think about what they know about a topic before they begin to read a book. With that consideration in mind, pinpointing a strategic behavior of successful readers, the book introduction to the same group of 3rd grade students now includes this language: “Good readers first identify the topic of the book they’re about to read and think about what they already know about that topic. So, I want you to practice this. Turn and tell the person sitting next to you something you know about the topic of this book, Native Americans.”
As you listen in, your immediate results are the same: most students giving ideas on point, a few surprises. The key difference is that you have reinforced for students the portable nature of the strategy—so that whether you, as a student, are in Mrs. Boyle’s English class or Mr. Pedryc’s social studies class, or Ms. Graham’s science class, you carry the strategy with you.
So, the more we include strategy instruction, the better equipped our students will be to engage in strategic reading behaviors.
You CAN take it with you is our message to students into every class, for success across the curriculum!
More on Guided Reading:
Why do we teach phonics? Most teachers will answer “for decoding purposes,” “for children to learn sound/symbol relationships,” “It is the foundation for reading,” etc. While these reasons may be accurate, the main reason we teach phonics is so that students are automatic with the orthographic processing system. The ultimate goal is for students to transfer this knowledge to reading and writing so that comprehension and fluency are maintained. It is important to remember that skilled readers automatically and quickly recognize words they read. When proficient readers try to unlock unfamiliar words, they try some quick problem-solving strategies based on their understanding of language and their knowledge of sound/symbol relationships and how words work. They can pick and use these strategies quickly because they have practiced them many times and can be flexible as they encounter unfamiliar words.
As soon as students have acquired some strategies for comparing letters, these strategies can be used to analyze the visual features of words. At the direction of the brain, the eyes search the word for distinguishable features—or known parts—which may or may not be associated with the entire word. Instead of searching for individual letter/sound categories (which is a slow process), the brain searches among its collection of logical word parts that can be used to problem-solve the unknown word. For example, if the unknown word is “stack,” and the brain has a category for words that start like “stop” and another category for words that end with “ack,” the brain integrates the visual information from these two known categories and responds with an appropriate choice for the unknown word. Searching five letter categories (s-t-a-c-k) individually is a much slower response. In Becoming Literate: The Construction of Inner Control (1991), Clay describes how “letter analysis is slow, requires more learning, allows for more error and is more difficult to re-instate as a word.” Rather, children need to notice larger chunks of information: “the larger the pronounceable units a child can discover and use, the less learning effort will be required.”
Watch the following video. Sandra the teacher encourages her Kindergarten classroom to learn consonant and short vowels at an automatic level by making sure that they know the following:
- The name of the letter
- The sound of the letter
- A word that starts with the letter
- How to write the letter
Video: Sound/Symbol Relationship
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For some of us, bringing interactive technology into our lessons is anything but second-nature. We know technology is a powerful tool for motivation and engagement, but…
Where to begin with planning?
How to connect to best practices?
Can we spare the time?
Literacy 1.0, New Literacy, Digital Natives/Digital Immigrants, Blended Learning, Networked Literacy, D-Gen, Net – Gen, Digital Literacy, Literacy 2.0, Hybrid Learning
The terms related to technology and education can confuse rather than clarify. We are on firm footing when we acknowledge—vigorously—that we strive daily to fully equip our students for a bright, successful future. There IS a brave new DIGITAL world. And yet we often find ourselves at a loss.
Is digital DIVIDE more apt? There are best practices in literacy I know (and love), feel “at home” with, and can natively weave into lessons to deliver to students right here. And technology over there.
Upgrades in technology do not account for this divide. Gladly did we exchange the overhead for the LCD projector and document camera. When the team of computers moved into our classrooms, we applauded, and we cheered the interactive whiteboard.
User guides, manuals, technology training, and hands-on practice—all helpful, all needed.
But these alone do not permit us to cross the digital divide. We are still left with our best practice literacy strategies divorced, instructionally speaking, from our newly gained technology tools.
So how do we get beyond this great divorce? How do we craft a marriage, arriving in that best-of-all-worlds place, in which technology tools are integrated within our literacy lessons, as routinely and as natively as any of our before, during, and after the reading strategies?
Let’s start with a few strategies we know, representing best literacy practices, and use them to connect to our technology tools. Consider the strategies we have that roughly fall into the three categories we use with our students: Think About It!, Talk About It!, and Write About It!
Think About It!
In shared reading lessons, we conduct pre-reading activities to model our meaning-making strategies. When I add an interactive whiteboard into this part of my reading lesson and project my text through it, I now have a range of tools at my service.
For example, in a text rich with comparison and contrast, the use of color, by highlight or underline tools, permits me to focus on the author’s signal language. Color becomes a key way for students to hone in on the words that show what is alike (like, and, also, both, etc.) using one color, versus what is different (but, while, however, although, etc.) in a second color. This creates the context for my students to see the author’s organization, the rhetorical pattern of text, which becomes their road map for successful reading. The active involvement of students as they come up to try, possibly make mistakes, erase these and try again is key. The visual element of color is powerful, as is the student engagement of using technology as a support tool for their reading.
We often model asking questions as a strategy for before, during, or even after the reading. When we have our text projected through the whiteboard, we can use the text or notes tool to place our questions directly into the text. Picture how this looks on an interactive whiteboard—use your visualize strategy here. How would your students benefit from hearing the questions you would ask, then seeing you place your questions exactly there—right on text, at the place your question arose? The lesson becomes interactive as students add their questions to the text or put check marks next to questions they also have, or propose answers, which can later be confirmed. Interactive? Yes!! White? Not for long!!
You get the picture. We are indeed using the strategies we natively include in our reading lessons to develop our students’ strategic reading behaviors. At the same time, we leverage interactive tools, not just for their own sake, the fun of the “bells and whistles,” but to support all of our students in comprehending text.
Digital divide? Perhaps, but one that we can certainly cross!
Reading and re-reading are necessary steps to improve fluency and comprehension, however, it can be challenging to find innovative, authentic ways to encourage students to read the same work over and over again.
As many of you know from experience, Reader’s Theater asks students to reproduce written work using voice alone (no props, sets, and costumes), providing a legitimate rationale for re-reading. In the process of using the scripts and performing, students demonstrate marked gains in literacy including, but not limited to, a more complete understanding of how to read expressively by achieving the right volume, pitch, tone and timing.
A interesting study by Sheri Vasinda and Julie McLeod (conducted and published earlier this year in The Reading Teacher) points out that by thoughtfully pairing technologies with literacy strategies, teachers can reinvent and reinforce tried and true classroom techniques like Reader’s Theater.
In their study, Vasinda and McLeod seek to incorporate 21st century technology – in the form of podcasts – to further enhance the impact of the Reader’s Theater experience. The study followed six classes (100 students in total) for 10 weeks. Each week, the students chose a new script to practice and perform by week’s end, then recorded the scripts on existing classroom computers using external microphones and free software (about $10 worth of technology).
Even though technology can occasionally detract or complicate the goals of a classroom, the findings from this study demonstrate that the use of podcasting actually complements and reinforces the benefits of Reader’s Theater. The results show that in this case technology offers students:
- A wider audience for their work, further reinforcing the significance of the overall exercise
- A more permanent illustration of their work, allowing for review and self-evaluation to make changes for the next time
- An inexpensive and easy way of capturing the student voice, while maintaining the integrity of the Reader’s Theater experience
- A relatively concealed method for the students to express themselves anonymously, allowing the students to read and be in character without feeling overly self-conscious
Have you ever captured a Reader’s Theater performance either aurally or on video? If so, please share your experiences… we would love to hear (and learn) from you!
In 2009, Kelly Gallagher (a veteran teacher from Anaheim, CA) wrote a book called Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It.
Mr. Gallagher asserts that students today grow up in print-poor environments, surrounded by electronic gadgets and overwhelmed with extracurricular (nonreading) activities. There are a huge number of pressures that divert our children from reading today, including (very acceptable) ones like having to hold a job, struggling with English as a second language, or caring for siblings after school.
And then there are the TESTS that teach kids to read quickly and hunt for certain details, but suck all the joy out of reading.
His recommendations for today’s classroom include but are not limited to:
- Interspersing books kids love with the classics
- Encouraging kids to read work that is relevant and has context in their lives
- Providing books that kids can handle (based on their aptitude, not their grade level)
- Challenging kids to read more critically
- Inviting teachers to “do less and do it better” and provide “richer, deeper instruction”
- Asking teachers to consciously put aside district standards for the best interest of the kids
It seems two years later, not much has changed. Both the problem and the proposed solutions still hold. If anything, Mr. Gallagher’s premise in 2009 appears even stronger today. It’s hard to walk down any Main Street without seeing teenagers hooked up to iPods, cell phones, or portable game consoles. And any Main Street intersection surely includes at least one car driven by a parent rushing to the next soccer game or karate class or music lesson. We mean no disrespect to any of these activities, which all have profound value in our children’s lives, but we propose everything in moderation and surely not at the expense of reading.
How can we find the balance and go back to a culture that promotes and sustains life-long readers? Any ideas?
For a recent interview with Kelly Gallagher in Education Week, click here.
The experience of reading a book is exactly that – an experience. It evokes different feelings when read privately than when read aloud, when discussed in a book club, or when seen in movie form. Inevitably, the reader takes away something different when it’s oral vs. visual or individual vs. group. The reader’s mind is challenged in different ways as the characters may look different, sound different, and be interpreted differently.
At Benchmark Education, we have found that Reader’s Theater is a very successful model for teaching literacy in an oral group setting. By definition, Reader’s Theater is the reading of a text with others in front of an audience. The text can come from any form of literature: poetry, fiction, script, or any other literary work, or be an original piece that explores history, science, and even math concepts in an engaging way. But what’s important is that the reading is straight forward yet dramatic:
1) By “straight forward,” we mean there are little to no special effects, staging, scenery, costumes, music, or (importantly) memorizing of lines.
2) By “dramatic,” we mean that children need to interpret the characters by using their voices to bring them to life and show how the characters feel, who they are, and how they fit in with the story.
This is not the school play; it’s reading to learn. And when used well, Reader’s Theater can positively impact readers’ fluency, comprehension, interest, and confidence.
Throughout the arc of this blog, we will discuss Reader’s Theater extensively – why and how is it used, and how we (and ultimately you) can make it successful. We will offer tips and strategies on how to incorporate Reader’s Theater into the classroom and explore what other educators are doing.
So starting today, let’s talk about some of the basics of performing a reader’s theater script: staging and scenery.
Staging
We already mentioned that you don’t need a formal stage to perform a reader’s theater script with your students; in fact, it’s not recommended. Instead, you just need to make some space in your classroom or “go on tour” to a multipurpose room, the library, the school lobby, or even outdoors. Ask students to look either at the audience (pretend or real) or at other characters (i.e., students) while reading their parts. And experiment with the following techniques to see which one works best for your classroom. Have students onstage:
- Remain seated on chairs or stools in a line or semicircle
- Place their scripts on music stands and stand behind them
- Stand throughout the entire performance
- Stand only when they read their parts
- Stand in a line and step forward when they read their parts
- Stand with their backs to the audience and turn around when they read their parts
- Move onstage and offstage for their parts
Scenery
Scenery can be as simple as a sheet or a large piece of fabric taped to the wall or as complicated as backdrops and murals made by the students themselves. However, the former is recommended so as not to distract the audience or other characters. In traditional reader’s theater, a single spotlight illuminates a dark, plain stage while readers wearing dark outfits sit on stools. Such staging allows the audience to create their own images rather than see literally the actors in their roles.
Have you personally ever used Reader’s Theater in your classroom? If so, what have you found are the challenges? How have you staged it and incorporated scenery, if at all?
More Reader”s Theater Resources:
