Carol Talanges - Blog 6 - Routman ch. 4

       All teachers can relate to the statement “Teach with a Sense of Urgency”. We all know the value in every second in the classroom and what to do all that we can to use that time wisely. I greatly related to Routman when she states “I am relaxed and happy when I am working with students, but I am also mindful of where I need to get them and how little time I have in which to do it”.  I so often lose track of time during our independent reading and conferencing time. I so love hearing what all my students are reading and how they are meeting their goals, but have to also stay aware of giving proper time for instruction and making wise teaching decisions.

            My YES moment came from Routmans Top Five Things…

1.      Demonstrate that I am a reader

2.      Provide an excellent classroom library

3.      Let students choose books they want to read and give them time to read them

4.      Teach strategies students need to know to process and understand text

5.      Evaluate students regularly, giving them feedback and helping them set goals

        As I was reading this I latterly thought that this is what I needed to read today. As testing is approaching it is easy to be harsh on myself and to become panicked with “did I prepare my students”. If I were to create my top 5 it would perfectly reflect this list. I most want my students to love reading and I want to give them every opportunity to choose great books for them and to grow as readers. At the end of the year I know that if I do these things that my students will leave me with a stronger reading foundation and I hope that I will plant the seed for a life-longer reader and learner!

Carol Talanges - Blog 5 - Routman Ch. 3

I truly related to chapter 3 Share your Reading Life. I have found that the best way to engage students and to encourage them to develop a love of reading is to simply share what I love about reading and what books that I have enjoyed the most. I do not think that it is an accident that when I state that Ronald Dahl is my favorite author that within a week my entire collection is checked out and that I have students who cannot wait to now conference with me and talk about the books that I have shared were my favorite at their age. Just last month I wanted to read Wonder as an option for our new read aloud. I simply had the book on my desk and the next day I noticed that three of my students had checked it out for themselves. We often do not think about how we are the best model in our classroom for an avid reader.

This chapter has reminded me that I should not only develop reading as fun and exciting at the beginning of the year when I am hooking students on reading workshop, but it is something I must do all year to keep my students engaged. Routman states “ I deliberately use my influence as a teacher and role model to foster a love of reading along with excellent reading habits”. She perfectly states what we all know to be true but often forget to do in our daily classroom lives. We get caught up in goals, logs, comprehension skills and creating awesome mini lessons and often forget that our number one goal is to develop a love of reading. I want my students to see reading as an adventure through different time periods and worlds and I must use my own reading habits to develop that love in their hearts as well.

One section that impacted me and made me look at my own practice is the section on demonstrating your pleasure in reading. Routman states “too many of our students are reading because they have to, not because they want to” and this is a though that I cannot stand as a teacher. I want all of my students to enjoy what they are reading and I love when my students are angry with me when we have to move on from our ELA time. Routmans solution is simple; think about what gives us pleasure as readers and bring that joy into the classroom and share it with our students! How simple… I think that I am going to start a Talanges Picks section in my classroom and make it a point to weekly discuss what I love about what I am currently reading to help keep students excited about what they are reading. 

Cindy Black Blog Post #7- Bond with Your Students/Chapter 2 -Routman

   After reading "Bond with Your Students," I totally agree with Routman! By teaching kindergarten this is essential to their development as readers and learners. Routman says, "look at the students in the eye with interest, acceptance and curiosity." We as educators need to bond with our students if we want them to learn anything at all. Even though we have students who are difficult we must bond with them and show them love to be successful. Routman states, "this is not a choice but a duty and responsibility we owe each child."
 
   Bonding is not talked about only curriculum and standards. The first step is to connect with the lives and spirits of our children. "Unless we reach our students hearts, we have no entry into their minds." We teach through certain techniques and get children to perform but will it make a lasting impression and desire to continue on their path of learning? "We cannot teach our students well until we show them we know them, care about them, and connect with them."

     I love the way Routman states kindergarten teachers have always done a great job in making their students really believe they can read, whether they actually can or not. Kindergarten is a critical age to develop bonding. By starting at an early age this will give them the ability to continue to learn and be successful as they grow. We encourage and convince them to become better readers every day. Kindergarten students love to talk and tell stories. It is easy to bond with them on a personal heartfelt level. Occasionally, I have one or two who like to stay to themselves and not interact with the class but by having one-on-one time with these students they really start to open up and will continue to come to me for anything they need help with. This makes me as a teacher feel good to know they trust me. By bonding with these quiet students they become more independent and their confidence levels grow tremendously.

    I always enjoy relating everyday life experiences with our class. They love to hear my stories and love to relate mine to something of theirs. I learn from them and enjoy and take in all that they tell me. Bonding with kindergarten students is easy and one I can proudly say I do a good job at. Making my students fill that enjoyment and pride of accomplishment is definitely a priority I strive for.

Shayna Miller Post #5: Routman Ch.4 (Teach with a Sense of Urgency)

The students in my room are already lacking certain skills that cause them to function below grade level in ELA or math. The urgency is certainly there in special education, but Routman describes how to appropriately respond to this urgency. Teachers should not simply rush through stacks of material to cover more content and hope something sticks. Teaching with a sense of urgency is ultimately about using every second of instruction wisely. As teachers, it is our responsibility to make educated and informed decisions about our instruction. Consciously making this effort in hopes of providing our students with the best education is teaching with a sense of urgency. A great exercise Routman used is examining your beliefs about teaching by listing what you actually practice. It is easy to make a perfect list of all of these wonderful strategies and practices you believe you should be using in your classroom, but it does not mean one bit unless you actually put it to practice. Listing practices you actually use in your classroom provides a more true picture of your beliefs about teaching than any paper could ever demonstrate.

Blog 5: Terri Thrailkill, Make Assessment Instruction's Working Partner by Regie Routman

Blog 5 /Terri Thrailkill: Make Assessment Instruction’s Working Partner by Regie Routman

Until reading this chapter, I mistakenly thought assessment was synonymous with evaluation.  Now I understand that assessing is gathering data and evaluating is analyzing that data. I have often been guilty of assessing without evaluating.  Without analyzing data and using it to inform my instruction, I have wasted precious teaching time.  Regie Routman reminds me that “this is a lost opportunity to support students’ growing competence as readers.”

I agree with Routman’s idea that teachers should do ongoing assessments using materials that their students are already reading or are likely to read. These, not someone else’s materials and notes, can really be used to drive instruction and improve learning.  Assessments should be worth the time it takes and easy to administer.

Routman encourages teachers to make assessment and evaluation a daily routine.  As we are teaching, we should be assessing and evaluating so that we adjust lessons as needed in order to meet the needs of our students.  “We can’t just follow the directions of a manual and hope for the best.”

Routman further explains that “sitting right next to a student, observing him read, probing her thinking, is the best way to evaluate all aspects of a child’s reading and move the student forward.” As a former Reading Recovery teacher, I know that the most accurate information is gained by carefully observing a child in the act of reading. Taking a running record for a younger and developing reader is appropriate in order to go back and do some teaching after the conference.

Individual reading conferences as a regular part of the day is an easy and manageable way to combine assessment with instruction. Routman suggests meeting with struggling readers once a week (and sometimes for a few days in a row) and once a month with other students. Information should also be gathered from observing their responses in shared, guided, and interactive reading, evaluating their written responses and monitoring reading records.  The teacher’s disposition is crucial to the success of conferencing.  It should be and easy and pleasurable process for teacher and student. The student should always bring his book with him to the conference so that the teacher may scan or refer to it as needed. Routman offers a list of helpful questions that may be used to probe for student understanding.  If the student’s understanding is weak, we must figure out the problem by listening to him read a short passage.

Teaching students to choose “just-right” books is important.  Routman contends that “it is our job as knowledgeable professionals to ensure that our students are reading when they are supposed to be reading: that means they are effectively using phonics, word analysis, comprehension strategies, and whatever else they bring to the text to understand it.  Otherwise we are squandering precious time.” Routman offers an easy, step by step framework for an informal reading conference as well as a list of “child-friendly” reading goals that would ensure successful conferences

We must use our informal reading evaluations to do needs-based teaching based on the question “what’s most important to teach at this moment to move him forward”. But, after teaching, we must not automatically assume that students will automatically apply what we demonstrate.  Routman emphasizes our “need to coax them to move to application, both by directly telling them to do so and by making our own application process visible”. Then we must allow them to practice, and check to make sure that application is occurring.

Ongoing accountability should be central to teaching reading.  Documenting student progress at the classroom and school level is necessary in providing data and analysis to back up our instructional decisions.  There must be a balance between formal assessments and informal assessments.  Informal assessments may include reading conferences, running records, and rubrics.  Using assessment to drive instruction is not easy, but should be the goal of every teacher. In this chapter, Routman clearly explains the invaluable partnership between assessment and instruction and offers very practical ideas to make that partnership a reality.  

Blog 6: Terri Thrailkill, Teaching Comprehension by Regie Routman

Blog 6/Terri Thrailkill: Teaching Comprehension by Regie Routman

There is no doubt that the ultimate goal of reading instruction is comprehension. But the goal for our students  should not just be superficial comprehension-a recall of the facts and a few details-but rather a deeper one, in which readers can analyze what they have read by summarizing, discussing the theme, author’s purpose, and why characters behave as they do. To reach this goal, comprehension strategies must begin being taught in preschool or kindergarten.

Routman warns against overly emphasizing word calling, automaticity and fluency in the early grades at the expense of understanding.  Students should always understand that reading is about meaning and not just figuring out words.

As teachers, we must think about the texts students are reading and the texts we want them to read.  Routman points out, “If we want readers to be critical thinkers, inquirers, and problem solvers, we need to introduce them to challenging, interesting texts. Then we need to show them not only how to process these texts but also how to reason strategically as they interpret, analyze, and appreciate what they read. However, teachers must also be very cautious to use independent texts that are easy enough and meaningful enough to support comprehension.  If students are reading for understanding they should know ninety-five percent or more of the words they encounter so that they may focus on meaning.

Routman offers a group of key strategies for achieving full understanding of a text.  These include: making connections, monitoring for meaning, determining  what’s most important, visualizing, asking questions, making inferences, and synthesizing.  Routman warns, however, that strategies are not synonymous with comprehension, but rather a “tool for facilitating and extending comprehension.”  She further cautions against teaching the strategies in isolation.  Although it may be useful to practice an isolated strategy while students are learning it, we need to make sure that most of our comprehension instruction uses strategies interactively, just as proficient readers do. Routman explains, “We teachers need to give explicit demonstrations not just on how to use a strategy in isolation but also on how to make the strategy a part of our unconscious reading process, so that students are  able to combine any number of strategies to problem solve before, during and after they read.”

We must also be careful not to hold students back with too much explicit instruction and too little guided reading.  Routman recommends a twenty per cent to eighty per cent rule. Students must also be given enough time for independent reading to enable them to use and practice these strategies.  Teachers must also make very clear why we are teaching a particular strategy and demonstrate how to use it by thinking aloud in front of the class.  She further encourages teachers to “think deeply about our own reading process, and trust what we do as a reader to guide our teaching.”  Modeling our own strategies such as rereading, questioning, predicting, summarizing, and classifying will help students increase their own reading comprehension as well as demonstrating that comprehending changes according to the demands of the text.

Routman also brought into focus some of the more important comprehension strategies with suggested ideas on trying and applying them.  Rereading is the single most useful strategy to readers of all ages.  Writing is also a helpful strategy to teach, especially with nonfiction texts.  Underlining, writing comments in the margin, noting key pages to return to, are important aids in comprehension.  I have been negligent in demonstrating these to my students.  Previewing, or surveying, a text “sets the scene for reading by giving a framework for what is about to unfold.”  Taking a picture walk is common in younger classrooms. Students need to be aware of text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections in order to enhance their understanding, but Routman cautions that “most of the connections should be routinely demonstrated and practiced as part of the total reading experience.”  Making connections was a new emphasis in comprehension when I reentered teaching.

One strategy that is very familiar to me is self-monitoring.  I certainly agree when Routman writes, “students cannot read for meaning until they can monitor the things they do to make sense of text and maintain comprehension-before, during, and after reading, yes, but especially as they read.”  Remembering my Reading Recovery training, self-monitoring should be emphasized from the very early stages of learning to read.  Modeling for students how to read difficult parts out loud or talk to themselves in their heads may aid with comprehension. Talking with peers about what they read also increases understanding. “Collaborative talk is a powerful way to make meaning.”  We must also ask and demonstrate how to ask questions that encourage in-depth reading.

In conclusion, I found this chapter to be very practical and informative.  It gave me some new information, but mainly helped me recall and cement some fundamental comprehension strategies that have been taught for years.  It also reminded me that we must not just teach reading strategies but rather strategic reading.    

Blog 7: Terri Thrailkill/ Bond with Your Students, Regie Routman

Blog 7:  Terri Thrailkill/ Bond with Your Students by Regie Routman

As I began to blog for this class, I scanned the table of contents of Reading Essentials and selected topics that I thought were most important to the task of teaching reading. Chapters dealing with guided reading, comprehension, assessment, and independent reading caught my attention as I hoped to improve my small group reading instruction of first graders. But now I realize that perhaps I should not have overlooked chapter 2—Bond with Your Students.  Routman got my attention when she stated, “Worldwide, the strongest predictor of reading achievement is the quality of student-teacher relations.”

Bonding is the intimately personal connection between student and teacher that is the core of responsive, excellent teaching. Routman explains, “Bonding depends on teaching that incorporates a learning model that assures success for all children.  That is, through demonstrations, invited participation, guided and independent practices, in an accepting and encouraging social and academic environment, students gradually become confident learners.” It is important that teachers ensure that every child experiences immediate and early success as a reader and writer, so that he will willingly engage in reading and writing with an “I can” attitude.  Early and repeated failures often lead to frustration and unwillingness to try.

Since “you can’t bond with someone you don’t know”, it is important that teachers make an effort to know their students not just as learners, but as unique individuals.  We must model respect, tolerance, compassion, and courtesy as we strive to know our students and bond with them.  We must speak words of encouragement to them.

We must allow and encourage students to share in making decisions. We show respect for their thinking when we seek their ideas and value what they say. Routman encourages teachers to allow student input in establishing classroom rules and procedures, decorating the room, organizing the classroom library, creating rubrics, and much more. Teachers should strive to create a community of learners where everyone’s ideas are valued and maintain a sense of “our” classroom rather than “my “classroom. “Sharing the power with students establishes a collaborative, congenial tone, and helps students bond with us and engage more deeply in learning.”

Sharing stories of our personal life often helps in bonding with our students.  We become more “real” to them and they come to trust us. We must also value the stories of our student’s lives that they share with us and write about. In doing so, we demonstrate to them that their lives really do matter to us.

One of the fastest ways to bond with young children is by reading aloud stories that they cannot read on their on, allowing them to hear rich language and great expression.  Enjoying stories together begins to build a trusting relationship and a classroom community.

Routman encourages teachers to get to know their students as readers.  She suggests interviewinstudents individually while they are reading independently and making brief notes.  This informal time encourages teachers and students to speak freely about their reading habits, attitudes, and preferences.  This information will guide teachers in making instructional decisions, choosing reading materials for the classroom, as well as discovering the habits and preferences of their students. Routman offers a helpful list of questions to use in conducting this reading interview. It is also important that we find out about our students’ reading lives at home so that we don’t make inaccurate assumptions bases only on our classroom observations.

Perhaps the most important aspect of bonding is joy—allowing our students to see how much we enjoy and appreciate their personalities, enthusiasm, and curiosity.  “Curriculum and standards must first connect with lives and spirits of our children if we’re to have any lasting success.  Unless we reach into our students’ hearts, we have no entry into their minds.”  Until we bond with our students, showing them that we know them, care about them, and connect with them, we will not be able to teach them effectively.