The Clock is Ticking!

Vygotsky always wanted us to be in the Zone of Proximal Development. As I was writing a new set of lessons for my RTI groups, I was thinking about how much stuff I was adding to these lessons, with the idea that I wanted to make the most of my time with them. But, really, I don't need to do more with the time I have. Rather, I need to make the most of the time I have. Being specific is always more powerful (and fruitful) than being prolific when it comes to good teaching. Less is more may be cliche, but it's also true. My goal is to identify the zone with the teachers I'm coaching and the students I'm teaching. In doing so, I hope to move them further in their understandings by taking one well-executed step each session I work with them.

Knock, Knock! Is Anybody Home?

I've been thinking about comprehension and those 7 keys. Are we really effective when we are teaching our students to visualize in the following scenario?

"Boys and girls, in the story we're reading, Pee Wee's Tale, Johanna Hurwitz describes Robbie's room and I want you to use her words to actually build that room in your head and then I'm going to ask you to draw a picture of it."

I've taught a lot of visualization by telling my students to create a picture in their heads. I've given them all sorts of examples--in PeeWee's Tale, I can picture what Robbie's room looks like because of Johanna Hurwitz's description of the room. I can actually see the room in my head.

Now, I've also given a lot of DRA2's with that pesky comprehension component and I've been thinking about why a child can read a level 28 accurately but then fall on his face when it comes to the re-tell. He demonstrated re-reading and the whole nine yards. He self-monitored for heaven's-to-Betsey's-sake!! I think I've figured it out with Linda Dorn's help.

The kids don't connect to the writing on a visceral level. They can't recall facts because they could care less--this piece has nothing to do with me. It's just another assigned passage. It's all surface. So, how do we get them to become interested in the books or excerpts they read? We have to make it worth their while by making it....RELEVANT!

Isn't that the REALLY BIG KEY? Relevency.

My buddy Sarah reminds me to always be purposeful and authentic in my teaching. Well, what about being purposeful and authentic in our learning, too?? Connecting to a text has to be about relationships readers create with the characters in fictional work or owning the learning that takes place in non-fiction. If you have ever read a book where you start saying "YES! I KNOW! I AGREE! AMEN TO THAT, SISTER!"--that's what we want the kids to say when they are reading it. We can no longer say that a text-to-self connection is "That reminds me of the time when..." We have to take it one step further and say, "I remember when I had an experience like that, I felt _______! I can totally relate!" That's what we want for our students.

I remember when I was teaching Reading Recovery and I had a student who was reading in a level 10 or so and his breakthrough moment was when we were reading a story that had an ironic turn of events on the last page that made the story really funny. I will never forget when he was reading that last page. In the midst of the sentence, he started laughing--hysterically. He connected to that text because he remembered that he had played a similar joke on his sister. Brilliant, gold-star day!

So, going back to Pee Wee's Tale and Robbie's room, my visualizing prompt to my students should have been--"When I read this section to you, I want you to think about your own room and why Johanna Hurwitz made such a big deal about describing it to you. You'll have to picture your own room in your head and imagine what it would be like to bring your very own pet into your room for the very first time." Now THAT'S a key that would open the door to comprehension.

Reflecting Pools

While reading and taking notes from Dorn's books on comprehension and coaching, I'm finding a familiar word peeking out of the pages on a frequent basis--reflecting. I have ALWAYS been a reflective teacher. It's just part of who I am. I love to analyze a situation from all angles and I enjoy observing people and thinking about what motivates and drives people in their decisions. However, I tend to over-think all of my own motivations and actions to the point that I drive myself crazy (and all those who live with me).

There is such a circular aspect to the concept of reflecting: teaching, learning, knowing, teaching, learning, knowing. But I never thought about nurturing that same cycle with my students. Teaching first grade, I tended to focus on the art of strategically addressing texts and utilizing the 7 Keys to Comprehension (Keane) as a way to stretch the problem-solving nature of text to lead to the creation of meaning. In fact, I could count on all my fingers and toes 10 times over the number of conferences that I have held with parents & peers that I have shared "The definition is reading is the creation of meaning from text." But, Dorn lifted that understanding (which is valid and relevant to what we do with emergent & beginning readers) to reveal a second and more powerful definition of the concept of what it means to read. It's about what you do outside the text that really drives a reader to love stories and glean the real meaning. Look at our own book clubs--the fun really isn't in the reading, it's in the "coffee talk" where we "talk amongst ourselves" where we connect and...REFLECT on our experiences.

Dorn says that comprehension is going on any time the reader thinks about a text. So, what do we need to do to put that "fire" in the minds of our students that creates the drive to connect to the author's message?

When I gave the skeletal outline of Author's Study that is part of our School Improvement Plan, I found myself getting VERY excited about the idea that I wanted the teachers to think about the authors that they love to read. The ones that write books that make you hide out in your bedroom, pretending to be sick with a cold so that your family will make its own breakfast, lunch and dinner and leave you to your "misery". That's the kind of stuff I want to bring to my students, because motivation is 3/4 of what it takes to be reflective. I want them to WANT to reflect on how "Out of the Dust" is really about themselves and their own experiences with anger and redemption. I want them to WANT to read and re-read all the Twilight series because they want to live vicariously through the characters. I want them to WANT to figure out what that book means to them and then carry that thinking with them into their writing. Meaningful experiences in life begin with connections and reflecting on what those connections truly define in our own selves.

So, I want to try to look every day into the reflecting pool and be connected with the people, places and books I read and share that excitement with my peers and students.

Let the games begin!!

Well, it was my first day back and I had 2 panic attacks. I have no computer, no telephone and my office is a cubby hole in the library. But after I sat in my old 1st grade classroom and tapped out a few emails on my old computer, I stopped feeling light-headed. It's all the good vibes there from my past students coming back to greet me!!

I met with my coach today and she reminded me that my job is to be a patient observer and that I don't need to always focus on the literacy part of coaching. At the beginning of the year, we need to do the training that is involved in creating a wonderful classroom community. I liken it to the training that I'm doing for the 1/2 marathon walk in October--I can't just expect myself to go do it because I want to be at that particular point in time RIGHT NOW!!! I have to do the work to prepare myself to begin the goal I want to reach. It's the same with the beginning of the school year. So often, I forget the magic of what happens in the preparations for learning. Helping students become acquainted and familiar with what will eventually belong to them is work--and it's not something you can evaluate with a rubric or tick off as "done". It is evident when the students and teachers breath in and out without the use of a paper bag.

So, tomorrow when I have to go in and talk to my coworkers about School Improvement Goals and going over our results from the 2008-2009 school year, I will remember that this is all just the warm up and I don't have to worry about being in condition yet.

Ready....Set...

The hour glass, certain in its mission to move us forward (willing or not) is the image that creeps into my conscience as I approach the beginning of yet another school year. However, this fall I find myself in a new reality. I'm not going back to a classroom...I will be returning to my school as a literacy coach.

As I talked with my friends this summer, I discovered two goals for myself in my new adventure--I want to listen and learn. I hope this blog will help me organize my thoughts and explore my own learning as I seek to strengthen understandings about literacy.

So, in two weeks, the final grains of summer with fall through and I'll turn over the time-keeper to mark the beginning of a new school year. Hopefully, it will bring some new understandings about myself as a literacy coach and an advocate for learning.