Pathways to the Common Core

     To prepare for the switch to common core this year I have begun reading Pathways to the Common Core. I've also been reading Lucy Calkin's Curricular Plans for Reading and Writing Workshop. I love Lucy Calkin's voice in her writing. I find myself always nodding my head in agreement while I read. She has a way with language that seems to capture my thinking in such a wise way that I myself could not articulate. I can imagine her using this wise language with kids, guiding them always to keep growing as readers and writers.


Here are just a few big points from the first few chapters of this book I want to save or "make sticky".  My thinking is in the purple:)

• "Students need to become strong writers, and to do that, they need expert instruction, time to write, and meaningful opportunities for writing a wide range of informational, argumentative, and narrative texts. They must also become proficient readers of many complex texts, and that means they need expert instruction and opportunities to read a wide range and very deep volume of texts."  Time!!! Students need time to read AND time to write. My goal for this year is to talk less and let kids read and write more. I am famous for taking a mini lesson and turn it into a MAXI lesson! 

• "It is very possible that your readers are mostly reading for plot, grasping the gist of what they read, moving rapidly across book". Model, model, walk together through deep reading, what it looks like, sounds like. Give multiple opportunities to make meaning together through discussion so readers read to extend meaning.  

• "Students should be doing lots and lots of in school reading. Students learn to read by reading. Watch your strong readers. One factor they have in common? They read a lot." Calkins often references time for eyes on print. I think setting up a culture or community of readers, creating a buzz in the room for reading is the #1 priority in month 1 of reader's workshop.  I want to rev up their eyes on print time at school AND at home! 

• Other big "sticky points" are balancing fiction reading with nonfiction reading, having students provide evidence to support their thinking and placing equal emphasis on both reading and writing. 

     At the beginning of the book Calkins tells teachers to read the common core standards as if they were gold, knowing that they are not perfect. Attitude matters and I think approaching change with a positive attitude is important. Is change stressful, overwhelming, and scary? Yes, yes, and yes but I know many other teachers are going through the same challenges. I'm hoping the changes bring about lots of conversations as teachers tackle them together.

The Pause

     Tracey at Thinking Stems got me thinking about what I learned  this year and about reading partnerships. I learned kids need lots of time to read, time and practice to take pauses while reading, space to think, time to write and people to talk to along the way. 
     
     I've written about how I encouraged students to pause to save and pause to think this year. It's the pause, I believe that builds comprehension. It's the pause that lets you know the book has you. It's that moment as a reader where you decide, "Wait... this is really important! I need this information or this event to stick to my brain, or, I know I need to remember this." It's also the moment where for me as a reader I wish someone was reading along with me so we could both pause and stop to talk about what just happened, or what was just learned. That's where the thinking comes in, the comprehension, the deep plunge into the book, to gain new understandings or deeper meanings. When students truly are submarine reading, or reading deep for meaning they are able to pause to think, to connect, to notice, to wonder, to infer. 
     
     I also started thinking more about reading partnerships and how to better foster them next year. Pausing to save and think, and jotting ideas give readers a starting point for conversations. These conversations about what kids paused to think and save are the heart of reading, of meaning making. 
     
     Some of my very best lessons this year were when I pulled out  quality picture books I had gotten at the Jr. Library Guild Sale. Together as a class we simply dove in, pausing to save important information and pausing to think abut what we read. Our conversations along the way helped clear up confusion, and extend meaning. They often gave us next steps to learn more about what we had read by going to YouTube or Wikipedia.
     
     My goal for next year is to guide kids to have these conversations within book partnerships about what they saved, and what they thought about what they were reading. I'm not so sure beyond guided reading and whole class lessons if we made time for this. Towards the end of the year I noticed several of my boys chose to read their books together. They were motivated when they were allowed to talk and jot together. I wish I had pushed for this earlier in the year. Kids jotted like crazy this year but I'm not sure they had the time built in to discuss their important thoughts with others, especially with others reading the same book!


     I also got to thinking I love to hear about parts in books that make other readers pause. I'm so excited to read Choice Words this summer because I know a group of teachers will be reading it along with me. I know their thinking will push my own thinking. Which words will get them thinking, and why?? This is where conversations hold power for me. Other readers sharing their own pauses in places I had not thought to pause will make my own understandings stronger. So here's to a goal for next year ... to help kids build partnerships where they can share their pauses more often and notice their thinking grew through conversation. All in all I hope this inspires some passion for reading!
     
      
     

Getting our feet wet with Informational writing

   



     Do you ever just pull a book to read and midway through realize you have a whole new lesson, new focus that will last for days based on your kid's enthusiasm? This happened this week. I picked up the book, If You Lived Here Houses of the World. I had read a review of it on A Year of Reading so I knew it must be good. 
     
     We are starting a study of cultures so I thought it would be a great non fiction read aloud to start sparking discussion of cultures. Each double page spread has a type of house and text to describe where in the world the house can be found and what is is made of.  


Readers jot main ideas and key details - as we read we jotted down the important details about each house we wanted to remember


Readers sketch and add words to their sketches to build understanding - after jotting notes we realized our words couldn't capture the description. We needed sketches of these houses along with words to explain what we saw


Readers think about what they read - after saving important information about each house, we jotted down our thinking (inferences, why we would or wouldn't want to live in the house)


Readers read across texts to research - after reading about a few of these homes the kids wanted to learn more. We went online and first searched for more images on several types of homes and then read short articles on wikipedia about a few


Readers write to share their learning - partners took their notes and wrote about what they had learned. They added facts to inform and tried to add opinions, voice, and word choice to entertain


After trying this with a buddy students then got to choose their own type of house to research and write about independently. They read, jotted and are trying out a short informational writing piece.


Who knew this book would spark such enthusiasm! Hopefully it is gearing us up for a larger informational report.

"Crack open" a line

     This week we tried out "cracking open" lines authors write. We learned that to analyze is to examine details carefully, break open the pieces to dig deeper. Analyzing is pausing to think about what you read, the heart of analyzing in my opinion is discussion. We talked about how in books there are many lines that the author puts in to show you something, to reveal something to you, in other words to urge you to THINK BIG!
     
  
    
      We read John Henry by Julius Lester. (Great book for figurative language!) At the end we found the line we knew we had to analyze, to "crack open" and discuss meaning.


"But whether it was a whisper or a thought, everyone had the same knowing at the same moment, Dying ain't important, everybody does that. What matters is how well you do your living"


We discussed and jotted what we thought this line meant together. The students had to bring it back to the text and describe what in the book happened that made them think this. 


It was a great discussion and we will continue to "crack open" more lines together. I hope students will find these lines in their own books to think deeply about and write their thinking about. 

Making our thinking "Sticky"

     The above chart was taken from a tweet I read this fall and has been one that my class has come back to again and again. How do readers read deeply or "submarine read"? Readers have to make their thinking "sticky". I told my class this year that their are two main ways readers can make their important thinking about books "stick" (to their brains), to become readers who dive deep into reading to understand.


1. Talk about your thinking to someone else
2. Write about your thinking


Throughout the year we've been pushing ourselves as a class to talk and write about what we read to better understand, remember and extend meaning of what we read. 


     As much as education is changing I believe that conversations and written responses will remain essential building blocks to literacy instruction. Every year around this time I start to see the magic of talking about books throughout the year emerge. Our conversations are becoming more lively, more kids are sharing their thinking, deeper meaning is emerging through great conversation. Reader's notebooks remain the spot where our writing reflects where our brain has been in the book. This post from Tracy helped give me a way to breathe some new life into our reader's notebooks.
     The phrase below helps our class make deep reading a habit. Readers have to be motivated to understand and make important thinking "stick".  Talking and writing about thinking is a habit we hope to do daily in our reader's workshop! It is a habit I hope I as a teacher am squeezing time in for daily, because I believe it is essential to deep comprehension.


How do you encourage kids to talk about their thinking or write about their thinking?

  

Great Biographies

     This summer Patrick Allen inspired me to look at themes of endurance and persistence in beginning of the year read alouds. This work has continues throughout the year as my class and I have realized that so many of our favorite books show characters that have to work hard, persevere, and believe in themselves to achieve greatness. Two of our favorite read alouds that led to great thinking and had themes of endurance were When Marian Sang and Soar Elinor! 





     I highly recommend these books to read aloud. They can be used for multiple comprehension strategies. The language in both makes the reader pause often to appreciate the craft of writing. We viewed old photographs of Elinor Smith and her plane and watched YouTube clips of Marian Anderson performing at the Lincoln Memorial to deepen our understanding. We stopped to discuss plot, setting, character actions, important events in a sequential text structure, and so much more while reading each book.
     I used Lucy Calkin's new resource for reading with the common core (3rd grade) to guide students on how to read biographies or narrative non fiction. I'm hoping the lessons these women left about believing in your dreams, and working hard against all odds will stick with students:)

     

Nonfiction strategies

Our class loves author Nic Bishop! We have been noticing his "fingerprints" that interest, entertain, and fascinate readers. His books have been great anchor texts for exploring how to save important information and to think more deeply about nonfiction. One of my students decided he doesn't use headings because he wants readers to really think about the main ideas on each page without just giving them away:) His photography has our class hooked. 

Below are some strategies our readers have been focusing on to comprehend nonfiction (copied from our class news...)

Zoom in: Readers preview non fiction by zooming in on text features such as a title, table of contents, captions, headings, charts, photographs, etc

Activate schema: Readers think about what they already know about a topic before they read. This will help them understand the information

Read in chunks: Readers can read small chunks of non fiction to get information about a topic or a question they have. Nonfiction can be read out of order depending on what specific information the learner is looking for.

Turn headings into questions: Readers can turn a heading into a question to focus their thinking to find specific information about a topic.

Pause to SAVE: Readers pause as they read to SAVE important information. They can use boxes to locate main ideas and jot bullets underneath to write down important information.

Pause to THINK: Readers pause to think about what they have just read. They ask questions, make predictions, infer meaning to unknown words or ideas, connect to what they already know, etc

Determine important vs interesting information: Readers have to read and think about what is important to know vs what is interesting to know. We learned that many authors put interesting or fascinating facts in a book to make it entertaining for the reader.

Think about text structure: Text structure is the way a book is organized, the bones of the text. Think about text structure helps readers organize how they jot notes about a book, or determine important information. Some commons types of text structure are description, sequential, cause and effect, problem and solution, compare and contrast. Many books include more than one text structure for readers to notice.

Tune in to key words: Readers notice key words that are important about a topic they are reading.

Our next goal is to start sharing what we are learning from nonfiction with each other through our class blog and conversations with peers and family at home. We think readers need to share the exciting things they are learning with one another to help our important thinking grow!