What Helps Students Be Highly Literate?

Earlier this week my 2-year-old granddaughter handed her mother a rock and asked her mother to read it to her. Clearly literacy is important in our family. 

Literacy is also key in education at all levels, for all learners. Hear Angela Peery, author of What to Look for in Literacy in an interview on Cult of Pedagogy last month: “[Our children] must become lifelong readers, writers, inquirers, critical thinkers, and empathetic souls. Without high levels of literacy, they become prey to misinformation and economic manipulation. They may not fully understand or enact their rights and freedoms. They may not be able to communicate their ideas well. If not highly literate, they will earn lower wages and have a greater risk of being incarcerated (NCES, 1994). They also risk living a life devoid of the beauty and power of literature. There are so many reasons that literacy is perhaps the most pressing cilil rights issue of our time.” 

This week I read Bilingual and Multilingual Learners from the Inside-Out by Alison Schofield and Francesca McGeary. While the book is jam-packed with good information, one thing that really intrigued my was the extent to which good teaching strategies for English language learners are generally good teaching strategies for all learners, and literacy development is paramount. That reinforces other reading I’ve been doing—The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox by Larry Ferlazzo, which my EFL department read and discussed together during the spring term, and “Does Your School Need a Literacy Check-Up?”, an interview with Angela Peery on Jennifer Gonzales’s Cult of Pedagogy (14 June 2021), which my ELA department discussed at the end of the term this month.

All of them agree on the importance of a culture of literacy, of engaged readers, for all children—whatever their mother tongue—to become highly literate. All of them agree that one of the keys to achieving this goal is time to read self-chosen books, supported by instruction in reading strategies and a literacy-rich environment. Here are some quotes:

• “[T]he well-prepared, highly literate high school graduate of today must be…[a] reader who chooses to read independently and who can tackle complex texts in all disciplines” (Angela Peery, interviewed by Jennifer Gonzales, “Does Your School Need a Literacy Check-Up?” Cult of Pedagogy, 14 June 2021)
• “We believe the best way for our ELL students to become more motivated to read and to increase their literacy skills is to give them time to read and to let them read what they like! That being said, we don’t just stand back and watch them read. We do teach reading strategies, conduct read aloud to generate interest, take our classes to the school library, organize and maintain our classroom library, conference with students during reading tie, and encourage our students to read outside the classroom, among other things. All of these activities contribute to a learning community in which literacy is valued and reading interest is high.” (Larry Ferlazzo, The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox, Loc 1082)
• “Administrators and teachers must work together to build in at least 15-20 minutes of daily (silent) reading and writing for all students across the school. There are countless pieces of research to support the value of daily reading, not only for BMLs [bilingual and multilingual learners], but all students.” (Alison Schofield and Francesca McGeary, Bilingual and Multilingual Learners from the Inside-Out, 212-213)
• “One of the most vital parts of a literate classroom environment is a robust classroom library….[T]he research is clear that students who have physical books within reach read more—they read up to 60% more in classrooms with libraries…. If we want children to be highly literate, then they must have access to materials they want to read as they go from room to room during the school day.” (Peery)
• “There should be more training and development for teachers to understand how to teach specific reading comprehension strategies for students.” (Alison Schofield and Francesca McGeary, Bilingual and Multilingual Learners from the Inside-Out, 130)

I’m glad my EFL and ELA departments are discussing this topic of literacy, developing a common language and common practices, like reading strategies and independent reading. I’m glad my school joined an online library to expand the English reading selections available for our students. I’m encouraged to continue providing independent reading time and instruction and practice in reading strategies (more established in some classes than in others). I’m really pleased with how I’ve grown my classroom library in 6/7 ELA, and I want to consider how I can do it more in my other classes. Two really practical new steps for literacy environment from the fall: (1) posters for reading strategies in all my classrooms and (2) signs for each ELA teacher to advertise what they are reading. These will be laminated so they can be re-usable with dry-erase markers. (Idea from Angela Peery—I volunteered to make them and the department agreed to use them in our discussion.)

What about you? What are your literacy goals for your students? How are you helping them attain them?

from Bilingual and Multilingual Learners from the Inside-Out

Learning to Teach Writing to Littlers: Summer Goal #1

With Kindles and e-libraries, the summer box of books sent to the cabin is so much smaller than before!

First week of summer break: 

• Went for many long walks through the rice fields around our house.
• Talked to parents, kids, and grandkids online.
• Took a 10-hour, self-paced online course about teaching writing workshop in elementary.
• Travelled to the cabin where we’ll be vacationing.

Now that we’ve arrived, gone grocery shopping, unpacked, uncovered the furniture and mopped the floors, and gotten our hands on the box of books I shipped up separately and the company tried to deliver before we arrived, it’s time to reflect on the writing class I took—the Not So Wimpy Writing Masterclass. I highly recommend it for any elementary writing teachers (2nd-5th grades). It was especially helpful for me, as I had just finished my first trimester of teaching elementary—enough to know what was working and what wasn’t. Here’s how the class helped me feel and why: 

• Excited about getting back to school to implement the ideas even better than I did spring term. It was exciting—and a little terrifying—to launch into teaching 4th and 5th grade after 30 years of experience teaching secondary. At the recommendation of a former colleague, I got Jamie Sears’ writing curriculum, which was really helpful. And after one trimester of using it, I could that it was good, and that I needed to make some adjustments. Then Jamie offered a free giveaway on her summer course on how to implement her writing workshop. I entered and won the first free giveaway of my life. 
• Affirmed that what I know about teaching writing in secondary is on track for elementary as well. Things like the benefits of choice, the importance of mini-lessons and then immediate application of that lesson to writing, the difference between revising and editing, and the significance of teaching writing skills rather than a particular piece of writing.
• Equipped with a fantastic introductory unit for training elementary students in the procedures and processes of writing workshop. I knew this kind of training was important in secondary; it’s even more important in elementary. I was assured that it was so important to spend 2 weeks doing this that if my class didn’t get to the second masterpiece in the unit, that was okay. I’m excited to practice transitions from one part of class to the next, building writing stamina, and problem solving. To teach problem solving, I will brainstorm all the possible problems they could run into during writing time, from a broken pencil to  being unable to think of something to write about, and then help them think of solutions ahead of time, so they don’t need to disturb small group writing conferences.
• Confident in tackling small group writing conferences, the one part of the writing program that didn’t happen last term. Partly because COVID caused us to shorten the day, and partly because my elementary classroom management skills were sufficient to keep everyone working if I were wandering around monitoring, or even conducting individual desk-side conferences, but I didn’t want to try focusing on one small group for 10 minutes. This introductory unit will set me up to succeed with that—students knowing the procedures to execute them smoothly without wasted time and distraction, knowing the importance of the procedures (mini lesson, writing, conferencing, sharing) and having the stamina to sit and write for 20-25 minutes.
• Encouraged by the perspective of experience. Jamie Sears paints a picture of what a writing class can look like, offers tips and materials to make that happen, and challenges participants to wonder “what if” rather than assuming it can’t work for them. She repeatedly reminds teachers that growth is the goal, not perfection. Only a few years ago, these students couldn’t write at all, and look how much they’ve grown since then! (What a cool perspective for me, coming from secondary!) Target, look for, and celebrate growth.

I can’t believe I’m only one week into my summer vacation and already getting excited about the fall term. That’s what a great learning community does for me. I know it’s easy for teachers at small schools to feel isolated professionally because you have no counterpart. You’re the only chemistry teacher, or 3rd grade teacher, or 10th grade English teacher. If you’re at an international school, like me, you may have to go a long way to find a counterpart who speaks your language! 

But the Internet has ended professional isolation. There are so many options. Social media is alive with professional groups and conversations. There are blogs or podcasts like Cult of Pedagogy. There are professional organization like ASCD or NCTE. There are online classes and seminars. I happened to win this class in a free giveaway (because I was in the Facebook group where it was offered!), but having taken it, I would say it’s totally worth paying full price for a teacher of 2nd-5th grade writing. There’s the content: that’s worth it. There’s the community—a Facebook group for the current cohort for 8 weeks, then graduating to the alumni Facebook group: worth it. And then there’s a deep discount on the writing units themselves. You’ve missed it for this year, but put it on your calendar for next year! I promise you won’t regret it. 

Meanwhile, where do you find professional community that stimulates, supports, challenges, and encourages you?

Giving Students a Why and a How for Learning English

What would it look like for EFL students to have a vision of themselves as successful language learners, to be able to articulate the benefits of being bilingual and the ways they need to act to reach their goals? This term I came across 2 resources that got me started on this journey: Some lesson plans in Larry Ferlazzo’s book The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide: Ready-to-Use Strategies, Tools, and Activities for Teaching English Language Learners of All Levels and a poster “Being Bilingual Is My Superpower” from Centre for  Educators of BMLs (see below). 

Benefits of being bilingual in Ferlazzo’s unit:

• Increase job opportunities and income
• Increase brain power: flexibility, learning, memory, multitasking, problem solving
• Delay onset of Alzheimer’s disease

Characteristics of a successful language learner in Ferlazzo’s unit:

• Takes risks
• Learns from mistakes
• Perseveres/has an appetite for learning
• Teaches others

It’s a good unit with activities that engage students in thinking, talking, reading, notetaking, writing, presenting, listening, goal-setting, interviewing, and reflecting. I recommend the book just for these lessons (though there’s lots more). My students wrote their personal goals for why they wanted to learn English, made them into posters, and we hung them in the classroom (see photo above).  

And this summer I’m planning to do some more research--because there’s lots more out there, and I need to know more than my students about benefits and characteristics so I can keep emphasizing this motivational aspect of language learning. I just did a Google search on “benefits of being bilingual” and “characteristics of a successful language learner,” and here’s what happened:

Searching “benefits of being bilingual” got 32,700,000 results in 0.54 seconds, including the following:

• “The amazing benefits of being bilingual” (BBC Future)
• “The Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual” (The Dana Foundation), “8 Hidden Benefits of Being Bilingual” (Oxford House Language Courses)
• “The Benefits of Being Bilingual” (US Department of Education) 

Searching “characteristics of a successful language learner” got 21,900,000 results in 0.53 seconds, including the following: 

• “The ‘Good Language Learner’” (University of Birmingham)
• “10 Characteristics of A ‘Good Language Learner’” (Oxford House Language Courses)
• “10 Characteristics of a Good Language Learner” (Owlcation).  

So this summer, I’m going to read some of those articles I just found, and I’m going to read the book Bilingual and Multilingual Learners from the Inside-Out: Elevating Expertise in Classrooms and Beyond. I'm going to see how I can continue to help my EFL students have a vision of themselves as successful language learners, articulate the benefits of being bilingual, and understand and implement the characteristics that will help them achieve their goal.

https://educatorsofbmls.com/product/being-bilingual-is-my-superpower-poster-english/ Note: I bought the poster and modified it to read 127 million Japanese speakers. The originals are for Spanish and French.

9 Components of a Book Discussion: Supporting Community for Teachers

Support can be beautiful (Photo by Neil Thomas on Unsplash)

Two teacher blogs in my email inbox yesterday were on establishing classroom community for students. We know students flourish in community. People are created for community, in the image of God who used first person plural pronouns to talk about making people in that image. But while teachers are creating community for students, how do the teachers themselves experience community? One answer is with professional book discussions. Last week I wrote about the book discussion I’d just finished—mostly about what and how I learned from it. Someone asked if I had a blog post about how to lead a book discussion. I didn’t. I’m remedying that today.

The short answer is choose a book, invite participants to a venue, and facilitate a discussion with clear expectations, scaffolding, and context. I’m sure there are a variety of successful ways to have a professional book discussion, and this is the one I have developed over the last 15+ years. I’ll explain a little more about each of the 9 components.

Choose a book: One that is practical, applicable to a wide variety of subject areas and/or grade levels, and connects to a school wide goal. I’ve enjoyed discussing project-based learning or essential questions with teachers spanning kindergarten, middle school social studies, and high school math. (See the end of last week’s post for a list of some of the books I’ve facilitated discussions on.) 

Invite: Everyone in the school or department. Advertise widely and repeatedly, in staff meetings and emails, selling why this is a great opportunity and what participants will gain from it. I will also talk to individuals who I think might be especially interested, but I’ve generally had more success with open invitations than limiting it to a hand-picked membership, and with making it optional rather than mandatory. 

Participants (a): How many? In addition to myself as facilitator, I’ve done it with as few as 2 (actually, once I did a weekly coffee date with a colleague who was never available at the group meeting time). And I’ve done it with as many as 14 (in my apartment) or 25 (in a staff meeting, though that may be a slightly different story). Larger groups can be broken into smaller groups, like a class, for different discussions. 

Participants (b): Can administrators participate? Or will that make teachers reticent to participate? Maybe it depends on the administrator, but I’ve always found it really helpful when administrators participate. Teachers see them learning, and they see teachers learning. We are part of a learning community together, knowing, supporting, and applauding each other’s efforts toward a common goal. If admin are teaching, they can apply it to that class. If they aren’t, they can often apply the teaching strategy to their work with teachers as their “students.” 

To a venue: A hospitable space where people come to know and be known. My best memories are of discussions held in my house or apartment because, I think, it strengthened the community feeling. I could welcome people into a space I had prepared for them, with food and drink I had prepared for them, and invite them to spend a few minutes unwinding from the school day and connecting with each other while we gathered. When it hasn’t been possible to do that for a variety of reasons, including this past pandemic year, I’ve done my best to still play the host, being in the meeting room early, having it set up ahead of time so I could welcome people into it, and starting with a check-in question like “What was a high/low of your day/week?”

Facilitate: This verb is central to how I want to experience learning as an adult. I suppose it’s no accident that the first professional books I had discussions for were on reading strategies and collaboration, and I applied what I learned not only to my classes, but also to the book discussions themselves. The goal of the discussion is for participants to deeply process the reading. This happens when they are actively engaged in discussion—noticing, questioning, responding, elaborating, comparing, evaluating, applying—not when they are listening to a lecture. The facilitator should be the chief model of learning, demonstrating the kind of engagement desired, but also being very aware of the goal of facilitating the group’s learning rather than showcasing his or her own. (Preaching to myself here—I know I can easily talk too much.) Just like in class, it’s important to establish a protocol of universal participation, to have a few thought-provoking, open-ended questions up one’s sleeve, to be comfortable with extended wait time, and to feel free to demonstrate genuine curiosity by inviting input from quieter individuals by name. 

A discussion: Frameworks that work well include Connect-Extend-Challenge from Harvard’s Project Zero, or reading strategies like ask questions, make connections, evaluate, synthesize, apply.

With clear expectations: Participants will read ahead of time and come prepared to discuss their reading. They will also have implemented one idea from the previous discussion and come prepared to report on how it went.

With clear...scaffolding: You might think that participants are all professional adults, so they don’t need scaffolding—and you’d be wrong. All learners need scaffolding to get to the next level. Especially as adults, we are so busy with so many priorities that every aid to focus helps. Think of it as making it as easy as possible for participants to meet the expectations. Time and reminders help, such as...

• Time at the end of each discussion for participants to choose an implementation goal and write it on a post-it note, which I collect. 
• Time at the beginning of each discussion for participants to report on their implementation goal. This is low-stakes, but there. Sometimes the report is “I didn’t get to it, but I want to try again next week” or “I didn’t get to it, but I did do this other thing from the discussion.” The group response is supportive—we’ve all been there. 
• Email the day before to remind participants of the implementation step they are going to report on and the pages they will be prepared to discuss. 
• Email afterwards to document for participants the implementation step they chose, debrief highlights of the discussion, and remind them of the pages to read and prepare to discuss for next week. 

With clear...context: Purpose is the biggest human motivator, and I keep reminding myself and my colleagues of the purpose of all this activity: students achieving our dreams for them. Key places I can do this are at the beginning and ending of meetings and of emails. How does the book topic fit into my school’s vision and goals for students? I’m thankful that a writer has invested the time in compiling their experience, research, and wisdom in a book. I’m thankful for colleagues who choose to invest their time in exploring a book together in order to help students grow. I’m thankful that God has given that wisdom, time, and opportunity—and I pray that God will establish the work of our minds and hands to help us even more effectively unfold all our students’ potential.

I’m thankful for the time I’ve had to think all this through and put it down here. I’m thankful for all the wise educators in the world who have written books. I’m thankful to all the colleagues through the years who have participated in professional book discussions with me. I’m thankful for all the students with whom God has allowed me to explore the wonderful world of thought, language, and literature. I pray that God will establish the work of your mind and hands, too, and make you a blessing to your students, and give you community in which to flourish. And if this blog has been a part of that, well, then, I'm thankful for that, too.

Still My Best Professional Development: Discuss a Book

Growth plus connection equals joy. At least for me. That’s why I smile when I look around the office I share with 6 other teachers at my school, and I see 4 copies of the same professional book. It’s one we’ve been discussing—together with 2 other teachers from another office—once a week for the past 9 weeks. This Tuesday was our 9th and last meeting.

When I attend a workshop, seminar, or conference, I get piles of great resources and all the energy of connecting with like-minded educators. Then I go back to school, and the energy fades, and I can’t really remember any of the 367 great ideas that hit me like water out of a fire hose. The stack of great resources is daunting—I don’t have time to dig back through it to find one of those ideas. And I can’t read my notes.

When I read a professional book by myself, I get a great idea, and it’s so good, I want to keep reading, and 192 excellent ideas later, I again can’t really remember any individual idea well enough to implement it. I know I should go back through the book more slowly, but first period is coming and I just don’t have time. Or energy. 

But, when I discuss a professional book with my colleagues, a chunk at a time, over the course of 7-9 weeks, that’s when I really grow—both in my classroom practice and in professional joy. It’s the accountability and energy of collegial community.

Here’s what it looks like. Over the last 9 weeks, we’ve been meeting once a week for 45 minutes. In preparation, we try to implement at least one idea from the previous week’s discussion, and we prepare to discuss the next section with our colleagues. At the beginning of each meeting, we each report on our classroom experiments. Then we discuss what we found intriguing, confirming, or confusing from the next reading. Finally, we each choose something from the reading that we want to experiment with in our classes in the coming week.

Here’s why I love it. First, I actually have to dig in, choose just one thing to try in a week, and try it. Traction! Second, the conversations that trickle into the cracks of the intervening days, not just during weekly meetings. 

• “Hey, I introduced reading strategies today.” “How’d it go?” 
• “I’m going to try running dictation today. How big a chunk of text did you use?” 
• “I heard you doing a choose-your-adventure for a listening exercise with your 2nd period class. How’d it go?”

The book was The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students by Larry Ferlazzo. I’d actually bought it a while ago, and instituted my own personal challenge of experimenting with at least one idea each week. (See some of my blog posts about that here, here, and here.) But it’s much more fun with a community! There are 45 strategies, and we didn’t want the discussion to drag out over a year, so we tackled 5 strategies per week. 

My best take-away? I really dug in on reading strategies and independent reading. There’s a lot more I want to revisit in the fall—and I now have a community who shares a common language and I can talk with about it.

Not an EFL teacher? It doesn’t have to be this book. In the past, I’ve found it equally energizing to discuss the following books in a professional community in three different schools: 

• Setting the Standard for Project-Based Learning
• The New Art and Science of Teaching
• Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners
• How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms
• Better Learning Through Structured Teaching: A Framework for the Gradual Release of Responsibility
• Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding
• Understanding by Design
• The Vocabulary Book: Learning and Instruction
• Teaching Matters Most
• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High
• Productive Group Work: How to Engage Students, Build Teamwork, and Promote Understanding
• Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?
• I Read It But I Don’t Get It

What is your best professional development? Have you ever tried a book discussion? What book could you try it with?