Literacy Now

When two of my colleagues, Mary Lou Rube and Susanna Smith, returned from the IRA 2012 Conference in Chicago, Abingdon Elementary School principal Joanne Uyeda and I eagerly joined them in the reading room for a debrief session.

First on the agenda: The research of Richard Allington and his colleagues (Allington et al., 2010) around summer slide and the achievement gap, a gap familiar to our colleagues whose students clearly resembled the children Allington described. 

June reading scores consistently revealed that our teachers’ careful planning and children’s diligent efforts had paid off, but three months later, a different story emerged. The children in our charge were living proof of the research: Summer slide was pervasive in Arlington’s Title I schools. 

Our September reading scores were a vivid reminder that our mantra, “Keep reading over the summer!” had proved a poor elixir. Something more potent was required if our children were to maintain their previous year’s reading growth.

Enter Allington and his story about one district’s staff delivering books to a low-income neighborhood via a school bus during the summer. Joanne exclaimed, “Well, if they can do it, so can we!”

“You get the bus, and I’ll get the books!” I responded, without considering how I could possibly keep this promise.

Thirty minutes later Joanne confirmed that our superintendent, Patrick Murphy, had approved our request for a bus, and Sheryl Leeds, Title I supervisor, had agreed to contribute $500 to what would soon become “The Abingdon Read & Roll Summer Book Bus.” We had responded to Allington’s call to arms, and our enthusiasm and team spirit buoyed us through the next six weeks of frenetic planning.

The results? Twenty-five percent of our children visited the Abingdon Read & Roll Summer Book Bus that summer and borrowed 647 books! The next summer, student participation increased by 40%. Finally, we had found an antidote to summer slide and, along the way, built a team forever inspired by Allington’s speech at the IRA Conference.

Below, you will find the six-point plan that enabled us to finally give our children a powerful remedy to the tenacious summer slide that had plagued us for years:

Step 1: Define the vision (i.e., Diminish summer slide by making high-quality reading materials accessible to our children via a summer book bus), explicitly share the vision with staff, and recruit a team of passionate volunteers.

Step 2: List all major tasks necessary to fulfill the vision, have volunteers sign up for specific tasks, and keep the team informed each step of the way. Major tasks include the following:

• Writing letters to perspective benefactors requesting book donations. Incentivize by promising to advertise their logos/company names on the banners located on each side of the bus.
• Entering each child’s data into an electronic database so teacher volunteers can help guide children when checking out titles.
• Scanning book titles into an electronic database so children can check out books just like they do at the school library. This helps with book returns. Volunteers also stamp and level books.
• Locating a district MIFI to use with scanner for checking books in and out
• Identifying five calendar days for bus deployment and four or five most densely populated stops.
• Advertising via a Parent Information Night, class newsletters, neighborhood paper, and robocalls.
• Prioritizing students’ high-interest books and arranging for student choice, which are key to students’ decisions to read (Cahill, Horvath, McGill-Franzen & Allington, 2013).

Step 3: Ignore the naysayers. They will derail your plans before you get started and deplete the team’s energy if you allow them.

Step 4: Analyze data to determine success of the initiative.

Step 5: Reflect on data and execution of plan and revise accordingly.

Step 6: Repeat.

Note: Special thanks to Arlington Superintendent, Dr. Patrick Murphy, Title I Supervisor Sheryl Leeds, Abingdon principal Joanne Uyeda, Abingdon’s PTA, reading specialists, Mary Lou Rube and Susanna Smith, librarian Meghan Fatouros, second-grade teacher Anne Marie Weaver, our generous book benefactors, and our tireless volunteers. Their enthusiasm, dedication, and focus led to the successful launch of Abingdon’s Read & Roll Book Bus and the literacy gains of our students.

Erin Watson is a professional development specialist with the Title I program at Arlington Public Schools in Virginia. 

The ILA Literacy Research Panel uses this blog to connect educators around the world with research relevant to policy and practice. Reader response is welcomed via e-mail.

In Part 1 of this blog I identified the challenge felt by many teachers about what to do when a close reading text proves to be too difficult for students. Unfortunately, this realization usually emerges after one or two attempts at close reading have failed—at least some of the students aren’t getting the message or don’t see how the author plies her craft to shape a reader’s understanding.

What’s a Teacher to Do?

Let’s unravel this challenge. A complex text is one that contains layers of information and may take multiple reads in order to be deeply understood.  Each read should focus on different aspects of the text including attempts to unearth central theme, word choice, language, structure, style, development of ideas, and author’s purpose. Teachers support success with each reading by focusing on a particular feature of the text, encouraging annotations, asking text-dependent questions, and encouraging collaborative conversations. How often these scaffolds occur depends on students’ success with the initial invitation. These are the scaffolds most students need to understand the complex text and also gain an appreciation for the power of close reading. But, what about the few who, at the conclusion of the close reading, are struggling?

What is the Teacher to Do Next?

Teachers must reassess student performance. What are the areas of challenge for these students?  What instructional contingencies can be shared, in a smaller group that will support their acquiring the information and knowledge about content, language, and style to gain the deepest understanding regarding what the text says and means, and, how it says it? ¹

One way to generate time for smaller groups with specific needs is to situate the close reading within a larger project the whole class may be working on. Then, as students work on the larger group project, time is created for working with the smaller group.

One option is to revisit the same text, but with more support from the teacher or a different purpose for close reading. Students can be invited to re-preview the text more closely to think about where in the text they might uncover particular information. A teacher might need to direct students to a certain paragraph or sentence. Or she might remind them of something learned earlier in text—or another recently read text. Or she might model how to search for information in this smaller group. The goal is to show them a way into the close reading window so they get a better idea of how to scrutinize the text.

Another option is to select a less complex text on the same topic and ask them to perform the same close reading tasks. But don’t stop there, once they have shown they can succeed with a more accessible text, have them return to the initial text and have another run at it. Even if, at the conclusion, a couple students still do not fully understand, they have learned more about the topic and the close reading process than if they had never struggled with any complex text.

One student I recently worked with in one of these smaller groups told me “My brain hurts from thinking so much, but I feel so smart.” His response calmed my worries about killing his motivation to read. Instead he now feels able to wrestle with a complex text.

Regardless of the instructional paths we take, our goal must remain constant: all students need to be able to learn to negotiate meaning from a range of texts, including texts that are genuine challenges for them.

Diane Lapp, EdD, Distinguished Professor of Education at San Diego State University (SDSU), is currently an English/literacy teacher and instructional coach at Health Sciences High and Middle School in San Diego, CA.  Also a member of both the California and the International Reading Halls of Fame, Diane can be reached at lapp@mail.sdsu.edu.

The ILA Literacy Research Panel uses this blog to connect educators around the world with research relevant to policy and practice. Reader response is welcomed via e-mail.

To begin to answer this question we need to understand why text complexity has become an issue.  In 2007 U.S. governors and education chiefs concluded high school graduates did not have the literacy or math skills needed for college or workplace success¹. This lack of proficiency meant many students had to take as much as a year’s worth of remedial work before they could start a genuine college curriculum or assume their rightful place in the workplace.

The inability to read post-secondary materials often occurs because college texts and workplace materials contain specialized vocabulary, academic language, and text structures unique to each discipline or job. Even students with surface knowledge of a topic are unable to deeply comprehend the depth in complex college texts.

The discrepancy between what students could and should be able to do sounded the alarm that we must collectively and individually focus our attention on literacy learning in U.S. schools². What resulted was agreement that the skills needed for high school graduates to succeed regardless of their next career steps must be identified. They were and we now have the Common Core State ELA and Literacy (as well as Math) Standards (2010 ), two sets of K-12 expectations of what skills are needed for career and college success³.

Of the various standards within the CCSS framework, two have received the lion’s share of attention among teachers and administrators:  Reading Standards 1 and 10.  When combined, these offer the expectation that students need to learn how to closely read increasingly complex texts across the school year and across grades. Like all of the Standards, the authors do not identify what information should be taught, how the information should be taught, or what materials should be used. These decisions are left to the discretion of educators.  But close, careful reading of increasingly complex test is the common thread⁴.

What Matters to Teachers?

As I work with teachers across the country, they often ask me what to do after they have selected a text within their grade-level complexity band, followed all of the suggestions for sharing a close read , and realized at the end of the lesson there are still many students who are not able to comprehend. Teachers don’t want to leave these students behind and they don’t want to continually frustrate them with texts that are too difficult⁵.         

When I ask my teacher colleagues why their students aren’t comprehending, they often offer alternative explanations: (a) the students didn’t have enough basic background knowledge about the topic, (b) they didn’t understand the language or the structure of the text, or (c) they didn’t have the skills needed to even decode the written text into speech.

Teachers are saying there is a difference between a complex text and a complex text that is too difficult for their students. I’ve concluded from these insightful teachers that a difficult text is a complex text that can’t be readily comprehended by readers because they don’t have the knowledge, language, or skills needed to interrogate it through multiple reads.

In part two of this post, I’ll offer some possibilities to help unravel what a teacher might do when this situation occurs during a close reading.

Diane Lapp, EdD, Distinguished Professor of Education at San Diego State University (SDSU), is currently an English/literacy teacher and instructional coach at Health Sciences High and Middle School in San Diego, CA.  Also a member of both the California and the International Reading Halls of Fame, Diane can be reached at lapp@mail.sdsu.edu.

The ILA Literacy Research Panel uses this blog to connect ILA members around the world with research relevant to policy and practice. Reader response is welcomed via e-mail.

by Peter Afflerbach, Annemarie Sullivan Palinscar, Virginia Goatley, and P. David Pearson
June 6, 2014

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) issued its second review of teacher preparation programs June 17. We see little in the 2014 report to change our stance from last year regarding their efforts to assess the quality of teacher education for literacy instruction.

Responses to the 2013 NCTQ Teacher Prep Review raised many questions about flaws in the methodology (AACTE, 2013; NCTE, 2013; Darling-Hammond, 2013). Other than an increase in programs reviewed, including alternative certification programs, the 2014 report shows few, if any, changes of substance that could be viewed as responses to the concerns and critiques raised a year ago. Granted, NCTQ added criteria for behavior management and student teaching, but they did not expand their views of the essential literacy practices that students should possess or teachers should emphasize in their pedagogy.

As an example of just such a missed opportunity, we point to research, much of it accumulated over the last two decades, documenting the importance of intrapersonal aspects of learning, including motivation and engagement (Guthrie, Wigfield, & You, 2012) and self-efficacy (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2008), as they influence the course of literacy development. This research has found, among other factors, that students’ motivation and engagement influence how they use their existing reading strategies and skills, how well they acquire new strategies and skills, and how well they transfer strategies and skills to novel situations.

We also know that students with high self-efficacy increase and sustain their effort to read when challenged, and believe that they will be successful. In contrast, students with low self-efficacy have lower aspirations when reading, and are less likely to begin and persevere with more challenging reading tasks.

Clearly, teacher education programs must address the range of factors that contribute to students’ literacy development and success. Basing the evaluation of teacher preparation programs on only part of what we know about literacy development, as the NCTQ has done, renders any evaluation of teacher incomplete and inaccurate.

As members of IRA’s Literacy Research Panel, we also remain concerned about the broader issues of criteria, standards, and previous research on effective teacher education, as outlined in our 2013 response. For example, the NCTQ Early Reading Standard remains focused on five pillars (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) from the now dated National Reading Panel Report (NICHD, 2000) to the exclusion of many crucial elements of literacy (e.g., writing, speaking, listening) and teaching (e.g., engagement, discussion, instructional grouping, diversity) that are highlighted in a wide range of research-based documents, including well-established research handbooks (e.g., Kamil, Pearson, Moje, & Afflerbach, 2011), reports of exemplary practices from the What Works Clearinghouse (Graham, et al, 2012; Kamil, et al, 2008; Shanahan, et al), or foundation sponsored syntheses (e.g., Graham & Herbert, 2010). Further, the standards for English Language Learners and Struggling Readers remain at the elementary level only, when there is substantial research to suggest these are critical issues at the secondary level as well. More broadly, the research base on effective teacher education has contributions that could, and should, be recognized in any ongoing efforts for improvement in teacher preparation, including the work of NCTQ.  

The International Reading Association has a long history of efforts to both explore and enhance teacher education efforts specific to the preparation of literacy educators (see 2013 LRP blog for examples), including the IRA Standards for Reading Professionals. Most recently, the IRA Task Force on Teacher Preparation for Literacy Instruction has launched another significant effort to better understand and improve teacher education for literacy.

Among its activities, the Task Force—composed of teacher educators and state department literacy leaders—is identifying the means by which programs of teacher education determine the literacy-related standards to which programs are held responsible across the states. In addition, they plan to canvas literacy leaders for the purpose of identifying programs that are regarded as effective and the criteria used to make such a determination. Finally, the Task Force aspires to contribute to the knowledge base by profiling programs that graduate well-started beginners—novice teachers who know enough about literacy instruction in K–12 to do a credible job as teachers while they acquire even more knowledge and experience on the job. In this way, the Task Force hopes that literacy education programs across the country can benefit from the experiences and learning of other institutions.

On one issue, we completely agree with NCTQ colleagues: when it comes to improving teacher education, for literacy and other disciplines, the stakes are high and the need is great. In the final analysis, our assessment is—as it was more than a year ago—that the NCTQ effort still needs to look at a broader range of scholarship in establishing its standards for evaluating the quality of teacher preparation for teaching literacy.

Finally, we reiterate what we said a year ago—that IRA, with its long history of contributing to research and the improvement of teacher education, looks forward to expanding the conversation with any and all constituencies, including NCTQ, who will approach the task of improving teacher education with high standards for research based practices and a willingness to consider the entire research base on effective pedagogy for students as well as their future teachers.

Reader response is welcomed. Email your comments to LRP@/.

by Peter Johnston, University at Albany, SUNY
and Nell Duke, University of Michigan
May 28, 2014

P. David Pearson and Peter Johnston

On May 11, nine members of the International Reading Association (IRA) Literacy Research Panel (LRP), along with a lively and knowledgeable IRA audience, discussed priorities for literacy policy and practice. Panelists were asked to submit tweets for discussion in advance of the session, and then the audience was invited to offer comments and questions within and across those tweets. The session was moderated by Peter Johnston.

 

Below are the tweets, organized by core questions panelists were asked to consider, followed by a more detailed account of panelist comments and recommended resources.

1. How does research help us think about ensuring all children get a strong start in literacy?

Gutiérrez: Language plays an important role in the process of developing literacy for English Language Learners.

Duke: We generally underestimate young children’s meaning making capability, and though we worry about expecting too much of them, perhaps we often expect, or offer, too little.

Shanahan: Children need to be able to read by Grade 3, therefore it is important to have policies that require retention of struggling readers early on. [Please note: This tweet was meant to be provocative. Dr. Shanahan explained that the weight of the evidence does not support retention. For more on Dr. Shanahan and three other literacy research panelists’ views on this issue, please see references later in this blog post and in “Three IRA Literacy Research Panel Members Comment on Michigan House Bill 5111.”]

2. What does research suggest about classroom literacy instruction? 

Moje: If we want people to become powerful readers and writers in many domains, then they need to have a good reason to read and write. Make school literacy meaningful.

Goatley: The disciplines are an essential component of elementary education, with concentrated efforts for students to learn the unique content, vocabulary, audiences, purposes, and expectations of each discipline.  

Afflerbach: We need to broaden the focus on cognitive strategy and skill to include consequential factors that include motivation, metacognition, and self-efficacy.

3. How might we think about the relationship between research and practice?

Pearson: Claims about commercial programs being “research-based” are seldom based on randomized field comparisons with alternative programs let alone examination of unintended consequences.

Freebody: More R & D by partnerships between teachers policy-makers and researchers is needed on distinctive literacy demands each curriculum presents over the middle years.

Below is additional detail related to these tweets.
Although Kris D. Gutiérrez was unable to join the panel, through Elizabeth Moje, she presented her observations regarding the important role that language plays in the process of developing literacy for English language learners. She offered the following useful resources:

• http://ell.stanford.edu/
• http://www.wida.us/assessment/access/
• ELD Standards and Proficiency Level Descriptors: http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/er/documents/sbeoverviewpld.pdf#search=ELl%20standards&view=FitH&pagemode=none
• Theoretical Foundations and Research Base for the ELD Standards: http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/er/documents/sbeapdctheory.pdf#search=ELl%20standards&view=FitH&pagemode=none

Nell Duke observed that we generally underestimate young children’s meaning making capability, and though we worry about expecting too much of them, perhaps we often expect, or offer, too little.  She provided the following resources for changing this state of affairs. The resources include a small set of practices that enjoy strong support in research and/or professional wisdom:

• Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten through Third Grade: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide.aspx?sid=14
• Teaching Elementary School Students to be Effective Writers: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide.aspx?sid=17

Ginny Goatley made an argument for disciplinary literacy, which she noted is an essential component of elementary education, requiring students to learn the unique content, vocabulary, and expectations of each discipline. Consistent with Nell Duke’s observations, she argued that students should have personally meaningful opportunities to engage with a wide range of genres and forms for different audiences and purposes. She offered the following resources for further exploration:

• http://www.nap.edu/NGSS/
• http://www.nextgenscience.org/framework-k%E2%80%9312-science-education
• College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies: http://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/c3/C3-Framework-for-Social-Studies.pdf

Consistent with both Nell Duke’s and Ginny Goatley’s comments, Elizabeth Moje observed that, if we want people to become powerful readers and writers in many domains, they will need to have good personally meaningful reasons to read and write. Consequently, we need to make school literacy meaningful. She offered the following resources for those interested in pursuing this matter further:

• Tang, K., Tighe, S., & Moje, E. B. (in press, 2014).  Literacy in the science classroom.  In P. Smagorinsky & J. M. Flanaghan, (Eds.), Literacy across the curriculum: Teaching dilemmas and effective solutions, Grades 6-12 .  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Corwin Press. 
• Moje, E. B., & Speyer, J. (2014).  Reading challenging texts in high school:  How teachers can scaffold and build close reading for real purposes in the subject areas.   In K. Hinchman & H. Thomas (Eds.), Best practices in adolescent literacy instruction (2nd ed.) (pp. 207-231).  New York: Guilford.
• Moje, E. B. (2013).  Hybrid literacies in a post-hybrid world: Making a case for navigating.  In K. Hall, T. Cremin, B. Comber, & L. C. Moll,  (Eds.),  International Handbook of Research in Children's Literacy, Learning and Culture (pp. 359-372).  Oxford, UK:  Wiley-Blackwell.
• Stockdill, D., & Moje, E. B. (2013).  Adolescents as readers of social studies:  Examining the relationship between students’ everyday and social studies literacies and learning.  Berkeley Review of Education, 4, 35-68.
• Rainey, E., & Moje, E. B. (2012).  Building insider knowledge: Teaching students to read, write and think within ELA and across the disciplines.  English Education, 45(1),71-89. 
• Bain, R. B., & Moje, E. B. (2012).  Mapping the teacher education terrain for novices.  Phi Delta Kappan, 93(5), 62-65.
• Learned, J., Stockdill, D., & Moje, E.B. (2011).  Integrating reading strategies and knowledge building in adolescent literacy instruction.  In A.E. Farstrup & J. Samuels (Eds.), What Reading Research Has to Say to Reading Instruction (pp. 159-185).  Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
• Pearson, P. D., Moje, E. B., & Greenleaf, C. (2011). Literacy and science—Each in the service of the other.  Science, 328, 459-463.

Also consistent with the emphasis on meaningfulness in school literacy learning, Peter Afflerbach noted that the current heavy focus on skills and strategies does not serve children well.  He would like us to take more seriously important factors such as motivation, metacognition, and self-efficacy. The resources he directed attention to were:

• Afflerbach, P., Cho, B., Kim, J., Crassas, M., & Doyle, B.  (2013). Reading: What else matters besides strategies and skills? The Reading Teacher, 66, 6, 12-20.
• Johnston, P. (2012).  Opening minds: Using language to change lives.  Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

David Pearson and Peter Freebody addressed the relationships between research and practice.   David pointed out that claims about commercial programs being “research-based” are seldom based on randomized field comparisons with alternative programs let alone examination of unintended consequences (such as motivation and self-efficacy to which Peter Afflerbach drew our attention). As a counter to this problem he offered the following resource from his Seeds and Roots project as a model for how to think more carefully about “research-based” instruction:

• Cervetti, G. N., Barber, J., Dorph, R., Pearson, P. D., & Goldschmidt, P. (2012).The impact of an integrated approach to science and literacy in elementary school classrooms. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 49(5), 631-658.

Peter Freebody made the point that we should be working towards more research and development projects by partnerships between teachers, policy-makers and researchers regarding the distinctive literacy demands each curriculum presents over the middle years. He offered the following resources for those wishing to extend their thinking further:

• Special issue of Linguistics and Education, vol 24, 2013, on teaching for curriculum-specific writing demands, edited by Karl Maton and James Martin.
• Simpson, A., White, S. (2013, Eds.). Language, Literacy and Literature. Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press.
• Freebody, P., Chan, E., & Barton, G. (2014). Curriculum as literate practice: Language and knowledge in the classroom. In K. Hall, T. Cremin, B. Comber & L. Moll (Eds.) International Handbook of research on children’s literacy, learning, and culture, (pp. 304-318).Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Tim Shanahan also took up the need for all of us, particularly policy-makers and administrators, to critically examine research before making significant changes. To illustrate, he critically examined the argument, popular in some policy circles, that some children be retained in third grade until their reading has reached “grade level.” He concluded that such a position is a poor interpretation of the evidence. Collectively, they provided the following resources for those needing to understand the retention matter further:

• http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/2013/06/should-we-retain-kids-to-raise-reading.html
• http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/2013/06/should-we-retain-kids-to-raise-reading_9.html

The audience made many important comments and posed a number of questions in relation to these tweets. One of the comments was that research articles are often difficult or expensive to access. Some recommendations for addressing this problem include:

• asking IRA to make access to journals part of basic membership
• accessing articles available free through PubMed
• making use of the (free) research summaries available through the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences What Works Clearinghouse
• requesting articles through one’s local public library
• requesting guest access to the library system of one’s alma matter
• writing directly to researchers who have published a paper of interest; often they can share a copy without violating copyright restrictions

Please look for future LRP articles to pick up on some of the other important issues raised. 

 

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Peter Johnston and Nell Duke are members of the International Reading Association’s Literacy Research Panel. Reader response is welcomed. E-mail your comments to LRP@/.