Literacy Now

Forgive the destructive imagery, but it’s necessary. Tens of thousands of precious learning hours are spent doing well-intentioned but worthless activities with students every day in the name of literacy when, in fact, these activities are glowingly toxic.

I’ve been on all sides of this issue. I’ve used traditional worksheets; I’ve used student writing as personalized writing wallets. The latter works a gazillion times better. As a young teacher myself in the 1970s, I handed out my share of worksheets. In hindsight, I realize that during this decade students may have eagerly grabbed worksheets not because they were a good learning tool but because of that mimeograph chemical high. Do you remember? Worksheets were run on a mimeograph machine and smelled so good that we’d cluster in the copy room and probably get a little happy on the fumes. Teachers who inhaled mimeograph fluid and students who didn’t complain about a test as long as their papers are just a little damp with that same chemical…well, we should have known that wasn’t good.

Writing skill development comes with the teacher’s observation of what’s working for students and what they struggle with as they write. The teacher develops targeted lessons to help students take the next step forward, we don’t simply turn to the Internet for something to download. By the way, I just Googled “writing worksheets” and got 46,900,000 results. Astonishing. Horrifying, too. It’s as though the teaching world has taken a big detour from best practices to easy practices.

Don’t take my word for it. Let your students help you decide the fate of worksheets in your classroom. Look at their work and your teaching for the answers to these four questions so you can form your own opinion:

• Do your students write well?
• Do they eagerly dive into their writing?
• Do you see measurable improvement day after day?
• Do you look forward to teaching writing and modeling writing with your students?

If the answer is “yes” to all of these questions, then congratulations. You have escaped the allure of worksheets. But if two or three of your answers are “no,” then we need to talk seriously about how to take back your writing classroom so it is a more joyous, productive, and—yes, complicated (but interesting) place.

Step 1: Ditch the worksheets. Do it. The world will not end; the sun will come up in the morning. I promise.

Step 2: Replace those dull-as-a-board worksheets with the students’ own writing that is worked on over and over again as you teach lessons and students apply new skills.

Step 3: Use mentor texts as the models so students learn from and are inspired by writers (not worksheets) about writing. Reading and writing feed on each other. Stephen King reminds us, “You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”

And please don’t get me started on packets sent home as homework or conveniently assembled to cover a week or two of skills practice all in one place. Or for test prep. I know of one state that gave students “fun packets” at Spring Break that were nothing more than test items to practice before the state assessment scheduled shortly after the holiday. The “fun” part turned out to be coloring the cover. Wow.

Without worksheets and packets, think of the budget monies you’ll save buying black line masters and running them off on ream after ream of paper. Here’s what I discovered: The average school of 100 teachers uses 250,000 sheets of paper annually. This school would spend approximately $7,500 per year on printing, and paper itself costs $25,000. That’s a lot of wasted money. How about asking the building administrator to instead earmark those funds for books? (I think I see you smiling…)

Here’s another benefit of killing the worksheets: No more worksheets to correct. And if your students are writing authentically—choosing their own topics, trying new trait-specific techniques they’ve read in real books, revising with partners to make the writing sharper—you’ll have much more interesting papers to read! As a bonus, you’ll have more time to talk with students about their writing and help them improve each piece, one little nudge at a time. That has to make you happy, too. After all, isn’t the whole purpose of teaching writing to help students become strong, capable, and independent thinkers? Yes, I think it is.

Ruth Culham is a recognized expert in the writing assessment field and is known for conducting lively teacher workshops. Her current book, The Writing Thief, gives insight on how to use reading to practice writing skills.

During 24 years of teaching middle school, my one wish was for more time! Time to spend with students who needed extra assurance or help. Time to plan. Time to review and grade student work. Time to collaborate with colleagues. Time to teach all the standards. Time to cover the content of our syllabi. Time to breathe and have fun. Time, time, time!

Sound familiar?

As a teacher, I never stopped giving up one thing in order to take care of another thing. Children’s lives and learning were at stake! 

I was/am an ELA teacher and worked as a learning specialist and Title I coordinator. As such, prioritizing was something I had to do not only for myself but also for others. Research, along with my experience as a teacher, told me to prioritize word learning. This meant minimizing time spent on close reading and reading strategies. It was scary, and I was fortunate to have a principal who backed me up. I knew vocabulary was vital.

Our school was faced with more than 50% of our readers arriving in sixth grade without skills to learn from their reading. Upon assessing skill deficits, almost all of them were suffering from limited background knowledge—specifically word knowledge—and stuck at a certain reading level, unable to move forward.

I started to experiment. I engaged my students in an assortment of best practices for word learning in my classroom for 14 years, fine tuning and streamlining. My personal action research showed me that spending 90 minutes a week, with the right strategies, could really do it! I made a difference in reading scores in just four months by prioritizing 90 minutes a week for differentiated word learning. And I was able to do this repeatedly over four years (until I “retired”)!

Word learning is the key

At a recent workshop, Kate Kinsella said, "Vocabulary is the silver bullet."

And she’s not the only one. E.D. Hirsch reminded us in a speech to the Virginia House of Delegates, “The persistent achievement gap between haves and have-nots in our society is chiefly a verbal gap. There is no greater practical attainment in the modern world than acquiring a bellyful of words. A large vocabulary is the single most reliable predictor of practical, real-world competence.”

In Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, Robert J. Marzano reminded us, “Direct teaching of vocabulary might be one of the most underused activities in K–12 education. The lack of vocabulary instruction might be a result of misconceptions about what it means to teach vocabulary and its potential effect on student learning.”

So what does a teacher do?

Make time. I know, the most controversial word in teaching—time!

Ninety minutes—join us!

Are you ready to take on the challenge of making more room for vocabulary instruction? Can you make time for 90 minutes a week? Join me and others in a monthlong challenge to spend 90 minutes each week on word learning! Sign up for more information about The 90 Minute Challenge! by visiting my blog page. We’ll send you interactive activities based on best practices, tips, inspiration, and other support along the way.

Let me finish with some final poignant statistics:

According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 22% of children in the United States are living in poverty.

According to the Heart of America Foundation, 61% of families living in poverty do not have children's books in their homes. Consequently, children living in poverty already have a 50% weaker vocabulary than their wealthier peers at the start of school.

I hope you want to take the 90 minutes to build student vocabulary, but maybe you think 90 minutes is unattainable? Please comment here to tell us what your roadblocks are. We want to help!

Carla Kessler is the director of Learning at LogixLab LLC, creator of Word Lab Web, and formerly a Title I coordinator and learning specialist. She has been recognized as an Outstanding Educator by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International and has been recognized for her skills as a 25-year middle grade teacher, implementing curriculum that brings measurable results.

Here in Hartselle City Schools in Alabama, it is our responsibility to prepare every student, regardless of ability. After all, college and career readiness is about more than which school or profession a student might choose after high school—it is about community readiness, too. Literacy is a key part of that.

When the state of Alabama enacted tougher standards for all students, we knew we had to change as well. The challenge was that, despite our best efforts, many of our students with special needs continued to perform about two or three grade levels behind their peers in general education.

So our district formed a reading task force for students with special needs. I served on the task force along with special education teachers from each of our six schools, and we began looking for a new intervention. Since then, we have made tremendous progress narrowing the achievement gap.

Building foundational skills

At the time we launched our task force, we were using a reading intervention program that provided instruction in word study, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, writing, listening, and speaking. Although we could see some improvements, we were missing something. After evaluating several programs, we decided to try the neuroscience-based Fast ForWord. My school, F.E. Burleson Elementary, was the first to sign up to pilot the program in our district.

We began using the online reading intervention program with our students with special needs during the 2014–2015 school year. Unlike traditional interventions, the program starts with cognitive skills including memory, attention, and processing speed. It works from the bottom up to address underlying difficulties that keep struggling readers from making progress. It also targets phonics and phonological awareness, grammar and vocabulary, listening comprehension, and following directions.

This approach resonated with me. As a psychometrist, I test a lot of children who have poor working memory skills, which directly affects their ability to learn to read. The Fast ForWord program helps build foundational skills children need to become successful readers.

When we began, we placed students on the program 30 minutes a day, three to five days a week. In one semester, we saw a 25% increase in students’ reading abilities. At the end of the year, we saw improvement in students’ ACT Aspire scores as well.

Taking a structured, intensive, multisensory approach

Two or three days a week, we also break into small groups—with a maximum of three students per group—and provide intensive intervention using the Orton–Gillingham approach to reading instruction. Students begin by reading and writing individual letters and connecting them to sounds. Then they blend these letters and sounds into syllables and words, building on these skills over time.

This is multisensory. For example, students use drill cards, letter tiles, sensory boards, hand and body motions, and songs to build their skills. Tapping into visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning modalities helps students reinforce and remember what they are learning.

In addition, we use the Barton Reading and Spelling System, which uses color-coded letter tiles to help students connect sounds with letters. Like the Orton–Gillingham approach, it is a structured, sequential program using all the senses to help children make connections between sounds and words. 

Achieving measurable gains

In 2015, while many schools struggled with Alabama’s new standards, our school had gains on every benchmark and made the most improvement among schools in the Decatur area. On the ACT Aspire, which includes students with special needs (unlike Alabama’s previous standardized test), our third graders had a 22-point improvement in the percentage of proficient readers and fourth graders showed a 26-point gain.

As a result, the Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools (CLAS) selected F.E. Burleson Elementary to be one of 14 CLAS Banner Schools for 2015. The program recognizes schools providing outstanding services for students to serve as models for other schools.

In 2016, our students continued to achieve gains, once again improving their performance on the ACT Aspire.

Seeing the effort our students put into our programs and how much they are improving is gratifying. Our teachers are pleased, too, because students are now ready for their instruction. We are very excited about our results, and our teachers and students are looking forward to what this year holds.

Tara Hamlett is a special education teacher and psychometrist at F.E. Burleson Elementary, a Title I school in Hartselle City Schools in Alabama.  

I am a novice at social media. It’s not that I’m opposed to it—quite the contrary—social media, even for all of its perceived negatives, can open up an exciting world to our students and provide them with experiences that some of them only dream of.

As educators, we are encouraged to use social media in our classroom. Students might write blog posts about what they’re learning, or they might use YouTube to create a podcast, or they might create Twitter accounts for special interest projects.

Just as we are encouraged to write when our students write or read when our students read, are we using social media to expand our repertoire of learning and are we becoming involved in experiences we once only dreamed of?

Selfishly, I began tweeting as a way to gain a following for my website. I thought all those who followed me on Twitter would naturally follow my website. I began “following” nearly 1,000 people, assuming they would return the favor. However, I soon realized it was nearly impossible to be a mindful follower or an inspirational communicator if one is following too many people. I soon narrowed my following and, as a result, noticed the same educators joining Twitter chats I joined.

One name that kept popping up in various educational twitter chats was Robert Ward, a middle school ELA teacher from Los Angeles, CA. During mutual chats, I noticed that his comments were similar to mine and we often agreed on various educational best practices. In addition, I would often receive a “like” or a retweet on my specific comments, most often from Robert. Eventually, when I noticed Robert joining a Twitter chat, I would join that chat, too.

Recently, Robert published two books: The Firm, Fair, Fascinating Facilitator: Inspire Your Students, Engage Your Class, Transform Your Teaching and its companion workbook, The Teacher Tune-Up. Robert shared this exciting news on Twitter, and I offered him hearty congratulations.

I have tried for three years to earn a publishing contract and have been turned down more times than I can count. However, when I saw Robert’s good news, I wasn’t bitter or resentful. I was truly happy for him.

I direct messaged (or DMed) him via Twitter and asked if he could give me some writing tips. What could I do to help move toward that elusive publishing opportunity? What pointers could he suggest that would help make my writing more publishing worthy?

He messaged back and gave me some great ideas, but his response wasn’t enough. My next question was Can we set up a phone appointment to discuss, in depth, what I could do to get my book published?

Robert responded, and next thing I knew, we were on the phone, for more than an hour, sharing writing tips and publishing ideas. But the best part was that talking to Robert was like talking to a work colleague, a cheerleader, and a really honest evaluator all at the same time. There was no competitive spirit, just an opportunity to grow together to become the best teachers and learners we could be.

We have traded blog sources, and he graciously offered to publish one of my original pieces on his site. To reciprocate, I’ve invited him to jointly moderate a Twitter chat with me in March. We have built a social media relationship and, although one might think that a relationship launched on social media site is nothing more than two people trying to “one-up” each other, it’s far more.

Social media has given me the opportunity to meet someone who I would never have met. It is that profound gratitude that encourages me to build my professional network. I don’t “follow” every educator just to increase my Twitter numbers; I am drawn to a select few who have the same question I do: What can we learn from each other that will help us to support our students?

I have no doubt that Robert and I will meet someday, maybe at a conference in Milwaukee, a workshop in Los Angeles, or a vacation to the west coast or Midwest. We’ll laugh, listen, learn, and lead, remembering that it all began with a “like”!

Peg Grafwallner is an instructional coach with Milwaukee Public Schools. Learn more about Peg on her website.

I began a new position as a district literacy coach this fall after 13 years as an elementary school teacher.

How did I get here?

It’s largely thanks to the International Literacy Association (ILA), which helps educators move from teacher to leader by facilitating teacher growth through open dialogue about literacy and a commitment to increasing literacy in their communities.

I first heard the title literacy coach while studying for my master’s in literacy education at Teachers College. However, it was my membership and involvement with ILA that inspired me to become one. I joined ILA in December 2014 and two months later received my first copy of The Reading Teacher. For several days I proudly displayed the journal on my coffee table, too excited to open it. Then on a cold and sunny winter morning, I sat down, coffee in hand, picked up the journal and began to explore. Enthralled, I read page after page.

In “View From the Chalkboard,” teachers welcomed us into their classrooms. I knew I wanted to do that; I wanted to share. A month later, my first-ever article was accepted for publication. I wrote about my experiences with classroom talk, a practice that transforms a collection of students into a community.

ILA allowed my voice to be heard and made me realize teachers as leaders matter.

That was a big moment for me. I changed my focus from being an elementary school teacher for a classroom of students to becoming a teacher leader. I was motivated to dig deeper and find ways to connect with other teachers and make an even greater impact on students’ achievement in literacy. In March 2015, I received my first copy of Literacy Today. I gazed at its full-page advertisement for the ILA conference in St. Louis. I wrote a letter to my administrator requesting funding, it was approved, and off I went. During my four days at the conference, my brain was buzzing with new ways to make a difference.

After returning, I ran into my principal’s office holding a book I purchased at the conference, telling her how it can help teachers with feedback and goal setting. “Why don’t you give a Lunch and Learn?” she said with a smile. My principal shaped my professional learning plan and, by November, I was surrounded by a group of 15 teachers who all wanted to connect, learn, and grow. Their enthusiasm encouraged me to expand and share with teachers across our district.

I returned from the ILA conference in Boston in July, this time focusing on literacy leadership and engaging classroom instruction. After hearing Linda Gambrell of Clemson University at the Research Institute, I was inspired to embark on a yearlong mission to increase students’ reading motivation through access, relevance, and choice. I participated in sessions on mind-set, making learning visible, coaching for growth, and thinking like a leader.

With ILA by my side, I am learning to be a leader who creates knowledge along with administrators, principals, teachers, parents, and students, to be a literacy coach who designs a space with love, hope, trust, and humility.

From teacher to leader, that is how I came to be here.

Staci Kaplan, an ILA member since 2014, is a literacy coach for Summit Public Schools in New Jersey. Along with crediting ILA for guiding her in her career, she is also very thankful for the support and guidance of Lauren Banker, principal of Washington Elementary School in Summit.

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2016 issue of Literacy Today, ILA’s member magazine.