Literacy Now

The day before an Informal Reading Inventory (IRI), I always spend a class period getting to know the student. This provides me with insights that support my questions and decisions during the assessment, but it also helps students to relax as we learn about one another. During our conversation, Diego, a seventh grader, told me that he “hates” reading and never reads outside of school. He looked away from me when he muttered, “I’m going to fail this year. I can’t do the work.”

Near the end of our discussion, I asked Diego, “How can I help you with reading?” Ending with this question always provides information because most middle-grade students know why reading challenges them. However, they don’t talk about their deficits, unless asked.

“Words,” he said. “Gimme words. I don’t have words to understand the books.” Diego was on target, for the results of the IRI placed him at a beginning fourth-grade instructional level. Moreover, Diego’s vocabulary gap would continue to widen unless his teachers motivated him to read 30–40 self-selected books on topics that interest him. Choice in independent reading, along with expert instruction, could help Diego narrow his vocabulary gap while improving his reading skill.

Results from a 2012 study completed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—known as the Nation’s Report Card—compared vocabulary scores and reading comprehension scores and found a tight correlation between vocabulary and comprehension. Students who scored high in comprehension also scored high on vocabulary.

Most developing readers have a vocabulary gap similar to Diego’s and are instructionally two or more years below grade level. In addition to reading self-selected books with ease and enjoyment, it’s equally important to have daily vocabulary instruction relating to materials students use in every subject. Use daily 10–15-minute vocabulary lessons to do the following:

• Preteach words that don’t have strong context clues in the text. Make the learning active and create a sentence with each word that will enable students to figure out meaning as it’s used in the text.
• Avoid teaching one word. Words are part of networks: synonyms, antonyms, concepts, families, and multiple forms of a word. For example, the word in a text is transfixed. Have students build a network of synonyms such as fascinated, marveled, enchanted, enthralled, and captivated.
• Model how you use context to figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words. Then ask students to practice. Discovering the meaning of a word using context clues ensures that students will pinpoint the word’s meaning as it’s used in the text.
• Help students learn figurative language. They can use it to deepen their comprehension of texts by connecting the figure of speech to a theme, big idea, conflict, and so on.

As you plan vocabulary lessons, consider using this structure:

• Title of the Vocabulary Lesson: states the lesson’s focus
• Goals: explains the aims you want to achieve
• Texts: use an excerpt from a literary or informational text that’s part of or relates to your curriculum to make the connection between word learning and comprehension concrete
• Materials: texts that students need to complete the lesson

Collaborate and plan lessons with colleagues on your grade-level team or in the same department. I’m hoping that you will include daily 10–15-minute active-learning lessons that can enlarge students’ general academic and domain-specific vocabulary and reverse the vocabulary deficits of developing readers. Remember to encourage independent reading of self-selected books, for this is the reading achievement accelerator. Be sure to create possible scaffolds or adjustments to the lesson that meet English learners and special education students where they are and gently nudge them forward.

The lesson should involve students reading a complex text, engaging them in paired discussions of the text and the vocabulary, asking partners to share their thinking with the entire class, write the word’s forms and multiple meanings, use the word in a sentence to show an understanding of the word, or find synonyms and antonyms.

Using a mix of explicit teacher instruction, shared reading, collaboration,
and independent work can lead to shrinking the vocabulary gap for middle grade students who “hate reading.”

Laura Robb is the author of several classic books on literacy, including the Smart Writing series and Teaching Middle School Writers. With more than four decades of teaching experience, she conducts professional development workshops throughout the United States. 

Robb will present a session entitled “Vocabulary Is the Key to Comprehending Complex Texts: Teaching Consistent Daily Word Lessons” on Saturday, July 18, at the ILA 2015 Conference in St. Louis, MO, July 18–20. This session will show the relationship between students' vocabulary and their ability to comprehend grade-level, complex texts. Visit the ILA 2015 Conference website for more information or to register.

For years, children who witnessed domestic violence were not viewed as victims themselves though domestic violence advocates, researchers, and counselors recognized what the children witnessed was absolutely terrible.

Recently, researchers uncovered the detrimental effects domestic violence can unleash and that these children are not just witnesses but also victims. With that in mind, as educators we need to be prepared to teach children who are victims of domestic violence or children suffering from any trauma. Like a carpenter who has many tools, teachers also need many tools, or strategies, to best teach children traumatized from domestic violence.

Many areas of a child’s well-being are affected as a result of trauma, and functioning in school will be a huge hurdle, but there are helpful reading and language strategies to employ for children traumatized in any situation, particularly children who are victims of domestic violence.

Children of trauma may struggle with any activity related to sequencing. Sequencing stories, patterns in mathematics, the writing process, and oral communication can all be hampered for a child victim of a traumatic event. Timelines can be an excellent tool to help a child struggling with sequencing during the reading process. Using graphic organizers to organize writing for the writing process is another effective way to support sequencing skills. Comic strips also can be used to help with sequencing; by cutting the frames apart, students can then arrange them in the correct order.

Expressive language skills may be a cause for setback in children traumatized by domestic violence as well. Children affected by domestic violence are often not in homes where expressive language was valued or used in a healthy manner; therefore, proper modeling of positive expressive language may have not be a priority. Because verbal expression could be challenging, the writing process, subsequently, could be difficult, as this is an extension of children’s inability to express themselves.

Again, graphic organizers could be used to most effectively support students in their writing skills in the classroom. Proper modeling for using graphic organizers will guarantee that children are using these tools successfully. Providing or supporting students to design their own dictionary of words to use in their writing and speaking vocabulary will also provide support as they develop their expressive language skills.

Receptive language is another area of distress and struggle for children of trauma. Because of their heightened anxiety and looming fear of, even in a safe environment, students will struggle to process and respond to classroom language and reading tasks. Other reading tasks that could be difficult include visualizing, making connections with the text, for example, determining inferences and deciphering the author’s meaning. Visual task cards can help students suffering from receptive language difficulties while allowing comprehension of written directions. Each card can be turned over as the direction or task is completed. Designating a student the job of “summarizer” is another tool that can be used to strengthen receptive language skills. The job of a summarizer is to explain or repeat directions the teacher provides throughout the day.

Teachers need to be able to identify a child suffering from trauma and, with the collaboration of school counselors and other education professionals, use strategies to support a positive learning experience for children who are victims of domestic violence or trauma. Many tools are needed to support these children and help them find success emotionally, psychologically, and cognitively in school, and these are just a few that can be added to the toolbox, ready to employ at any time. With proper intervention, child victims of domestic violence or children affected by trauma can succeed in school.

Colleen Lelli is an assistant professor of education and the Pre-K–4 Special Education Program Coordinator at Cabrini College in Pennsylvania. Lelli earned a bachelor's degree from Cabrini College, a master’s degree from Arcadia University, and a doctorate degree from Widener University.

Lelli will present a session entitled “Using Children’s Literature to Help Traumatized Children Heal” on Saturday, July 18, at the ILA 2015 Conference in St. Louis, MO, July 18–20. This session will explore ways children's literature can be used to foster learning for children who have been traumatized and are struggling to learn. Visit the ILA 2015 Conference website for more information or to register.

A few short years ago, I had the opportunity to work as a middle school reading specialist. My role was to work with students who were not qualifying for special services but still demonstrating a need for reading intervention. On this particular day, one of my sixth-grade students had neglected to visit my office. This wasn’t unusual for Jordan. Jordan could remember what shoes I wore last Tuesday, but not once had she remembered a reading intervention session. To be fair, Jordan forgot most school-related information, but she was very knowledgeable about fashionable footwear.

About 10 minutes into the class period, I was in the doorway of her classroom. Students were busily writing in yellow packets of questions, textbooks open. The teacher looked relieved to see me. “Jordan is a bit behind in her study guide,” she told me. “Can you help her catch up in your time together?” She smiled hopefully, and I mentally threw out the close reading lesson I had planned for Jordan. Monitor and adjust.

Jordan, visibly thrilled with opportunity to escape the room during a reading assignment, grabbed her textbook and her yellow packet and practically danced to the door.

On our way back to my office space, I had a conversation with Jordan that would forever change how I approached my work with students and with staff.

“So, Jordan, what are you learning in class today?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Calories.”

I smiled. “Yes, but what are you learning about calories?”

Jordan stopped and looked at me with sympathy. Poor teacher. So uninformed. So inexperienced.

“It’s OK, Mrs. Scullen. We don’t have to understand it, we just have to do the worksheets.”

I stopped walking and contemplated this revelation. We consistently teach students to read for understanding. How could it be that Jordan had such a deeply ingrained misconception?

Suddenly I understood why Jordan couldn’t remember what she’d read, why she couldn’t participate in a discussion of what she was learning, and why her completion of packets didn’t translate to higher grades. Understanding was not her goal.

I began asking my other students about the work they were required to do with open textbooks, and I found that Jordan’s peers had similar views. Reading was a hunt for the answer the teacher expected, not a search for understanding.

Jordan and her peers were performing what I started to call “pasteurized” (past-your-eyes’d) reading. When students were reading, the words went “past their eyes” but stayed on the page. Students’ purpose for reading was to find the answers. Compliance in the task meant that their eyes saw every word. Students had somehow missed the notion that textbook reading had a purpose, and that understanding was the goal.

This mindset, not unusual for many students, highlighted the need for teachers’ modeling of their own thinking during reading. It presented a strong reason to provide multiple opportunities for close reading across genres and text types, and for providing students with the opportunity to discuss and use what they learn in class. It highlighted a need for authentic reading tasks. It forced me, and my colleagues, to change the way we framed questions and had an impact on the rigor with which we asked them.
Years later, I have Jordan to thank for changing the way I approach teaching students to approach nonfiction text, and the way I guide teachers in professional development.

Incidentally, her shoes were pink that day. Mine were brown.

Julie Scullen is a former president of the Minnesota Reading Association and Minnesota Secondary Reading Interest Council and is a current member of the International Literacy Association Board of Directors. She taught most of her career in Secondary Reading Intervention classrooms and now serves as Teaching and Learning Specialist for Secondary Reading in Anoka-Hennepin schools in Minnesota, working with teachers of all content areas to foster literacy achievement. She teaches graduate courses at Hamline University in St. Paul in literacy leadership and coaching, as well as reading assessment and evaluation.

Teachers know the texts they choose for students to read in school serve myriad purposes and offer students various opportunities. One of these opportunities is for students to immerse themselves in the experiences and worlds of the characters they find in the pages of a book. Students read about people and places different from what they’ve experienced; their eyes open to new worlds, and their knowledge and views expanded. When a book is written well, students can get inside the world of characters, empathize with their experiences, and feel like they are in those characters’ minds and worlds. Even if the characters in the book are different in time and context, students can find connections to experiences in their own lives.

Take, for example, a student reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women in her seventh-grade language arts class. In the pages of the book, she finds herself identifying with the romantic ups and downs the March girls experience. Perhaps, on the basis of a current or past relationship, she identifies with the tension between Meg and Jo—two girls in love with the same man. Now, let’s turn to another student in this same class. As the class reads Gary Soto’s poem “Oranges” aloud, he identifies with the tentative touches, the treasured moments of a 12-year-old boy walking on a chilly night with his girl—his attention to the corners of the girl’s smile, the light in her eyes, holding her hand in his.

These are the aesthetic experiences students have that can build a love for reading. What may be less evident to the teacher of this seventh-grade class is that the story and poem above reflect one particular reality and experience with which these two students are able to identify with—young love, specifically young, heterosexual love. Many teachers are not aware of the ways in which the texts they use in their classes, those that are considered staples or classics and those in the Common Core’s Appendix B (like Little Women and “Oranges”) maintain an atmosphere of heteronormativity in schools, extending and perpetuating the same status quo that lies outside the school walls.

Although this may not be intentional, by presenting heterosexual identity and relationships as the norm and “what is,” any other form of love is consequently set up as “other,” not normal, and even unacceptable. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and queer (LGBTQ) students, the feelings and experiences they have often aren’t valued or reflected in the books they read. At the same time, LGBTQ identity is often maligned in and out of school; LGBTQ students are subject to slurs and bullying in school, while outside school many decry their identities as sinful, abnormal, a threat to constructed social norms. Although some LGBTQ students may have family who support them, others may not have revealed their identity or may not have support in their home. School should be a place where every individual feels valued, included, supported, and safe. The literature teachers assign can provide a modicum of safety and small—albeit important—opportunities to experience acceptance.

Incorporating texts that reflect the experiences of LGBTQ students is a way that teachers can be supportive of LGBTQ students and contribute to a school environment that validates their identities and values their experiences. For heterosexual students, reading books with LGBTQ characters can help them expand their understanding of the nonheterosexual experience and build empathy, contributing to a safer and more open school environment.

For teachers, however, choosing and incorporating texts with LGBTQ characters may be challenging or problematic. Aside from concerns teachers have about approval from school administrators and parents, how to choose texts and how to integrate them within existing curricula, and possible discomfort with the topic on the basis of personal beliefs, religious or otherwise, is another issue. Few teachers, in their preservice experiences, spend significant (or any) time learning about addressing the needs of LGBTQ students and how to make curricular choices that make the classroom an equitable, positive, and safe space for these students.

Many teacher education programs spend significant time discussing the importance of embracing diversity and developing culturally responsive teachers, but most often such focus on diversity is situated in contexts of race, ethnicity, language, and culture. Diversity of sexual orientation is less often a focus in preservice teacher education because, in many cases, it is still an uncomfortable topic for students and teachers. This is all the more reason that teacher educators need to step up to the plate to bring preservice teachers into conversations about the LGBTQ students who will be in their future classes.

How can we expect the teachers we are sending out into the world to be prepared to make curricular choices to incorporate LGBTQ texts in their classrooms if we don’t make this an explicit focus in our teacher preparation programs? The responsibility of making the school and classroom a safe, welcoming, and affirming space for LGBTQ students is not a responsibility that rests just on the teachers in those classrooms. Such a space needs to be cultivated and built long before our teachers step into the classroom. Everyone in the education community—especially the teacher educators who are preparing tomorrow’s teachers—has a role to play in disrupting the heteronormative environment in schools and truly embracing diversity in all its forms. Let’s begin making LGBTQ issues an explicit issue of diversity and social justice that we discuss and act on in all our teacher education programs.

Autumn M. Dodge worked as an assistant professor in Literacy at St. Bonaventure, NY for two years and will start as assistant professor in literacy at St. John’s University, NY in Fall 2015. Her teaching and research interests include issues of social justice in education, especially addressing, recognizing, and integrating LGBTQ identities and experiences in the classroom; using multiple text types, including YA literature, across content areas to richly address CCSS; and examining student self-efficacy in varied reading contexts.

Dodge will present a session entitled “Using ‘Linked Text Sets’ Examples to Integrate LGBTQ Perspectives in Inclusive Literacy Classrooms” on Monday, July 20, at the ILA 2015 Conference in St. Louis, MO, July 18–20. This session will provide concrete examples of linked text sets that meet CCSS goals, promote equity and diversity, support LGBTQ identities, and integrate LGBTQ experiences. Visit the ILA 2015 Conference website for more information or to register.

Sometimes I feel as though I am on a lifelong quest to find my Zen. I am constantly trying to figure out ways to balance work and family, to maybe squeeze in some exercise, to take feel more positive about the challenges in front of me, to focus on all that I do have and, you know, take the occasional deep breath. Oh, and napping. I’m always trying to figure out where that goes.

As teachers, we are kid watchers. We diligently study our students each and every day in order to develop ways to best meet their needs. As a result, we often can’t help ourselves from noticing all that our students aren’t able to do—yet. We notice struggles, pay attention to difficulties, and try to diagnose why our friends cannot seem to do whatever-it-is more independently. This is a slippery slope, because it can quickly lead to thinking of our students through the lens of their deficits, not their capabilities.

When you see what your students need, flip your point of view to think about what is the next logical step for your students as learners. Set small goals. For example, your students may not be able to read for 20 minutes, but they can read for 10, so why not shoot for 11? One friend may struggle to engage with stories, but he is motivated by informational text. Let’s start there and celebrate that.

If we determine that our students are currently unable to reach a goal, it is our responsibility to simultaneously unearth what they are doing well so we have a starting point for our work, by emphasizing what they can accomplish and setting small milestones to move them slowly but surely toward that larger goal. We can celebrate growth and promote increased student independence. It is a win-win, people!

Let’s not forget how we view ourselves either. With all of the end-of-the-year demands, it might feel hard to breathe, much less tackle the enormous number of tasks that lie before you, as the days count themselves down to the bitter end. We start thinking of all we can’t possibly accomplish, haven’t done, don’t have time for, won’t be able to complete. Again we emphasize deficits, not possibilities. Instead of thinking, “Ugh, I have to get all my portfolios organized today” try thinking, “Today I get to put together evidence of all my students have accomplished and check a major to-do off my list.” Rather than avoid reorganizing your classroom library because it is a BEAST of a project, try setting aside 15 minutes a day to tackle this (or any other behemoth end-of-the-year project) a little at a time. You can do anything for 15 minutes. Especially to a killer playlist.

So enjoy your summer. Sit by a pool. Sleep in. Watch bad re-runs on TV and catch up on your magazine reading. Maybe clean out the closet that has been giving you the stink eye. Rest. Then begin anew your quest for Zen—next year is all possibility!

Mrs. Mimi, aka Jennifer Scoggin, is a teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of Be Fabulous: The Reading Teacher's Guide to Reclaiming Your Happiness in the Classroom and It's Not All Flowers and Sausages: My Adventures in Second Grade, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.