For decades, there has been a hyper focus on instruction in kindergarten through 3rd grade, and with reason. The developmental timeframe of laying the foundation for students to grow into strong readers and mathematicians is crucial. Attention to the details of the needed appropriate, whole child approaches to these early years of learning should continue with hyper focus. And…. we need to add the same hyper focus to the needs of our upper-grade students. For decades, curriculum is bought and sold with a microscopic lens on how it teaches kids in grades K-3. Keen detail is given to its alignment to evidence in research in these grades. Legislation is written based on what programs some groups decide are worthy of purchase based on K-3 approaches. The cycle of analyzing and purchasing curriculum based on the needs of K-3 continues decade after decade while people scratch their heads about why kids in 8th grade have lower than desired comprehension scores.
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Teachers have long understood the powerful role novels can play when incorporated into their ELA block.
However, with state mandates prompting an increase in adoption of basal programs, novels are being quietly pushed out of classrooms in districts that are demanding strict fidelity of the adopted basal. With this approach, the ELA block is dominated by short stories and passages. While there is strong evidence and need for students to engage in a wide variety of texts, including short passages, the absence of novels is proving to be detrimental to a crucial part of student learning- deep engagement. When students are actively involved and interested in their learning, they are more likely to develop strong literacy skills that will serve them well throughout their academic career and beyond. This podcast does an excellent job of reviewing the research and explaining the need for teachers to adjust their approach to ensure students have time in the day to build a love for reading. One effective way to boost student engagement in literacy is through the use of novels. By introducing students to a wide range of genres and themes through a balanced integration of short passages and novels, educators can spark student interest and curiosity, making the learning experience more enjoyable and memorable. This engagement with literature can significantly improve students' reading comprehension, vocabulary, and critical thinking skills. So how do teachers do this? This year, my class showed tremendous growth. While I do have a record of strong growth on measures like iReady and State Tests- even I haven't seen growth quite like this.
On Twitter I simplified it all to a point of - "I used novels." - but wow was it so much more than that. So here is a brain dump of this year, what it was, the supports we had and how to maybe replicate it (**Maybe as every great educator knows results are hard to replicate and are so dependent on the year, the kids and what they need.) Here's a look at my class- simplified into one chart based on one test. We had a new student join us in April- she scored "light green" in the end of the year and is the one untested in the beginning of the year. Top look- Beginning of the year results and bottom- end of year placements. On social media, I see a lot of comparisons between the teaching profession and others.
Like... WOULD U EXPECT A MUSICIAN TO WRITE THEIR OWN MATERIAL?! Actually ya. The musicians we respect most in fact do write their own music. MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS DON'T JUST IGNORE RESEARCH Actually, research on menopause & standard care treatment has been largely ignored for decades? It's an issue largely talked about and ignored. But teaching and learning isn't like any other profession. Truly. I think the closest analogy we can get to is health and nutrition. It is a lot like that in some ways. We know, and have always known, more or less what we need to do to achieve our own optimal health. Eat a balanced, whole food diet. Exercise regularly. Sounds simple enough? And yet the health and fitness industry is a multi-billion dollar industry with advise swinging wildly from one extreme to another. Eat a strict vegan diet some might say. No no! Its all about Keto! No Paleo! No no... 80% veggies 20% meat and absolutely no sugar. Its all about the Mediterranean Diet girl. What should you do in regards to exercise? Oh that is simple. Walk 10k steps a day. Definitely increase cardio. Decrease cardio and lift heavy! Run. A lot. Don't run a lot but do at least 5 days of HIIT workouts. Do not do HIIT, just lift heavy weights but like... sometimes also cardio. The contradictory advise is enough to make your head spin. And it's not far from what teachers hear constantly. We know what kids need. In 2001, what kids need was put together in this now once again incredibly popular concept known as Scarborough's Rope. I have been lucky to have been surrounded by incredible talent throughout my two decade career as a teacher. The teachers I know have a skill level worthy of awards. The work they do every day in their classroom is incredible and truly changes lives. Despite this truth, one thing that continues to strike me as odd is the persistent presence in educators of what some might call Imposter Syndrome, the internal belief that despite evidence of success, one maybe really isn't truly successful. It is defined as the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills. This false belief runs rampant in educations and is a symptom of a society that demands expertise in the field but refuses to treat the professionals as the experts.
No matter how successful, knowledgeable or acclaimed a teacher is, society continues to paint the opposite picture. If it isn't being done blatantly in the press, even implicitly painting teachers as lesser than, not capable of the intellectual prowess needed to make the right type of decisions to ensure student success is damaging to the entire system. Teachers constantly are painted as being weak minded. The trust in decision making is taken away from them and more often than not, the media and journalists suggest important decisions should be "left in the hands of experts." Are teachers somehow not the experts? There are a lot of mixed feelings in education in regards to the use of AI. But its time for the conversation to move beyond "kids use it to cheat," and "it might replace teachers!" We need to move on towards discussing and finding ways to best implement it. Love it or hate it, AI is here and it's here to stay.
From the Teacher Lens Approach with Caution The Cons - AI is still in its beginning stages and it is flawed. From the perspective of using it as a professional and through the lens of allowing students access to it considering the following.
The Pros-Overall, AI can be used as a tool to save time on tasks that can be automated to then move focus to student engagement, interaction, and building lessons that are both authentic and engaging to student learning. Align to the Science of Reading For many teaching professionals, the Science of Reading has created a strong shift in their teaching. A shift that requires materials that sometimes, at least in upper grades, are not engaging, not relevant, or simply non existence. AI provides teachers with a tool to quickly provide resources to use in the classroom. Need a list of words that match the morpheme you are teaching? Done. Basal Reader Program and its lack of alignment to actual evidence based practice got you down? Feeling overwhelmed and confused by click paths? Unsure how to reframe culturally destructive passages in ways that will benefit all children? (Okay for this one... just throw those passages out. Unapologetically. I will be writing a post soon for 4th grade on how and what to replace)
Same. So I decided to start this series- a survival guide if you will. To start- here are some free, supplemental resources specifically for areas that Into Reading is lacking.: (And 100 things that kept this working momma of a kindergartner and newborn sane!)Hurray! It's the 100th day of school! Which of course means we made it... someone give us a gold medal... We survived 100 days of distance learning. How? I don't know either but here we go... A list of 100 things that helped get us through. (Pictured - My daughter's work space/classroom/left over decorations from her birthday party. What a fun way to celebrate our 100 days of this thing we call Distance Learning!)
This year is hard. I am thankful for all of the teachers out there helping other teachers with free resources so will be posting resources I’m using in my distance learning classroom online! Checkout the Distance Learning Resources tab for all of the resources I have been dependent on and some of the resources I have created. Most of these resources are in hyperdoc form!
Enjoy! If you like my resources, I was going to add a buy me a coffee link but instead, buy one of your teacher friends who needs some extra love some coffee. This year is HARD. Teachers need each other to get through 😭❤️❤️❤️🥰 For in person resources, more of my resources are on Teachers Pay Teachers for cheap, if not free. When I started my career, everything in my classroom was purchased by 23 year old me out of pocket. I strive to price my materials fairly keeping that in mind and post things for free whenever I can! All of my resources are things I created and use in my own classroom. To the parent making impossible decisions as the start of school approaches...
I feel you. This is impossible. As a parent, spring distance learning felt like the 7th ring of hell and I am here to tell you every educator in the country felt the same pain. But we need to all acknowledge some truths. That was not distance learning. That was not caused by a lack of training. That was not caused by a system that failed due to incompetencies. What we all felt was a sudden, unexpected, unprecedented global trauma caused by a pandemic. The world was turned upside down overnight, without warning, without any way to prepare and that left us all (especially our kids) spinning in disbelief. Even the best distance learning system would have failed under those conditions and here is why. 1 - Children cannot learn when they are in a state of trauma. There is a strong, ever growing body of evidence indicating all of the reasons a child cannot access academic learning when they are in a heightened state of stress. When schools were abruptly shut down with no warning, our kids were processing their own grief over the loss of their normal and were processing their anxieties over global issues that are far to large for children to process all at once. We were all experiencing the same global trauma. As a teacher here is what I saw every single day during our daily zoom call.
All kids thrive on routine. This was ripped away from them suddenly and unexpectedly. Again, we all woke up one morning to the news that school buildings were closed and our reality was now some new uncharted world that felt like chaos. My kids missed their routine. They spent August-March learning and perfecting a routine that worked for them and their style of learning inside of a classroom. They knew exactly what to expect and when. They had made leaps and bounds of growth... and then BAM- covid threw a brick wall in front of them. They now had to learn a new routine somehow set by one adult who somehow had to coordinate 30 other family schedules during a global pandemic in which every. single. family was struggling to make things work at home, while working, with kids, who were expected to learn through a computer. I offered resources and suggestions to set schedules that resembled some sense of normal but there simply was not a way to meet every family's needs and to make a consistent and coherent plan that worked for every family. Families were exhausted, they were scared, they were fighting through what we now call Corona-fatigue and the emotional chaos caused by the rug being ripped out from underneath us without warning. We were all thrown into an impossible situation. There was no was schooling was going to survive through it. So as educators, administrators across the country came up with the best on the fly solutions that they could to meet the various needs of families who were now collectively facing the crisis caused by the pandemic shut down.
How did anyone expect all of that to go WELL in spring. Of course it failed. But parents, I assure you, this isn't spring learning any more. I see parent's now fleeing their public school for online schools or homeschooling options with an expectation of coming back to in person learning when things get safe but here are some realities to consider before you do that. The assumption is that spring failed because of teachers. Not because of the collective trauma we all experienced. Before you do that I urge you to consider the following.
Regardless of what you choose, know that you are making the best decision for your family. It is a hard, impossible decision to make. We are all doing our best and when this is all over... our kids will be okay. |
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"The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see." - Alexandra K. Trenfor |