A million years ago when I was on my first practicum at Cornwall Park Primary School in Auckland, I was lucky enough to see Jill Eggleton take a few of their staff meetings about literacy. And that was when I fell in love with her and her literacy approach. As literacy leader at a previous school, I ordered a lot of her books for the students as they have strong language and engage the kids.
Recently I have been talking with a junior teacher at our school who is doing a masters in literacy and she reminded me about Jill's book Lighting the Literacy Fire . I had read the first version of this book ages ago when I was still at teachers college so it was about time that I read the new version again, particularly because I am changing to a year level I haven't taught in years.
I actually got a lot more out of it then I thought I would. It basically tells you how to set up your literacy programme to ensure that you have a good oral language programme, writing programme and reading programme. Of course I was doing a lot of these things already but there were things that I was reminded about - like the current events shared reading (I am totally doing that next year).
The writing programme chapter had some good tips about 'writing with' students so I have recorded some ideas that I would like to implement next year and that I will hopefully blog about on here then.
This book is definately worth a read or a re-read. I got a lot out of it and I can see how all of the Jill Eggleton reading resources tie in to her approach. We have her resources in the school so I am looking forward to using them with my new year 4 class.
At teachers college (Auckland College of Education) I remember watching this clip (or video as it would have been back then) and I was in awe of this child-centred approach to education. It helped me form part of my own teaching philosophy.
As I reflect on where we are going with education in New Zealand, it is with great sadness that we are heading back towards such a prescriptive curriculum and away from Elwyn Richardson's idea that learning should be child-centred. Richardson's approach to education involved an integrated curriculum, values education, inquiry learning, philosophy, te reo Māori and creative thinking. He used the local environement and what was important to the children as his context for teaching.
Education is changing in New Zealand but I believe we need to ensure that we put the child at the centre and do what is best for them, not force them to meet standards that they may or may not be ready to meet.
I would love to buy a copy of his book The Early World . If I'm honest with myself, in the last few years I have moved away from a child-centred approach mainly due to time constraints and expectations that have been placed on us by National Standards. My goal for next year is to bring this approach back into my classroom so that my practice reflects my own beliefs about teaching.
We were given this reading earlier in the year and I have just gotten around to reading it now (while one of my student teachers called out the words for the Vernon Spelling test). There are so many things I want to read and not enough time. This was just a one page article from the Education Review series so it was a quick and easy read. It is based on the research of Ian Evans and Shane Harvey who used this research to write a book called Warming the Emotional Climate of the Primary School Classroom. As a teacher I try to create postive individual reltionships with all my students but it can be tough to give them all the time they deserve so we must create a positive classroom climate. The article outlined some basic principles for building the emotional climate in your class. These are:
Set clear boundaries.
Act in a fair manner.
Be aware of, acknowledge, and label your own feelings.
Acknowledge and affirm the child's feelings.
Set high standards and expectations.
View emotions as 'teachable moments'.
Avoid punitive tactics, put-downs, sarcasm, and criticism without specifying the positive altermnatives.
Be self-accepting, confident, and secure.
Remain calm - your emotional state is mirrored by students.
Develop student support.
Talk through emotional situations.
Be emotionally available.
Accept and emphathise with how students feel.
Listen with interest.
When I reflect on this list I can see things that I already do but I can see some things that I would like to work on further. As I think forward to next year and how I would like my class to be, I think I am going to start viewing emotions as 'teachable moments' and to talk through emotional situations with students. I feel these goals will lead nicely into the PB4L initiative that the school will possibly be taking on. I haven't quite yet thought about how I am going to do this but I already know that I will tie it into our virtues.
At this stage my professional reading list is pretty long but I would like to add this book to it to help me reflect on my practice and to check the emotional climate of my classroom.
Chapter 3 - CAFE Step-by-Step: The First Days of School
At the beginning of the year, the CAFE board should be up with the headings posted, but no strategies on the board. This is because the children's learning must be anchored to the strategy prior to it being posted. The menu highlights the strategies most likely to be introduced by the end of the year with primary students. Examine the CAFE menu, look at your curriculum, and determine what strategies you feel are most essential to your students' learning. Keep in mind student assessment will also impact this decision.
I believe that all the strategies on the menu are essential for my students' learning. They all link to the New Zealand curriculum and what I would expect of a reader in my class. Of course not all students will need to work on them all but the running record data and OTJs will provide evidence of what strategies should be taught.
Pages 30-37 highlight three different strategy lessons used on day 1. Read and discuss what you notice taking place during these lessons. Pages 31-32 list possible choices for 1st day read-alouds. What texts will you use on the first day?
During these lessons, the teacher is modelling to the class the strategies being introduced. A new strategy is added each read-aloud but the teacher continues to model previous strategies. When a strategy is introduced it is recorded and placed onto the CAFE menu. When the teacher is talking about that particular strategy they point at the board to anchor it in the students' head.
Pages 39-47 introduce the seven steps from assessment to instruction. Keeping the assessment you currently use in mind, read through these pages and reflect on what this will look like for you.
To assess individual students, I will complete a running record and conference with them about their reading likes/dislikes etc. I envision having a discussion with the students about their running record results. From this we will be able to set goals using the CAFE menu. I would expect students to be able to discuss their goals with their parents, classmates and other visitors to our class. My conference book will have documentation and anecdotal notes that support our discussions and noticings. Students can then be grouped according to their reading needs rather than their reading ages (while still reading texts at a suitable level). Therefore instruction is aimed at what the student specifically needs to work on.
You will need to have a structure in place for the whole class while you are working with students individually.
I will use the Daily Five literacy structure. It has worked for me for the last five years and I absolutely love it and the results speak for themselves. I am going to re-read the Daily FIve book before the end of the year (for the fifth time) as I am changing year levels and it will be good to rehash and reflect.
It is often helpful to have a list such as the one above when using the seven steps the first few times. Practise this process with 2-3 students and then reflect on what took place. What did you learn about the students? How does this process differ from your past practice? What benefits do you forsee will come from using this process, along with the conferring notebook?
Well since it's term 4 I wont be trying this out this year but I will definately try it and reflect on it early next year.
Chapter 2 - The CAFE Notebook and Record-Keeping Forms
The beginning of Chapter 2 gives a glimpse of the different methods Gail and Joan have tried in keeping anecdotal records. What do you currently use to keep record of student progress? What are the benefits and challenges of what you currently do?
In the past I have used a notebook as per this book but I changed systems when I moved to a new school to work in line with what they were doing. This involves placing anecdotal notes next to planning. The challenges of this is that when I go to write reports it can be difficult to find notes on each students, with the notebook each student has their own page which makes it easier to find notes on them when conferencing and writing reports. A benefit of doing it this way is it makes it easier for planning the next lesson. I think I would like to go back to setting up my notebook like Gail and Joan suggest as it will help with students setting their own goals and for me being able to quickly find notes and next steps for each individual student. Reading this chapter helps with understanding what is to be included in the conferring notebook, however just as we use hands on teaching with our students, it helps us solidify new information when we are hands on ourselves, It would be most beneficial to the reader to find a binder, use the CD in the back of the book to print the correct forms, and put together a conferring notebook for use in the classroom.
I already have one set up but I think I would like to make a new one but a pretty folder and possibly a bigger folder as last time it got quite full and the clips struggled to hold it.
I've decided to re-read "The CAFE Book" by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. It has been a few years since I initially read it and I was happy with how I implemented in into my class but I have come to realise that old habits are sneaking back in and mainly (confession time!!) it's because it is easier for me and not for the benefit of my students - I guess we can all relate to that at some stage of our career. But I want to do what's right for my students so I'm going to spend this school holidays re-reading and refreshing my reading programme.
The questions I am answering for each chapter come from the CAFE Book Study that appears on the 2 Sister's website. Chapter 1 - Introduction: The Beginnings of the CAFE Menu Assessment System
Reflect on your current teaching practice. How do you differentiate reading instruction for your students to ensure each child is receiving instruction at their level?
Reading instruction in my classroom is ability grouped according to instructional reading age. While this makes choosing a text easy, it becomes difficult when there are a variety of needs within that one group. For example, one student may need to work on fluency, another may need to work on decoding strategies and another might need to work on inferring or making connections.
What reading assessment do you currently use? How do you use this assessment to inform your instruction and set student goals? he indi The school requires that we use PM Benchmark kits for students reading under 8 years of age and PROBE for those reading above this. We also have students complete the STAR reading test twice a year (middle and end - although I would love to just do it and the beginning and end of the year as the data would be more useful). This data is used to form my ability groups based on their chronological reading age. I also note down areas to focus on for each student, such as fluency, decoding, comprehension areas etc. Students then have this information shared with them and set their own goals. At the moment their reading goals tend to be around reading mileage rather than what they need to work on but as they gain more knowledge about the strategies that good readers use, this should change.
The CAFE Menu of strategies reflects the skills we've researched and used in our own classrooms. Look through the strategies on the menu. Reflect.
I would agree with the strategies on the menu. They tie in with the work of Alison Davies and Sheena Cameron. I have recently started doing shared reading with my class a lot more (other than the poem of the week) and this has helped build up the student's confidence with the strategies that good readers use. I will post an example of a shared reading lesson at a later date. As I have struggled to be able to fit all of these strategies into my teaching programme I have decided to come back and re-read this book to see what changes I can make to do better.
Pages 6-8 highlight the core elements of the CAFE system: the conferring notebook, the individual conferences, small-group instruction, and purposeful whole group instruction. How does this compare to your current reading block?
I have a conferring notebook (confession time - I don't use it - eeekkkk) but due to the change in schools and expectations I haven't really used it this year, and do you know what?? I acutally miss it. It had everything I needed to know about my students reading at the tip of my fingers, not having to flick through planning sheets to find what I was looking for. The individual conferences therefore haven't been what I want them to be either but I do currently do small-group instruction and purposeful whole group instruction. Yay two out of four!!
Good-fit books are essential to productive independent reading. What can you do to get good-fit books in the hands of your students? How do you define a "good-fit" book?
We use the "I-PICK" from the Daily 5 in our classroom. Students are constantly being reminded about using the "I-PICK" strategy when choosing a book from the class library or school library. Students are regularly offered feed-back from students when they feel a book is too hard for somebody and at this stage of they year I am confident that most of them can choose a book that they are able to read. A "good-fit" book is one where the student can read most of the words, read fluently, understand what is being read and most importantly interests them.
The end of Chapter 1 discusses the concept of instructional fairness. What does instructional fairness mean to you?
This is something I have really struggled with this year as I have such a wide range of reading abilities within my class (from 5 years to 15 years). I try and see my lower ability students more than I would see my higher ability students because the higher ability students are already readers and they only need to see me once a week to guide them and make suggestions. My lower ability readers I try and see everyday which can be a struggle to sit them all in. I believe instructional fairness is about giving the instruction time to the students who need it most rather than giving all students equal time (which would get you no where and would be pretty hard to do).
On another note, the other day I was coming down the stairs to go out on duty at lunchtime and I caught this little guy reading. Now this boy was not a reader at the beginning of the year and lunchtime for him was the best time of the day because he got to play football with his mates. Well here he is reading in his lunchtime!!!!! He's reading Wonder by R.J. Palacio. It was our read-aloud novel for the term but I love how he has got a copy from the school library and is re-reading it to himself. He is so proud of himself as he says it is the biggest book he has ever read. Everyday he comes up to me an tells me how much he has read. He is becoming a reader right in front of my eyes. Super proud teacher!!!!
I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to accelerate the achievement of the students in my class in mathematics. A few years ago I listened to Zain Thompson speak about creating mathematical inquiry communites as a way to do this. This year I have a class that ranges from curriculum level 1 to 4 and I believe that this would be the perfect model for accelerating most of these students.
What is typical in an inquiry-based mathematics classroom? Students who actively drive their learning, communicate mathematically, think critically, question, collaborate and support each other.
This teaching approach is culturally responsive and supports students to work together to solve mathematical problems, accelerating achievement for the students involved.
These are the inital steps I will be taking and developing from there.
Starting with one problem (may move to more than one problem at later stage). The class is split into two groups that are mixed ability - the teacher spends half the time with each group. No learning intentions are shared but can be discussed at the end of the lesson.
1. Students solve the problem individually - they are given thinking time and may represent their thinking in any way. If they are finished early they can come up with a different strategy. The teacher anticipates the students solutions.
2. Students then share their strategies with group members. As a group they decide on one solution to become the group strategy. They must explain, question and justify until each member of the group can understand and explain the strategy. The teacher spends this time monitoring the group with limited input.
3. Students rehearse their explanantion and check that everyone in the group can explain the solution. The teacher then selects particular students to present their solution strategies (simplest strategy to begin and sequence until the most difficult).
4. One student from each group share their group strategy with the bigger group. It is not just a show and tell, they must actively question, explain and justify their thinking. 5. Have a whole group discussion after the strategies have been shared. Can they make connections, see any patterns, reflect on learning and identify next steps. My first step before attempting this is to spend time developing groups and how they work. I may use the waka analogy - if one person stops paddling, you go round in circles and go off course so everyone in the group has to be on board with the strategy. Here is the BES Exemplarwith the mathematics communication and participation framework phases that I will be working through with my class and ground rules for talk examples. It is good reading and a must if you are interested in using this approach in your class.
