What Exemplary Teachers Do to Support Developmentally Appropriate Practices

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What Exemplary Teachers Do to Support
Developmentally Appropriate Practices

• Presented By
• Dr. Cathy Collins Block
• Professor School of Education
• Texas Christian University
• November 1 2, 2000
• International Conference of Educators
• Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

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Exemplary Teachers Cast a Large Literacy Net
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Highly-effective teachers cover significantly
more concepts in a normal day than do typical
teachers. Highly-effective teachers create 12
different activities each day to build literacy
abilities.
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Exemplary teachers also obtain significantly
higher scores on the number, order, and variety
of grouping systems that they use in a week.
These teachers employ eight types of groups, and
order these differently each week, whereas
typical teachers use only three groupings, and
these are used in the same order each day.
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Exemplary Teachers Used a Distinctive Teaching
Cycle (TRIO)
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TRIO---- (T)Teach a new concept to their entire
class. During this initial introduction,
exemplary teachers give three, varied examples of
the conceptperform a think aloud or model and,
provide expanded explanations, often through
hands-on demonstrations that use food and objects
that are common in all their students lives.
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TRIO---Reteaching. Those who did not master
the concept through the initial teaching activity
meet with their teacher during center time on the
following day. This small-group reteaching time
makes use of a new model, learning style, and/or
method so that the concept is taught in a novel
manner.
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TRIO---(I)Interact with those who had been
retaught as the third step in the instructional
cycle. This instruction occurs in one-to-one
sessions and contains personalized and
individualized scaffolding. A third, different
set of books and examples are used, individually,
as teachers and students read texts or write
stories together.
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TRIO---(O)Others are asked to join the
instructional team if , after the third
reteaching step, a student does not use the
concept independently. Among the resources most
often enlisted are peers as teachers/partners,
parent volunteers, specialized teachers/materials,
and teachers specialized homework assignments
for that child.
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Reading Was Simultaneously Taught As Parts And As
A Whole
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Exemplary teachers teach decoding, each day, by
referencing the phonological, morphological and
semantic system in the same lesson. They teach
1. Phonics and letter to sound
correspondences 2. Word-level concepts by
having three different word walls, on three
different walls in the room 3. Meaning-based
lessons about what affixes mean, and how to use
syntactical clues and intraword as well as
interword semantic clues .
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Teacher 1s students generated a list of 31 words
that they recalled from the prior days work
added 15 adjectives to this list which was to be
used in the story that they were to write later
that morning taught the r controlled vowel
phonic generalization integrated references to
structural analysis reviewed 10 words containing
/ch/, /sh/, and /sch/ blends and, read two books
relative to the days theme. In contrast, during
the same 45 minute period in the typical
teachers class across the hall, the name of, and
sound represented by, the letter h were taught
and recited.
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Students Wrote Two Times A Day
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Two, 30-45 minute SSW periods enable students to
sustain their thinking about compositions. These
longer periods of time ignite students creative
flow, and integrate their affective/cognitive
growth in writing, which led to significantly
higher quality compositions.
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As Teacher 2 stated Its just amazing what my
children learn when they have longer writing
periods, more instruction, and my support and
expectations that they can integrate two new
writing strategies into every composition. Even
professional writers have reported to need 45
minutes before the enjoyment of writing can
begin. (Observation notes, Lines 1131-1134).
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Exemplary Teachers Monitor Students Writing
Periods Three Times More Frequently Than Typical
Teachers
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In exemplary teachers classes, students (as
opposed to teacher-dictated) words and ideas are
used in the prewriting stage. Teachers carry
checklists as they monitor students writings and
teach individually at points of need each day by
asking What do you want me to do to help you?
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They also carry a colored felt-tip pen. As
teachers read students first drafts, they write
the missing letters in students invented
spellings in green to highlight unknown letters
in a different color. This, and similar
strategies, enable their students to write more
advanced and interesting words, to learn to spell
more rapidly, and to score significantly higher
on standardized writing and spelling tests at the
end of first and second grade.
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Students Completed More Than One Composition A
Week
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Writing Process Ends Every Three Days, And Two
New Skills Are Expected To Be Mastered By All
There was a mouse who lived with Santa Clause.
It was Christmas Eve, and the mouse was in the
factory. HMMM. When Santa walked in he saw
the little mouse. The little mouse had a piece
of cheese in his mouth. Santa didnt mind. He
snuck up behind him and picked him up. Very
carefully Santa sat down in his chair. When the
mouse finished eating his cheese, he fell asleep
on Santas beard. Carefully, gently, and
silently Santa sat the little mouse down.
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During sharing circles, exemplary teachers place
a checkmark on weekly grids, when they provided
positive feedback to individual students
original contributions. This accountability
system ensures that all children, every week,
receive their teachers personalized praise for
their higher-level thinking and work with the
printed word.
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Taught As Soon As A Question Was Asked
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Exemplary teachers stop to answer
questions as soon as they are asked. Doing so
communicates (a) their high expectations that all
students can learn when their confusions are
eliminated and more practice opportunities are
provided, and (b) that all students are expected
to invest their highest capabilities in every
task, every day.
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Used A Distinct, Three-Part Feedback Process PWI
(Praise-Why-Instruct) Which Praises And
Challenges Simultaneously
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Teachers provide just enough guidance so that
students do not give up in frustration. At the
same time, they do not give so much guidance that
they deny students satisfaction and ability to
grow because all the thinking about students
tasks are completed by their teachers.
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This PWI cycle begins with teachers praising (P)
a student sincerely. Before leaving that
student, teachers identify a specific skill in
which a student could grow by exerting a little
more effort.
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Next, teachers ask the student why they
performed the skill as they did (Why). Last,
they introduce a slightly more advanced use of
the concept that the student mastered (Instructed
Individually).
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Continuous Time-on-Task
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Although instructional actions vary each day in
exemplary teachers classes, students follow a
consistent routine. Classrooms are managed
through procedures that demonstrate how much
teacher care about their students, e.g. I love
you too much to allow you not to learn.
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• A second example is that exemplary teachers make
  pupil seating charts for the library and other
  parts of the building.
• By doing so, students knew that
• Their place in the group was guaranteed
• They didnt have to rush or act-out in route
  and,
• They didnt have to worry about whom they would
  sit beside or if they would be chosen last.

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Tied Discipline Statements To Learning
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Discipline statements are made to alert students
to one truth Self-discipline holds a prominent
place in students goal to increase their
literacy. Because self-discipline becomes so
highly prized by students, a we not we versus
they atmosphere exists in the class.
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Exemplary teachers create fun-for-literacy
atmospheres. They talk playfully at times, are
not dictatorial or patronizing, use
adult-to-adult conversational tones, and
genuinely laugh with their pupils. They laugh
because reading is fun.
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Prepared For Anticipated Interruptions In Advance
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No Interruptions. Students manage their own
patterns of movement. For instance, students
enter the room, put their backpacks under their
cubicles, turn in their homework, pick up their
handwriting sheets and their journal, and begin
writing before the school bell rings.
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On average, instruction began eight minutes
earlier than in less effective classrooms.
Students move lessons along with-out stopping
because they know interruptions will not lead to
any gain. Any delay they might create would
result in having to work overtime rather than
in their teachers dismissal or diminishing
requirements of their tasks.
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Stimulating Students Initiative
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Exemplary teachers support students initiatives
to decode and comprehend. Eight types of
interaction patterns are used to do so. These
are peppered throughout daily classroom
conversations, and are described next.
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Checklist to Assess if Teachers Are Assisting
Students to Apply Comprehension And Decoding
Strategies Independently
 1. Ask students to explain how they successfully
comprehended and decoded, (e.g., After a student
read a word correctly, the teacher said You
just read school correctly. How did you know
that word?  
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2. Usually, allow up to six but not more than
six students to express their answers to
questions (e.g.. Why do you think this author
picked this title?). Then, they ask a student
to summarize the groups thinking before moving
on.
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3. Often give students a choice to contribute or
not during discussions (e.g.. Do you want to
pass think about it for a minute. or call a
friend for a clue?). When a teacher judges
that a student knows an answer but needs a few
moments to recall it, she says Lets give Brian
a moment to write and when he is finished we will
move on. Silence. As soon as Brian finishes
writing a note, Brian says, OK., and this is
the signal that the discussion could move on.
Brian knows that the time to formulate his ideas
is important enough to hold the class in pause
for a moment.
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4. When a student raised a hand first in a
discussion teachers reward that students
rapid thinking while increasing other pupils
time for reflection by saying Great students
name! I have one idea that is ready to be
shared! As we give others a little more time to
think, improve upon your idea and how you want to
say it.
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Checklist to Assess if Teachers Are Assisting
Students to Apply Comprehension And Decoding
Strategies Independently
o 5. Do not allow students to piggy back on
someone elses comments without thinking. As a
result, students do not repeat the same concept
over and over during classroom discussions. e.g.,
Now, we are all stating sports ideas, so we know
that we can add any sport we want to our stories.
You can write They played football. They played
soccer, and so forth. So, its time to change
our thinking. What other topics do you want in
our stories?   o
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6. Whenever a student gives a partially correct
answer teachers reward that student and enable
him or her to learn which aspects of the answer
are correct, by immediately turning to the group
and saying Tell me what the students namely
did right in their thinking to come to that
answer.  
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Checklist to Assess if Teachers Are Assisting
Students to Apply Comprehension And Decoding
Strategies Independently
7. Whenever students notice a discrepancy
between themselves and other students abilities,
the teacher states that the differences that they
observed occurred because someone had had less
practice with the concept to be learned, and not
that some are less able than others. The teacher
assures that this child can practice with her and
other classmates.  
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8. Teachers do not begin reading response
sessions by posing their own questions.
Teachers wait and allow students to be the first
to make comments or ask questions about the
material read. If no comments are made, the
teacher asks questions so students can initiate
their own relationship to the reading (e.g.,
What question do you think that I would ask
about this story? Why? What do you think?
Which word do you know and how do you know it?
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