Literacy

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Literacy

• The Key to High School Success
• Ideas from NASSP NCTE

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Adolescent Literacy School Improvement Cycle
Committed Instructional Leadership
Strategic, Accelerated Intervention
Informative Formal and Informal Assessments
Increased Student Achievement
Highly Effective Teachers
On-going, Job-embedded Research-based
Professional Development
The student is the heart of the Literacy
Improvement Cycle
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Why Should Literacy Be Integrated into the
Schools Improvement Plan?

• Six million students in grades 6-12 are at risk
  of not graduating, or find themselves
  ill-prepared for college and career.
• Thirty percent of U. S. students are not
  graduating from high school 50 of African
  American males do not graduate
• 75 of students with literacy problems in third
  grade still experience literacy issues in ninth
  grade.
• NAEP eighth and twelfth grade scores remain flat
  or have dropped since 1998.

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Adolescent Literacy A Critical Need

• Not all students who read narrative text well can
  read and comprehend expository and non-fiction
  text (Snow, 2001)
• American children are imperiled because they
  dont read well enough, quickly enough, or easily
  enough to ensure comprehension in their content
  courses in middle and secondary schools (Snow,
  Burns, Griffin, 1998, p. 98)
• About 33 of secondary students have withdrawn
  from active participation in class and are
  reading below grade level (Joyce, Hrycauk,
  Calhoun, 2001)

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KEY Elements Needed to Improve Adolescent Literacy

• Instructional Improvements
• Direct, explicit comprehension instruction
• Effective instructional principles embedded in
  content
• Text-based collaborative learning
• Motivation and self-directed learning
• Strategic tutoring
• Diverse texts
• Intensive writing
• A technology component
• Ongoing formative assessment of students

• Infrastructure Improvements
• Extended time for literacy
• Professional development
• Ongoing summative assessment of students and
  programs
• Teacher teams
• Leadership
• A comprehensive and coordinated literacy program

Biancarosa, G. Snow, C. E. (2004) Reading Next-
A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and
High School Literacy A Report from Carnegie
Corporation of New York. Washington, DC AEE
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All Teachers Are Not Teachers of Reading, but

• Featuring Doug Fisher

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Highly Effective Teachers The Essential
Ingredient
Content teachers are the best source for
providing students with explicit instruction on
how to critically read and think about
text. Abromitis, 1994 Campbell, 1994, Kamil et
al., 2000
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Explicit Instruction

• Teacher models critical reading strategies
• Scaffold instruction
• Students internalize strategies to become
  strategic readers

Explicit Instruction
Modeling of Strategy by Teacher
Practice Use of the Strategy by all Students
Shared Responsibility
n
Gradual Transition of Responsibility
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Effective Readers (Before Reading)

• Activate Prior Knowledge
• Understand and Set Purpose for Reading
• Choose Appropriate Comprehension Strategies

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Effective Readers (During Reading)

• Focus attention
• Monitor comprehension
• Use fix-up strategies
• Use context clues
• Use text structure
• Organize and integrate new information

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Effective Readers (After Reading)

• Reflect on what was read
• Summarize major ideas
• Seek additional information from outside sources
• Feel success is a result of effort

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The research suggests

• lessons should include activities/strategies
  before, during, and after reading
• instructional practices help students recognize
  that reading is an active process before, during,
  and after reading
• reading instruction and student understanding
  take place at multiple points (Graves, 2001).

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• A SCHOOLWIDE APPROACH TO CONTENT LITERACY
  STRATEGIES

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What if we changed our thinking

• From all teachers are not teachers of reading to
  
• We all must create an environment where the
  strategies we teach are both
• transportable and transparent.

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1. Building Background

• KWL
• Discovery
• Anticipation guides
• Questions
• Demonstrations

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2. Read Aloud/Shared Reading

• Good selections
• Connected to the class
• Access to text?
• Every day, every class
• Modeling thinking

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3. Modeling

• Why?
• Humans mimic or imitate
• Students need examples of the type of thinking
  required
• Facilitates the use of academic language

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3a.Modeling Comprehension

• Inference
• Summarize
• Predict
• Clarify
• Question

• Visualize
• Monitor
• Synthesize
• Evaluate
• Connect

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3b.Word Solving

• Context clues
• Word parts (prefix, suffix, root, base, cognates)
• Resources (others, Internet, dictionary)

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3c.Using Text Structure

• Informational Texts
• Problem/Solution, Compare/Contrast, Sequence,
  Cause/Effect, Description
• Narrative Texts
• Story grammar (plot, setting, character)
• Dialogue
• Literary devices

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3d.Using Text Features

• Headings
• Captions
• Illustrations
• Charts
• Graphs
• Italics

• Table of contents
• Glossary
• Index
• Tables
• Margin notes
• Bold words

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What Happened to Phineas?

• Attend the tale of Phineas Gage. Honest, well
  liked by friends and fellow workers on the
  Rutland and Burlington Railroads, Gage was a
  young man of exemplary character and promise
  until one day in September 1848. While tamping
  down the blasting powder for a dynamite charge,
  Gage inadvertently sparked an explosion. The
  inch thick tamping rod rocketed through his
  cheek, obliterating his left eye, on its way
  through his brain and out the top of his skull.

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• The rod landed several yards away, and Gage fell
  back in a convulsive heap. Yet a moment later he
  stood up and spoke. His fellow workers watched,
  aghast, then drove him by oxcart to a local hotel
  where a local doctor, one John Harlow, dressed
  his wounds. As Harlow stuck his fingers in the
  holes in Gages face and head until their tips
  met, the young man inquired when he would be able
  to return to work.

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• Within two months the physical organism that was
  Phineas Gage had completely recovered - he could
  walk, speak, and demonstrate normal awareness of
  his surroundings. But the character of the man
  did not survive the tamping rods journey through
  his brain. In place of the diligent, dependable
  worker stood a foul-mouthed and ill-mannered liar
  given to extravagant schemes that were never
  followed through. Gage, said his friends, was
  no longer Gage.
• Shreeve, James. What happened to Phineas?
  Discover Magazine January 1995.

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Questions

• How did Phineas survive this penetrating brain
  injury?
• For how much longer did he live?

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• What question would you have for the author?

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A dentist found the source of the toothache
Patrick Lawler was complaining about on the roof
of his mouth a four-inch nail the construction
worker had unknowingly embedded in his skull six
days earlier. By AP via The Denver Post
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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3e. Questioning Text

• IRE model?
• QAR
• QtA
• Bloom
• Student-generated

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3f. Graphic Organizers

• Concept maps
• Diagrams
• Text structure charts (cause/effect, temporal
  sequence, problem/solution)
• Students 1 choice

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4. Vocabulary

• Vocabulary Role Play
• Language Charts
• Multiple Meaning Word Study
• Word Sorts and Making Words
• Vocabulary Journals

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For example, vocabulary . . .

• General vocabulary
• Words used in everyday language, with agreed upon
  meanings across contexts (e.g., pesky,
  bothersome)
• Specialized vocabulary
• Multiple meanings in different content areas
  (e.g., loom, in, expression)
• Technical vocabulary
• Specific to a field of study (e.g., concerto,
  meiosis)

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• Catherine the Great, a minor aristocrat from
  Germany, became Empress of Russia when her
  husband Peter, the grandson of Peter the Great,
  was killed.

www.picturehistory.com
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Which word would most Social Studies teachers
teach?

• A. Russia
• B. Aristocrat
• C. Minor
• D. Husband
• .

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The word (minor) in the sentence above means

• A) a person looking for gold
• B) a person who is not important
• C) a person who is under the age of 18
• D) a person who is small

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5.Notetaking and Notemaking

• Cornell notes
• Text structures
• Main ideas and details
• Assessment of notes

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6. Writing to Learn

• multiple strategies
• RAFT

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7. Reciprocal Teaching

• Students work in groups
• Summarize, question, clarify, predict
• Zinger questions

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One last thing
Ill go back to school and learn more about the
brain!
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400 Page text
Somites are blocks of dorsal mesodermal cells
adjacent to the notochord during vertebrate
organogensis. Improved vascular definition in
radiographs of the arterial phase or of the
venous phase can be procured by a process of
subtraction whereby positive and negative images
of the overlying skull are superimposed on one
another.
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Skills Versus Strategies?
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I dont know how youre going to learn this, but
its on the test.
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Quick, Build Background!
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Expand Understanding Through Reading
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Reading Increasingly Difficult Texts
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Read Non-Traditional Texts

• To date, over 100 YouTube videos!
• PBS (The Secret Life of the Brain)
• Internet quiz sites about neuroanatomy
• Talking with peers and others interested in the
  brain

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But, the midterm comes
17 pages, single spaced
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Besides Some Neuroanatomy, What Have I Learned?

• You cant learn from books you cant read (but
  you can learn)
• Reading widely builds background and vocabulary
• Interacting with others keeps me motivated and
  clarifies information and extends understanding
• I have choices and rely on strategies

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Resources

• Available from NCTE

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Pathways to Advance Adolescent Literacy
http//www.ncte.org/profdev/online/adlit/126068.ht
m
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Leadership Unlocking the Door to Literacy
Develop Literacy Leadership Team
Knowledgeable of Reading Research
Fosters Collaborative Learning Communities
Continuous Assessment
Cheerleader
Understands Literacy Instruction
Lassoes Time Resource Locator
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Leadership

• Leadership is the
• art of getting
• others to do
• something that
• you want done
• because they want
• TO DO IT!
• - Dwight David Eisenhower

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Put Assessment in the Drivers Seat

• It is the action around assessment the
  discussion, meetings, revisions, arguments, and
  opportunities to continually create new
  directions for teaching, learning, curriculum,
  and assessment that ultimately have
  consequences. The things of assessment are
  essentially useful as dynamic supports for
  reflection and action, rather than as static
  products with value in and of themselves.
• Darling-Hammond, Ancess, and Falk (1995, p. 18)

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Assessment Instruments

• Informal Assessments
• Content Area Literacy Assessments
• Teacher Observations
• Informal Literacy Inventories
• Scholastic
• Qualitative Reading Inventory III
• Burns and Roe
• Other
• Grades
• Attendance
• Disciplinary Records

• Formal Assessments
• Stanford Achievement Test
• California Achievement Test
• Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic
  Evaluation (GRADE)
• Test of Reading Comprehension (TORC-3)
• Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test 4
• Woodcock-Johnson Reading Mastery

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Professional Development The Recipe for Success

• Involves ALL stakeholders
• Links student standards, curricular frameworks,
  textbooks, instructional programs, and
  assessments
• Includes professional development as part of the
  professionals workday
• Relies on expertise of colleagues, mentors, and
  other experts
• Includes presence of strong instructional leader
  and
• Adequate funding to meet professional development
  goals.
• Learning First Alliance, 1998

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Creating Professional Learning Communities

• Begin Conversations with Staff
• Identify Learning Needs of Students and Teachers
• Schedule to Support Opportunities for
• Professional Development
• Coaching Sessions
• Shared Teaching
• Reflective Conversations

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Supporting Professional Learning Communities

• Peer Coaching
• Mentorship
• Study Groups
• Analyzing Teaching Strategies
• Action Research
• Utilize Professional Networks
• Professional Book Talks

• Observe other teachers/model lessons
• Visit model classrooms, schools, and programs
• Develop curriculum/assessment
• Plan lessons w/colleagues
• Participate in school improvement planning
• Literacy Walk

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Coaching Provides Support
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Collaborative Learning Communities
Improved Student Learning
Improved Teaching Strategies
Peer Coaching
Shared Teaching
Literacy Coach
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Cycle for Improving Instruction
DATA MEETING
STAFF DEVELOPMENT
 
 
Data meeting- identifies target students    Staff
development- provides the instructional support
for improving student learning   Shared teaching
provides interactive experiences among
colleagues Walk through-identifies strengths and
growing spaces     This cycle is continuous and
each component relies on the other but not
necessarily in a sequential order.

SHARED TEACHING
LITERACY WALK
Alabama Reading Initiative, adapted by Secondary
Literacy Coaches (2004)
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(No Transcript)
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Intervention Meeting the Needs of ALL Students

• Assign most effective teachers to work with
  struggling students
• Create / implement intervention program to meet
  identified needs of ALL students (struggling to
  gifted)
• Keep intervention classes small
• Use authentic and standardized assessments to
  guide instruction
• Assure literacy strategies are integrated across
  the curricula

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Personalize Learning

• Explicit instruction in phonemic awareness
• Explicit instruction in phonics
• Direct and integrated instruction in text reading
  and comprehension
• Assessment-based selection and monitoring of
  struggling readers
• Accelerated not decelerated instruction
• Intensive instruction in every session
• Extensive amounts of daily practice

• Teacher directed instruction
• Finite time for duration of intervention
• More time for selected skills and strategies
• Reduce teacher/pupil ratio
• Connections to classrooms and parents
• Teachers who can deliver highly skilled
  instruction
• Continuously developing teachers of reading

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Fitting the Pieces Together for Adolescent
Literacy

• Collaborative Leadership
• Assess to Identify
• Teacher Strengths and Areas for Focus
• Student Strengths and Needs
• All Teachers Teaching Reading
• Strong Professional Learning Communities
• Well Defined Accelerated Intervention Plan