Literacy Now

As November quickly comes to a close, the International Reading Association reflects on the month dedicated to project-based learning tips and techniques. Focusing on key skills in communication, collaboration, and critical thinking, PBL is often cross-curricular, incorporating technology and driving questions to connect students to the world outside their classrooms, and, of course, relies on literacy in all subject areas.

Our Twitter #IRAchat with the Buck Institute for Education’s Suzie Boss and Myla Lee revolved around incorporating inquiry-based learning, engaging students in reading, writing, and listening skills, and taking part in analyzing text and finding evidence to support statements. The chat also highlighted how students learn with each other and, more importantly, from one another. Contributors to the chat stressed the importance of teamwork, finding texts that benefit all readers, and modeling dynamic learning with technology.

Nell Duke, PBL advocate and author of Inside Information: Developing Powerful Readings and Writers of Informational Text Through Project-Based Instruction, said PBL is critical to taking classroom teaching to the next level of efficacy. Her book is co-published by IRA and Scholastic.

“Providing a purpose for students' reading and writing beyond simply learning to read and write or practicing reading and writing supports students' development,” Duke said. “PBL offers one way to provide such a purpose. PBL provides an overall framework into we can place many valuable instructional moves, such as teaching comprehension strategies and teaching students to tailor their writing to their audience.”

The PBL teaching style is gaining more attention and momentum from educators, but there’s still a long way to go to implement the practice into schools. It is important that we continue to revisit PBL techniques and look to see how we can apply PBL strategies into education across all ages and all subjects.

“We have more to do as a field to sort out what constitutes PBL,” says Duke. “We need to sort out how best to involve literacy instructional techniques that we know to be effective, such as text structure instruction and teaching editing strategies, in project-based approaches. Finally, we need to find ways to make PBL more practical for more teachers.”

Reading Today Online posts included a check-in on an innovative school program starting in Missouri, the Maker Movement used in a school library, and tips from educators on how to effectively use PBL in the classroom.

Morgan Ratnor is a communications intern for International Reading Association.

Here is a comprehensive list of November’s PBL-centered posts:

Putting Books to Work: Primates: Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas—Using a nonfiction text can open a world of project-based learning possibilities.

Super Practical Project-Based Learning Ideas—Some tips and leads on incorporating PBL in the classroom.

The ‘Maker Movement’ Has a Place in All Disciplines—This maker movement isn’t necessarily something new, I have allowed my students to play and tinker with reading and writing.

#IRAchat: Literacy’s Role in Project-Based Learning—The November #IRAchat will answer questions focused on literacy’s role in project-based learning with experts.

Using PBL Within “The Standards”—New educational standards make instructional demands. Using project-based learning is a great way to follow through.

Innovative School Program Highlights PBL—Quest@GHS is an innovative high school program utitlizing project-based learning to foster critical thinking.

PBL: Many Paths, One Destination—Julie Ramsay shares four strategies she uses for PBL in her classroom.

How Project-Based Approaches in Literacy Could Go Terribly Wrong (Or Powerfully Right)—Project-based education has a lot of potential for literacy development, but also potential pitfalls.

Given the high stakes that are placed today on student achievement and testing outcomes, it might be assumed that major changes in educational policy can only result from careful debate in public forums informed by full consideration of research-based approaches for enhancing classroom instruction. But such is decidedly not the case in Pennsylvania where the formal qualifications for a critical academic position were changed in early November by means of a single sentence buried at the very end of a routine two-page email update from the Department of Education’s (PDE) Division of Professional Education and Teacher Quality.

Careful readers of the PDE email of November 5, 2014 discovered to their utter astonishment that the education department is apparently doing a complete about-face on the qualifications for becoming a reading specialist in the state. The full text of the single-sentence blurb states that “Reading Specialist is a content area that can be added to an instructional certificate by testing.” This terse announcement, hardly a model of administrative clarity, has been published as an ipse dixit: it is not accompanied by any background information, explanatory comment, or practical guidance.

PA Acting Secretary of Ed Carolyn Dumaresq

Unfortunately for the Acting Secretary of Education, Carolyn Dumaresq, Pennsylvania’s literacy educators are not at all docile and know an end run when they see one. The PDE’s reticence on this matter is noteworthy. Apparently PDE is not unduly concerned by the impression created of an attempt to sneak something through. Moreover, it is surprising that a state education department would consider lessening requirements for certification at a time when teacher education generally has come under attack by groups like the National Council on Teacher Quality and others.

What Happened in 2003

Just how bizarre is all of this? A good way to answer that question is to go back to 2003 when a similar change was attempted by the state’s education department. At that time educators across the state voiced strong opposition to the attempted elimination of rigorous coursework for this important role, which involves many discrete skill sets, specific knowledge, and mentored experience. Leading the way was the Keystone State Reading Association (KSRA), an affiliate of the International Reading Association (IRA), a membership association of literacy professionals. KSRA mounted a vigorous advocacy campaign, directed by its former Governmental Relations Chair, Jesse Moore.

Moore testified at hearings on the issue, a process with no parallel as yet in the current situation. He pointed out that granting reading specialist certification based on a two-hour multiple choice test contradicted the IRA Standards for Reading Professionals, which are used by the National Council for the Accreditation for Teacher Education (NCATE). He emphasized that NCATE had always considered reading specialist certification to be an advanced degree program. Moore and the KSRA leadership also invited the education secretary to a state board meeting where exchanges with members and other concerned educators was enough to eventually prompt a change of mind and get the test-only pathway to reading specialist certification revoked.

This past history makes the single-sentence policy reversal by Dr. Dumaresq all the more baffling, coming, as it does, in the interregnum between Pennsylvania’s outgoing and incoming gubernatorial administrations. One wonders just who pushed for this change at this time, whom it is intended to serve, and how such an ill-conceived disclosure process could possibly foster compliance, let alone produce a beneficial result. The department of education now has a fight on its hands, and the charge is being led once again by the KSRA.

KSRA’s New Call to Action

Julie B. Wise, KSRA’s current president, wasted no time calling attention to Dr. Dumaresq’s action, informing her members in an email that the PDEis trying to employ a shortcut to an academic certification program that requires specialized education. “We are concerned about the abrupt decision by PDE to provide an alternative option for certifying reading specialists instead of training reading specialists through graduate courses,” which, she noted, “provide intensive academic and field work to prepare competent K-12 reading specialists.”  

Julie B. Wise

As KSRA sees it, school districts hire teachers who complete graduate reading programs because of the strong foundational knowledge of strategic teaching, diagnostic abilities, and professional support they aptly provide to students and general education teachers. Rita Bean of KSRA, a former IRA board member,puts the issue this way: “What happened to rigor? We talk about quality teaching—and high level standards—and improving teacher performance. Yet the state is willing, on the basis of one test, to grant reading specialist certification to individuals with initial teaching certification?” KSRA’s message to Harrisburg is that PDE needs “to rescind the hasty decision,” and “reinforce the appropriate route for earning a quality K-12 reading specialist certification.”

Wise and KSRA’s Governmental Relations Chair, Millie Henning, are mobilizing college education school deans, school districts, and local literacy associations across the state to communicate their opposition to the test-only certification idea. They are also planning to request a meeting with PDE. Their advocacy strategy is spelled out in full on the landing page of the KSRA website. As Wise points out, the issue affects graduate education students as well: “If educators decide to take the test-only certification approach, will districts hire them when they lack preparation that includes strong fieldwork?”

Going Forward

It remains to be seen whether Dr. Dumaresq can be prevailed upon to change course, and if not, whether the appointment of a new secretary under the incoming governor will make a difference. Meanwhile KSRA has been joined in its advocacy effort by the leadership of IRA.

Jill Lewis-Spector, IRA’s current president, believes test-only certification will have serious ramifications: “The solution for having more and well-prepared teachers who can address the literacy achievement gap is for teachers to pursue additional preparation for teaching literacy from nationally accredited programs.”

IRA Executive Director Marcie Craig Post concurs: “There is no short cut or substitute for graduate level training when it comes to setting qualifications for the reading specialist certificate.” Post has pledged IRA’s assistance in KSRA’s campaign to drive this point home to PDE.

Dan Mangan is the Director of Public Affairs at the International Reading Association, dmangan@/.

photo credit: Brett Jorgenson/Shutterstock

Hatred, ignorance, disrespect, and violence have many root causes. Finding solutions often seems impossible. But one path forward to a better and more understanding future is within our direct grasp, and that path is to spread literacy.

We open our students’ minds. We teach them how to listen attentively, communicate clearly, judge information carefully, and contribute positively to the world about them. These are the skills that may keep similar tragedies from happening in the future.

We owe it to our own ideals of citizenship, as well as to our professional calling, to undertake this commitment with renewed vigor.

To be truly literate is to face each day with a hunger for understanding and growth that can only be sated by new learning.

To be truly literate is to exist not in isolation but as part of the human community.

To be truly literate is to commit to engage in constructive actions founded in mutual respect.

To be truly literate is to appreciate what peace is—and to work tirelessly to bring about a more peaceful world.

Literacy transforms lives. We must never forget that.

As we pick up our work as literacy professionals in the coming days and weeks, let us do so with renewed cause and purpose. The students to whom we impart the values of learning and respect will be the better for it, as will our communities, our country, and world.

Marcie Craig Post (mpost@/) is the executive director of the International Reading Association.

Classrooms running the ILD 60-for-60 mission by calendar days have finished their challenges, but at International Reading Association headquarters, where the challenge takes place for 60 work days, we’re still going strong.

Well, “strong” may not be the right word exactly.

Okay, we’ll  admit it:  this 60-for-60 thing is tough! To keep enthusiasm and excitement going and keep participation high is a challenge in itself. So, we put a call out to teachers to tell us about how the mission was working for them. Their responses, from Pennsylvania to Greece, inspired us.

“For 60 days, my students waited eagerly every morning when I would be asking them to do the 60 seconds of writing,” said one teacher in Hyderabad, Pakistan. “It brought a lot of discipline in them.”

In Nebraska, one teacher is using the mission in her music class:

“I teach elementary music in the afternoons after 30 years of first grade and kindergarten.  I am selecting a musical term each week for us to read/spell and define, then use in the music room. We also discuss other meanings of the word, or ways the students see the word outside of the music classroom.  It's helping us develop a musical word wall!”

As a result of these responses, we’ve renewed our commitment to adding 60 seconds of literacy to our days.

The last two weeks we worked on “Tweet It Loud, Tweet It Proud.” Following a writing prompt each morning, staffers responded in 140 characters or less.

Megan Ferguson, IRA advertising sales associate, returned this fall from maternity leave and summed up what most parents think when asked, “What is your morning routine?”

“Chaos. Pure chaos. I typically forget at least one thing at home. Thankfully, it hasn’t been one of the kids…yet.”

Megan also gets an honorable mention for her response to “Who’s your celebrity crush?”

“Love me some old Scottish Sean Connery! #kingrichard #draco #seanconneryissexy #oldmancrush”

Another favorite came from Daralene Irwin, a front end developer in the Business Solutions department, when we were asked, “What’s your pet peeve?”

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to ask a question that Google already has the answer to.”

“I’ve enjoyed the ‘Would You Rather’ and ‘Six Words in 60 Seconds’ the best so far, since I felt those were the most mentally challenging,” Irwin said. “A ‘Sophie’s Choice’ or having to be SUPER concise help stretch the brain.

“I know I’ve looked forward to getting the e-mails from Jayme: 1) to see what people have to say, and 2) selfishly, to see if my answer got picked (Legit high point when one of mine did, legit low point when they didn’t).”

As we embark on the final two weeks of the challenge, we are pulling out IRA’s “best of” activities, two that our staff buzzed about most. This week is “word of the day,” where Jayme Gravell, our social media manager, sends a $5 word to our inboxes and we respond with a sentence using that word or talk about it with colleagues. “They” say if you use a word three times, it’s yours forever.

Our first word was rufescent  (roo-FES-uhnt): somewhat reddish; tinged with red; rufous. It was later used to describe another staffer’s hair color. Said staffer (who is allowing the natural gray to take over her head) was amused.

How would you use rufescent today? Share your answer with @iratoday on Twitter or email us at social@/.

If you would like to take the 60-for-60 mission, the 2014 ILD activity kit is still available online. Many teachers have said they plan to continue the activities throughout the school year.

April Hall is the editor of Reading Today Online. She can be contacted at ahall@/.