Literacy Now

The day before an Informal Reading Inventory (IRI), I always spend a class period getting to know the student. This provides me with insights that support my questions and decisions during the assessment, but it also helps students to relax as we learn about one another. During our conversation, Diego, a seventh grader, told me that he “hates” reading and never reads outside of school. He looked away from me when he muttered, “I’m going to fail this year. I can’t do the work.”

Near the end of our discussion, I asked Diego, “How can I help you with reading?” Ending with this question always provides information because most middle-grade students know why reading challenges them. However, they don’t talk about their deficits, unless asked.

“Words,” he said. “Gimme words. I don’t have words to understand the books.” Diego was on target, for the results of the IRI placed him at a beginning fourth-grade instructional level. Moreover, Diego’s vocabulary gap would continue to widen unless his teachers motivated him to read 30–40 self-selected books on topics that interest him. Choice in independent reading, along with expert instruction, could help Diego narrow his vocabulary gap while improving his reading skill.

Results from a 2012 study completed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—known as the Nation’s Report Card—compared vocabulary scores and reading comprehension scores and found a tight correlation between vocabulary and comprehension. Students who scored high in comprehension also scored high on vocabulary.

Most developing readers have a vocabulary gap similar to Diego’s and are instructionally two or more years below grade level. In addition to reading self-selected books with ease and enjoyment, it’s equally important to have daily vocabulary instruction relating to materials students use in every subject. Use daily 10–15-minute vocabulary lessons to do the following:

• Preteach words that don’t have strong context clues in the text. Make the learning active and create a sentence with each word that will enable students to figure out meaning as it’s used in the text.
• Avoid teaching one word. Words are part of networks: synonyms, antonyms, concepts, families, and multiple forms of a word. For example, the word in a text is transfixed. Have students build a network of synonyms such as fascinated, marveled, enchanted, enthralled, and captivated.
• Model how you use context to figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words. Then ask students to practice. Discovering the meaning of a word using context clues ensures that students will pinpoint the word’s meaning as it’s used in the text.
• Help students learn figurative language. They can use it to deepen their comprehension of texts by connecting the figure of speech to a theme, big idea, conflict, and so on.

As you plan vocabulary lessons, consider using this structure:

• Title of the Vocabulary Lesson: states the lesson’s focus
• Goals: explains the aims you want to achieve
• Texts: use an excerpt from a literary or informational text that’s part of or relates to your curriculum to make the connection between word learning and comprehension concrete
• Materials: texts that students need to complete the lesson

Collaborate and plan lessons with colleagues on your grade-level team or in the same department. I’m hoping that you will include daily 10–15-minute active-learning lessons that can enlarge students’ general academic and domain-specific vocabulary and reverse the vocabulary deficits of developing readers. Remember to encourage independent reading of self-selected books, for this is the reading achievement accelerator. Be sure to create possible scaffolds or adjustments to the lesson that meet English learners and special education students where they are and gently nudge them forward.

The lesson should involve students reading a complex text, engaging them in paired discussions of the text and the vocabulary, asking partners to share their thinking with the entire class, write the word’s forms and multiple meanings, use the word in a sentence to show an understanding of the word, or find synonyms and antonyms.

Using a mix of explicit teacher instruction, shared reading, collaboration,
and independent work can lead to shrinking the vocabulary gap for middle grade students who “hate reading.”

Laura Robb is the author of several classic books on literacy, including the Smart Writing series and Teaching Middle School Writers. With more than four decades of teaching experience, she conducts professional development workshops throughout the United States. 

Robb will present a session entitled “Vocabulary Is the Key to Comprehending Complex Texts: Teaching Consistent Daily Word Lessons” on Saturday, July 18, at the ILA 2015 Conference in St. Louis, MO, July 18–20. This session will show the relationship between students' vocabulary and their ability to comprehend grade-level, complex texts. Visit the ILA 2015 Conference website for more information or to register.

For years, children who witnessed domestic violence were not viewed as victims themselves though domestic violence advocates, researchers, and counselors recognized what the children witnessed was absolutely terrible.

Recently, researchers uncovered the detrimental effects domestic violence can unleash and that these children are not just witnesses but also victims. With that in mind, as educators we need to be prepared to teach children who are victims of domestic violence or children suffering from any trauma. Like a carpenter who has many tools, teachers also need many tools, or strategies, to best teach children traumatized from domestic violence.

Many areas of a child’s well-being are affected as a result of trauma, and functioning in school will be a huge hurdle, but there are helpful reading and language strategies to employ for children traumatized in any situation, particularly children who are victims of domestic violence.

Children of trauma may struggle with any activity related to sequencing. Sequencing stories, patterns in mathematics, the writing process, and oral communication can all be hampered for a child victim of a traumatic event. Timelines can be an excellent tool to help a child struggling with sequencing during the reading process. Using graphic organizers to organize writing for the writing process is another effective way to support sequencing skills. Comic strips also can be used to help with sequencing; by cutting the frames apart, students can then arrange them in the correct order.

Expressive language skills may be a cause for setback in children traumatized by domestic violence as well. Children affected by domestic violence are often not in homes where expressive language was valued or used in a healthy manner; therefore, proper modeling of positive expressive language may have not be a priority. Because verbal expression could be challenging, the writing process, subsequently, could be difficult, as this is an extension of children’s inability to express themselves.

Again, graphic organizers could be used to most effectively support students in their writing skills in the classroom. Proper modeling for using graphic organizers will guarantee that children are using these tools successfully. Providing or supporting students to design their own dictionary of words to use in their writing and speaking vocabulary will also provide support as they develop their expressive language skills.

Receptive language is another area of distress and struggle for children of trauma. Because of their heightened anxiety and looming fear of, even in a safe environment, students will struggle to process and respond to classroom language and reading tasks. Other reading tasks that could be difficult include visualizing, making connections with the text, for example, determining inferences and deciphering the author’s meaning. Visual task cards can help students suffering from receptive language difficulties while allowing comprehension of written directions. Each card can be turned over as the direction or task is completed. Designating a student the job of “summarizer” is another tool that can be used to strengthen receptive language skills. The job of a summarizer is to explain or repeat directions the teacher provides throughout the day.

Teachers need to be able to identify a child suffering from trauma and, with the collaboration of school counselors and other education professionals, use strategies to support a positive learning experience for children who are victims of domestic violence or trauma. Many tools are needed to support these children and help them find success emotionally, psychologically, and cognitively in school, and these are just a few that can be added to the toolbox, ready to employ at any time. With proper intervention, child victims of domestic violence or children affected by trauma can succeed in school.

Colleen Lelli is an assistant professor of education and the Pre-K–4 Special Education Program Coordinator at Cabrini College in Pennsylvania. Lelli earned a bachelor's degree from Cabrini College, a master’s degree from Arcadia University, and a doctorate degree from Widener University.

Lelli will present a session entitled “Using Children’s Literature to Help Traumatized Children Heal” on Saturday, July 18, at the ILA 2015 Conference in St. Louis, MO, July 18–20. This session will explore ways children's literature can be used to foster learning for children who have been traumatized and are struggling to learn. Visit the ILA 2015 Conference website for more information or to register.

Teachers know the texts they choose for students to read in school serve myriad purposes and offer students various opportunities. One of these opportunities is for students to immerse themselves in the experiences and worlds of the characters they find in the pages of a book. Students read about people and places different from what they’ve experienced; their eyes open to new worlds, and their knowledge and views expanded. When a book is written well, students can get inside the world of characters, empathize with their experiences, and feel like they are in those characters’ minds and worlds. Even if the characters in the book are different in time and context, students can find connections to experiences in their own lives.

Take, for example, a student reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women in her seventh-grade language arts class. In the pages of the book, she finds herself identifying with the romantic ups and downs the March girls experience. Perhaps, on the basis of a current or past relationship, she identifies with the tension between Meg and Jo—two girls in love with the same man. Now, let’s turn to another student in this same class. As the class reads Gary Soto’s poem “Oranges” aloud, he identifies with the tentative touches, the treasured moments of a 12-year-old boy walking on a chilly night with his girl—his attention to the corners of the girl’s smile, the light in her eyes, holding her hand in his.

These are the aesthetic experiences students have that can build a love for reading. What may be less evident to the teacher of this seventh-grade class is that the story and poem above reflect one particular reality and experience with which these two students are able to identify with—young love, specifically young, heterosexual love. Many teachers are not aware of the ways in which the texts they use in their classes, those that are considered staples or classics and those in the Common Core’s Appendix B (like Little Women and “Oranges”) maintain an atmosphere of heteronormativity in schools, extending and perpetuating the same status quo that lies outside the school walls.

Although this may not be intentional, by presenting heterosexual identity and relationships as the norm and “what is,” any other form of love is consequently set up as “other,” not normal, and even unacceptable. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and queer (LGBTQ) students, the feelings and experiences they have often aren’t valued or reflected in the books they read. At the same time, LGBTQ identity is often maligned in and out of school; LGBTQ students are subject to slurs and bullying in school, while outside school many decry their identities as sinful, abnormal, a threat to constructed social norms. Although some LGBTQ students may have family who support them, others may not have revealed their identity or may not have support in their home. School should be a place where every individual feels valued, included, supported, and safe. The literature teachers assign can provide a modicum of safety and small—albeit important—opportunities to experience acceptance.

Incorporating texts that reflect the experiences of LGBTQ students is a way that teachers can be supportive of LGBTQ students and contribute to a school environment that validates their identities and values their experiences. For heterosexual students, reading books with LGBTQ characters can help them expand their understanding of the nonheterosexual experience and build empathy, contributing to a safer and more open school environment.

For teachers, however, choosing and incorporating texts with LGBTQ characters may be challenging or problematic. Aside from concerns teachers have about approval from school administrators and parents, how to choose texts and how to integrate them within existing curricula, and possible discomfort with the topic on the basis of personal beliefs, religious or otherwise, is another issue. Few teachers, in their preservice experiences, spend significant (or any) time learning about addressing the needs of LGBTQ students and how to make curricular choices that make the classroom an equitable, positive, and safe space for these students.

Many teacher education programs spend significant time discussing the importance of embracing diversity and developing culturally responsive teachers, but most often such focus on diversity is situated in contexts of race, ethnicity, language, and culture. Diversity of sexual orientation is less often a focus in preservice teacher education because, in many cases, it is still an uncomfortable topic for students and teachers. This is all the more reason that teacher educators need to step up to the plate to bring preservice teachers into conversations about the LGBTQ students who will be in their future classes.

How can we expect the teachers we are sending out into the world to be prepared to make curricular choices to incorporate LGBTQ texts in their classrooms if we don’t make this an explicit focus in our teacher preparation programs? The responsibility of making the school and classroom a safe, welcoming, and affirming space for LGBTQ students is not a responsibility that rests just on the teachers in those classrooms. Such a space needs to be cultivated and built long before our teachers step into the classroom. Everyone in the education community—especially the teacher educators who are preparing tomorrow’s teachers—has a role to play in disrupting the heteronormative environment in schools and truly embracing diversity in all its forms. Let’s begin making LGBTQ issues an explicit issue of diversity and social justice that we discuss and act on in all our teacher education programs.

Autumn M. Dodge worked as an assistant professor in Literacy at St. Bonaventure, NY for two years and will start as assistant professor in literacy at St. John’s University, NY in Fall 2015. Her teaching and research interests include issues of social justice in education, especially addressing, recognizing, and integrating LGBTQ identities and experiences in the classroom; using multiple text types, including YA literature, across content areas to richly address CCSS; and examining student self-efficacy in varied reading contexts.

Dodge will present a session entitled “Using ‘Linked Text Sets’ Examples to Integrate LGBTQ Perspectives in Inclusive Literacy Classrooms” on Monday, July 20, at the ILA 2015 Conference in St. Louis, MO, July 18–20. This session will provide concrete examples of linked text sets that meet CCSS goals, promote equity and diversity, support LGBTQ identities, and integrate LGBTQ experiences. Visit the ILA 2015 Conference website for more information or to register.

In one of my first doctoral classes, my professor gave each of us an assignment to write a proposal for an imaginary book we might like to write. Clueless as to what that might be for me, I tried to think of a scenario. I had read articles about creative visualization and how it has helped athletes and entrepreneurs, so I tried to imagine myself writing a book. In my dream scenario, I am sitting among the stacks in some dusty archive, swimming in paper and artifacts, writing a fabulous biography of some unknown heroine, when my fantasy is interrupted by my own mumbling. “Oooh, this would be really cool to show my students,” or “Wow! If my kids saw this, they would miraculously understand (insert learning objective here)!” So my personal love of “old stuff” suddenly had an application in the classroom.

In case you are thinking “this doesn’t apply to me,” take a look at this in the context of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Each of the following goals fall under the standards for Language, History and Social Studies, and Science and Technical Subjects.

• Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources (or science and technical texts).
• Describe (or analyze) how a text presents information (e.g., sequentially, comparatively, causally) and how this contributes to understanding.
• Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

While I was thinking about how to make a bunch of antiquated materials accessible to kids, I Googled across a news piece about visual literacy. Turns out my passion for old stuff, particularly images, is cutting edge because visual literacy is a key skill for 21st-century learning—and even old pictures qualify. I’d like to share one example of how I use primary sources, visual artifacts in particular, across the curriculum.

When introducing primary resources, I start students with pictures. Students tend not to think of them as texts, so you haven’t lost them yet! Below is one of my favorites. It is accessible, fairly easy to interpret, provocative—What kid doesn’t think disembodied heads are cool?—and applicable to almost every discipline. The image is followed by a short plan of action.

Observe

Just as you would give students time to read and process a piece of writing, give them time to look at the image, at least 2 or 3 minutes. Then ask, “What are your overall impressions?” After looking at the piece as a whole, have students scrutinize the image in quadrants, which makes them focus on the details. In the sample image, this is particularly important, as students will begin to notice the use of markers, like “Fig. 1,” and so on.

Make connections

You can start kids thinking just by asking “What does this make you think of?” Deepen their thoughts with questions that relate to purpose. “Does this piece have a function other than to entertain?” “Why do you think the artist used this particular technique (realism, cubism, naturalism)?”

Discuss

Having students talk about what they observe is an important component vital to critical thinking. It requires students to both justify their own thinking, what we teachers like to call “using evidence,” and it forces them to be open to the interpretations of other students and perhaps take a second look or reevaluate their own thinking in a new context.

Focus

As I mentioned, I love using this picture because it has so many applications. In English, I like to pair this text with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. An easy comparison relates to mood. Because the image of Aldini’s experiments is in stark contrast to Mary Shelley’s novel, talking about mood is a good gateway to thinking about author’s purpose and how it is achieved in literature.

Another application for this image, of course, is science. There is any number of issues to discuss; for example, a basic question would be about the primitive creation of electricity and what materials are conductive (human flesh?). What about the new science of electricity in the 1800s made scientists think they could reanimate people? Another fascinating conversation revolves around the relationship of these early efforts and contemporary use of defibrillators. Why does Aldini’s work seem so creepy when we cheer scenes from the TV show Grey’s Anatomy, in which the doctors bring patients back to life?

Finally, there is history and social studies. The obvious lessons are teaching about the history of medicine, but what about exploring crime and punishment in the 19th century in contrast to contemporary thought on the subject? How about delving into the ethics of experimentation? Does a cost/benefit analysis (traditionally a business model) make sense when we talk about the potential to save lives?

I guess by now you can see why I haven’t written my book yet—I’m too fascinated/distracted by all the individual treasures I come across, but I’m already working my latest interdisciplinary find—recipes!

If you are interested in incorporating primary resources into your classes, a great place to start is the National Archives. There are also simple introductions to visual literacy to check out, for use with elementary students or with older students on how journalists interpret photos.

Eve Zehavi is a PhD student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Houston. She has 15 years of classroom experience and master’s degrees in both Library/Information Science and English. Her current research interests revolve around complex texts including primary sources.

Zehavi will present a session entitled “Critical Thinking on Steroids—Using Primary Sources in Disciplinary Literacy” on Saturday, July 18 at the ILA 2015 Conference in St. Louis, MO, July 18–20. This session will feature how to best use primary sources in the classroom. Visit the ILA 2015 Conference website for more information or to register.

The emergence of shame during the intermediate years is discussed at length, as we may recall, from Erik Erikson’s Human Growth and Development courses, but shame is complex. The fact is, our kids come in and reside in our classroom feeling shame in ways we may not even recognize or understand. This shame, be it the internal sense of shame about one’s being, the comparison of one’s perceived abilities to another’s, or confusion amid contrasting value sets, prevents students from reading, not because of reluctance, but because of the need to protect one’s sense of self.

Let’s look at shame within contrasting value sets. In our schools, we inadvertently confuse readers. By virtue of reading interests, students acquire a sense of their “reading-self” through their ease and enjoyment in reading. These students are readers. Then there is interaction with text. We can consider close reading, strategic reading, and transactional reading as modes of interacting with text. Pleasure reading and interacting with text can be related, but are often separate.

Thomas, for example, noted himself as a good reader. Test scores showed he met standards and his annual reading level assessment verified his status as a good reader. However, in day-to-day reading engagement and comprehension work, Thomas found himself swimming in frustration. The work did not challenge the limits of his zone of proximal development. Rather, how he treated text, drew information from text, and relied on previous reading experiences befuddled him. He’d become a good reader but lacked tools or experience to access text appropriately. The shame he began to feel around reading had little to do with his capabilities, but instead with his experiences.

To find the source of Thomas’s frustrations, we looked at what he wrote in his reading autobiography:

• In second grade I started to read graphic novels. But otherwise I really didn’t read much. I wrote more.
• In third grade I actually read Mark of Athena. I actually started to like reading in third grade.
• I don’t remember anything about fourth grade because the teacher didn’t have any books.

Thomas’s short depiction of his reading life revealed some entry points:

• Nothing substantial from reading instruction “stuck.” We know he had reading instruction, but we don’t know what he learned to do as a reader. We can assume he learned to self-select books.
• Thomas read without boundaries. I won’t argue that he read Rick Riordan’s Mark of Athena in grade 3; I simply wonder if the archetypes or the mythological text structure resonated with him in any manner.
• His recollection of reading is contingent on access to print.

In one fashion, I concluded, Thomas indeed pictured himself as a good reader. He aspired to reading and his fondest memories centered on personal values and accomplishments. When I shifted reading instruction to transactional and close reading, I altered Thomas’s perception of reading. In a sense, he had no experience to draw from because his recollections of reading emerged from pleasure reading. Such an event forced Thomas to look in a mirror of reading he had not seen before and he felt shame because he had an incomplete image of his reading ability. When students see themselves as “wrong,” they presume fault as a person rather than observing a gap in reading experience.

Thomas and I had to talk, share, and build a relationship beyond assessment data. In conversation, I learned that his idea of reading instruction dealt with answering questions at the end of a reading. This information helped me realize he didn’t have the skills to interact with text, but he had the capacity to complete reading assignments on the basis of his text recollection.

Time and relationships are the most important factors when working with a student like Thomas who is feeling shame and insecurity regarding his new reading experiences. He didn’t want to lose his cherished image of reading, but we had gaps to fill that did not portray Thomas a bad reader. (Without support and time spent nurturing our readers, students feel we turn our backs on them. When we offer support and nurturing, students create value sets about reading that allow them to feel successful.) We cannot change or eliminate the shame students may feel, but we can foster confidence by guiding them in the time we spend with learning their story or perspective.

In time, Thomas came around. First, I had to help Thomas learn what I call the duality of reading. We had to honor what he valued as a reader—a selection of books at his fingertips and personal choice. Second, Thomas had to learn the function of reading. With this, he had to realize that reading instruction— my teaching him ways to interact with text—would take time, error, and direction. Thomas and I simply had to adjust his value system to incorporate reading that required him to engage with text. None of this would make him a bad reader but, in time, it would make him a smarter reader.

Justin Stygles is a sixth-grade teacher and literacy specialist in Western Maine. He has taught at a variety of levels for 12 years and is currently working with Corwin Literacy about effect, emotions, and transactional reading.

Stygles will present a session entitled “I Hate Reading: Strategies Transforming Negative Self-Perceptions Into Confidence” on Sunday, July 19 at the ILA 2015 Conference in St. Louis, MO, July 18–20. This session will look at how teachers can both prevent shame in reading and in reading communities and transform readers’ lives so students may assimilate being a reader as part of their identity. Visit the ILA 2015 Conference website for more information or to register.