Throughout the ECI 540 course I had the opportunity to explore quality children's literature, as well as the research to support the importance of utilizing a high volume of quality texts in literacy instruction. In their book Best Practices in Literacy Instruction, Gambrell and Morrow (2015) suggest that "an important dimension in supporting young children's literacy development is providing a wide variety of high-quality texts that are at the appropriate levels of listening and reading difficulty, and of high interest." The following projects from this course helped guide me to answer my compelling question.
WOW books
The WOW Books project was a valuable assignment in our ECI 540 class. I really enjoyed searching for new literature to use in my classroom! As educators, our role is to read aloud quality, diverse, complex texts from all genres to expose children to many different and engaging books. It is necessary that teachers are constantly searching for new books to keep the read alouds entertaining, exciting, and relevant to our students. Since we know how valuable the read aloud is to our work in developing readers (Burkins & Yaris, 2016), it is imperative that educators are knowledgeable about many diverse texts across a host of genres.
This project allowed me to dig deeper into finding texts across all genres to read to my students. I embraced the challenge of finding books that I have not read before, as well as books that were published within the last fifteen years. Throughout this semester I spent many afternoons in the library, scouring the abundance of quality texts that I had not yet read. The aspect of using Goodreads for this project was also helpful because it exposed me to a new way of finding books to read with students. I enjoyed reading the reviews that my peers wrote about their WOW books, and have even incorporated some of those books into my instruction. I have already utilized many of the WOW books I reviewed into my classroom instruction. A student favorite was using The Most Magnificent Thing in connection with a weekly STEM challenge. I will continue to use Goodreads to find quality books to read across all genres. I have shared this tool with parents, as well, to encourage them to help students find new books using this great website.
This project allowed me to dig deeper into finding texts across all genres to read to my students. I embraced the challenge of finding books that I have not read before, as well as books that were published within the last fifteen years. Throughout this semester I spent many afternoons in the library, scouring the abundance of quality texts that I had not yet read. The aspect of using Goodreads for this project was also helpful because it exposed me to a new way of finding books to read with students. I enjoyed reading the reviews that my peers wrote about their WOW books, and have even incorporated some of those books into my instruction. I have already utilized many of the WOW books I reviewed into my classroom instruction. A student favorite was using The Most Magnificent Thing in connection with a weekly STEM challenge. I will continue to use Goodreads to find quality books to read across all genres. I have shared this tool with parents, as well, to encourage them to help students find new books using this great website.
Teach Up!
During week nine of this course we discussed the role of reading levels in the classroom. Dr. Timothy Shanahan says that we should match readers to texts, and students should do the work of making sense of challenging texts. Fountas and Pinnell argue that we should never share reading levels with students, and that it is inappropriate to use levels to limit what students are allowed to read. Rather, we should be teaching students to choose books based on their interests. I also learned that it is important to blend quantitative and qualitative methods of determining a text’s level or readability. Burkins and Yaris (2016) argue that text selection is the most important scaffolding work we can do for our students in their book Who's Doing the Work. We should be looking at the reader and their abilities and interests and then text matching from multiple perspectives. Teachers should never teach to the level, but rather they should always teach to the reader. We must also keep student interest and motivation in mind when selecting texts to read with children, as these indicators will trump reading level nine out of ten times in regards to a child’s successful interaction with a text.
The most significant lesson for me was that all children need to be exposed to complex texts. This is important because it gives students opportunities to grow. As teachers, we must consistently monitor progress to be sure that we are teaching up, not down. Burkins & Yaris (2016) also describe Next Generation Scaffolding as a component of teaching across the gradual release of responsibility. This requires that teachers carefully consider the student, the text, and the task in order to maximize productive effort.
Far too often we find teachers that are teaching to the level that students pass on the mClass assessment data. This class helped me to gain confidence in sharing with colleagues that the reading level a student passes is often the independent level, but as teachers we should be teaching to their instructional level. Many teachers that I have worked with this year were not aware of this differentiation in the assessment data. It has been helpful to have the information from this class to share with colleagues about the importance of challenging students by teaching up, rather than giving students instruction on levels that they can already read independently. These lessons also encouraged me to be more intentional about choosing texts to use with all ranges of reading groups in the classroom. It is necessary to challenge students across all levels, and in order to do that I must be cognizant of the interests and motivators of my readers.
The most significant lesson for me was that all children need to be exposed to complex texts. This is important because it gives students opportunities to grow. As teachers, we must consistently monitor progress to be sure that we are teaching up, not down. Burkins & Yaris (2016) also describe Next Generation Scaffolding as a component of teaching across the gradual release of responsibility. This requires that teachers carefully consider the student, the text, and the task in order to maximize productive effort.
Far too often we find teachers that are teaching to the level that students pass on the mClass assessment data. This class helped me to gain confidence in sharing with colleagues that the reading level a student passes is often the independent level, but as teachers we should be teaching to their instructional level. Many teachers that I have worked with this year were not aware of this differentiation in the assessment data. It has been helpful to have the information from this class to share with colleagues about the importance of challenging students by teaching up, rather than giving students instruction on levels that they can already read independently. These lessons also encouraged me to be more intentional about choosing texts to use with all ranges of reading groups in the classroom. It is necessary to challenge students across all levels, and in order to do that I must be cognizant of the interests and motivators of my readers.
This resource by Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris helped me to redesign my literacy block. I discovered the importance of both the gradual release of responsibility and careful text selection in supporting young readers.
Burkins, J. M., & Yaris, K. (2016). Who's Doing the Work?: How to Say Less So Readers Can Do More. Stenhouse Publishers.
Mandel Morrow, L., Gambrell, L. B., & Pressley, M. (2015). Best practices in literacy instruction.
Mandel Morrow, L., Gambrell, L. B., & Pressley, M. (2015). Best practices in literacy instruction.