to read, enjoyable, and you can retell.
Keep modeling and emphasize that independent reading should be enjoyable.
Reassure students that they are safe in your class and can select a book they can easily read. Explain that the more they read accessible books, the faster their reading will improve.
Daily, the three of us took turns sharing this mantra during guided reading and when we modeled how to choose a good fit book: In this class you are safe. No one will make fun of you or criticize you. We are here to learn together and support one another. It might seem like a small thing. But for these students who lived with failure for such a long time, we hoped that by repeating these words, combined with their reading successes, students’ self-confidence and trust in our community would continually improve.
We became dedicated kid-watchers and listeners, eager to learn as much as we could about our developing readers (Owacki & Goodman, 2002). We met frequently to share literacy stories and what we noticed during daily interactive read-alouds. Observations of and conversations with students continually deepened our knowledge of their feelings and beliefs about learning to read.
Characteristics of Developing Readers in Middle Grades
Year after year when students make little to no progress in reading, they can develop characteristics that prevent their growth and progress. Stacey, Bridget, and I identified ten characteristics based on the middle-grade developing readers we taught. These students:
lack self-confidence
feel embarrassed reading easy books in front of peers
have difficulty decoding multi-syllable words
choose challenging books so peers think they can read
have learned the art of fake reading
don’t read at school or at home
can’t read grade-level materials and don’t receive alternative materials
have developed an “I can’t do it” outlook
become quiet, silent, and hope no one will call on them
don’t dream of what they want to be or do beyond school years
One of our goals was to teach students about the Power of Yet (Dweck, 2007), explaining that they might not be able to reach a goal yet today, but with practice, hard work, and our support, they could achieve it. During our bi-monthly study group, we discussed personal and collective efficacy, the belief that with skilled teaching we could reverse the pattern of little to no reading progress for these students (Donahoo, 2016). That year, the fifth grade team not only improved their teaching skill by learning from students, but they also made a commitment to professional learning and becoming evolving teachers who continually grow and improve their practice.
Developing Readers Need Skilled Teachers
Skilled teachers create an environment where choice and negotiation are daily options for students. In addition, they recognize the importance of ongoing professional learning as a powerful pathway to develop, adjust, and refine their theory of learning to make decisions that boost students’ progress.
Skilled Teachers Observe Students Carefully
Watching and listening to students can deepen your understanding of what they do and don’t comprehend as well as their ability to explain ideas to peers, follow directions, use independent work time well, be active listeners who respond to what peers say, and their level of engagement in a learning experience. The eight tools that follow enable you to see each student as a unique individual and deepen your knowledge of how each one communicates, works with a team, analyzes material, listens, connects ideas, and transfers learning to different situations.
Kidwatching:
Be relentless with observing students during interactive read-alouds, guided practice, instructional reading, student-led paired and small group discussions, and independent reading of self-selected books. You can notice and note whether students are listening, participating in discussions, talking out of turn, have materials for a lesson, frequently get up to sharpen pencils, or ask for a bathroom pass.
Listening:
Tune your ears to whole class, small group, and partner discussions, and learn how students express their ideas and cite text evidence to support their thinking. You’ll also note how frequently they participate, whether they value diverse interpretations of texts, and how they react to peers who challenge their thinking.
Raising questions:
Skilled teachers have a questioning mindset and wonder about students’ motivation, attitudes toward learning, and book choices. They encourage students to pose questions about how and what they are learning, knowing that students’ queries can make visible concerns and confusions.
Conferring:
Short, scheduled conferences between the teacher and student can reveal attitudes toward reading, past experiences with reading, the amount of independent reading completed at home, and students’ comprehension and recall.
Fifth grade teacher Stacey Yost uses conferences to maintain the momentum of reading, so a student who never completed a book reads an entire self-selected book. Each week, Stacey confers with the student about a section completed and closes the conference inviting the student to decide how many pages he/she can read by their next meeting (see Figure 1.2 for a glimpse at Stacey’s notes). “Students choose the book and set their own pace and goal,” she says, “and that invests them in the reading. Most of the time, the student exceeds his/her goal and that offers me an opportunity to celebrate success. A student’s weekly goal rises as success continues. Once they experience the joy of completing a book, they’re ready and eager to read another one.”
Figure 1.2: Notice how Stacey schedules frequent meetings to help the student complete the book.
Interacting:
Even brief interactions that occur during daily read-alouds, or as you circulate around the room during independent reading and stop to answer a student’s question or listen to a discussion, can deepen your knowledge of what students understand and whether they require extra support. It’s also beneficial to chat with students during lunch and recess as the sum of your interactions can build positive relationships that in turn enable students to accept and/or seek your support.
Reading students’ writing:
What students write in notebooks reveals what they understand and recall from their reading (Barone & Taylor, 2006; Robb, 2017). Alana, a fifth grader in Wanda Waters’s class, started the year by listing facts from a book.
