Thoughtful Literacy: Conversations for Learning

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Thoughtful LiteracyConversations for Learning

• Prepared and presented by
• Mona Yoast
• National Literacy Consultant
• Rigby / Steck-Vaughn
• Sponsored by Jennifer Brown
• Your Rigby / Steck-Vaughn Sales Representative
• 301-681-1177
• Jennifer.brown_at_harcourt com

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What Really Matters for Struggling Readers
Richard Allington

• Kids need to read a lot
• Kids need books they can read
• Kids need to learn to read fluently
• Kids need to develop thoughtful literacy
• Improving classroom instruction

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Thoughtful Literacy

• The new national and state standards for
  proficient reading target a more thoughtful
  literacy than has traditionally been expected for
  school reading programs. What I mean is that the
  latest assessments of reading require (1) that
  students actually think about what they have just
  read and (2) that they explain or describe this
  thinking. Being asked to think about the text
  youve just read is different from being asked to
  recall the text youve just read.
• Thoughtful literacy lessons seem to require a
  different organization of instructional time and
  a different sort of curriculum design.

Allington, 2001 pgs. 87-95
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• the most common error made by adults about the
  learning of young children is that we can bypass
  what the child it thinkingChildren of all ages,
  preschool through high school, need frequent
  opportunities to formulate their thoughts in
  spoken languageChildren need to ask their
  questions, explain things to other children, and
  negotiate meaning between themselves and other
  children, and between themselves and other
  adultsPeers can be active partners in
  conversation. (Clay 1998, pg 15 28)

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7 Comprehension Strategies

• Activate prior knowledge
• Determine importance
• Ask questions
• Use sensory images
• Draw inferences
• Synthesize
• Monitor and use fix-up strategies
• Keene Zimmerman, 1997

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• Historically, teachers and researchers have
  believed that the ability to comprehend text was
  caught rather than taught. (pg. 16)
• Surprisingly, many of the studies that examined
  the thinking of proficient readers pointed to
  only seven or eight thinking strategies. Some
  researchers concluded that if teachers taught
  these thinking strategies, instead of much of the
  traditional isolated skills expected to lead
  inexorably to proficient reading, studentswould
  be better equipped to comprehend and analyze text
  independently. (pg. 21)
• The researchers recommended that each strategy be
  taught with singular focus over a long period of
  time, to students from kindergarten through
  twelfth grade and beyond, and that teachers model
  and students practice the strategies with a
  variety of texts. If teachers focused their
  attention on a strategy, beginning with a great
  deal of modeling and gradually releasing
  responsibility (Gallagher and Pearson, 1983) to
  the children to practice it independently, the
  researchers believed students could actually be
  taught to think differently as they read. They
  would comprehend more deeply, critically, and
  analytically. (pg. 21)

Keene and Zimmerman, 1997
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Gradual Release of Responsibility
TO
WITH
BY
Modeled
student
Shared
Interactive
Guided
teacher
Independent
Mooney, 1990
Pearson and Gallagher, 1983
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Good Readers Hear Voices!

• Reciting Voice We hear our voice reading the
  words.
• Conversation Voice We talk back to the text and
  interact with it.
• Interactive Voice Makes connections, asks
  questions, identifies confusions, agrees and
  disagrees. This voice deepens understanding.
• Distracting Voice Thinks about other things and
  pulls the reader away from the meaning of the
  text.

Tovani, 2000
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Modeled ReadingRead Aloud / Think Aloud

• Determine the purpose
• Select the text
• Rehearse the reading
• Plan opportunities to model your process of
  reading, comprehension, and fluency
• Read the text stopping to think aloud
• Discuss

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Shared Reading in the Intermediate GradesYellow
Brick Roads Shared and Guided Paths to
Independent Reading 4-12Janet Allen, 2000, pgs
58-61
Read aloud time, where students do not have the
text in front of them extends quite naturally
into shared reading, where students are invited
to read along silently as the teacher reads the
text. Shared reading is different from round
robin reading. One critical difference is that
the voice support many readers can offer during
round-robin reading is not fluent. During
round-robin reading, the person doing the oral
reading is often the least able to comprehend the
textBy contrast, during shared reading, the
decoding is done by the teacher (or tape), so
student readers can focus their cognitive
energies on the tasks of comprehension
visualizing, questioning, inferring, making word
associations, predicting, connecting, and
analyzing. As these comprehension tasks become
automatic, they can be transferred to students
independent reading or shared reading of more
complex texts.
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• Conversations build comprehension and ability to
  utilize skills, behaviors, and strategies.
• Agility with comprehension strategies and
  behaviors leads to fruitful, meaningful
  conversations about literacy.

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Classroom Conversation Patterns
Teacher
Teacher
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Interactive Reading Procedures

• Say Something Technique
• Read, Cover, Remember, Retell Technique
• Partner Jigsaw Technique
• Two-Word Technique
• Reverse Think-Aloud Technique

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Interactive Reading Raising learner
engagement by floating learning on a sea of talk.

Teacher Model
Turn and Talk
Reflect and Share
T A L K
Teacher Input
Think Together
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• Interactive Reading

• Energizes whole class instruction by raising
  level of engagement for all learners
• Enhances oral language proficiency
• Improves retention of reading content and
  vocabulary due to immediate interaction and use
• Engages students of all learning styles and
  levels of ability
• Set stage for small group strategic reading
  sessions

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Gradual Release of Responsibility
TO
WITH
BY
Modeled
student
Shared
Interactive
Guided
teacher
Independent
Mooney, 1990
Pearson and Gallagher, 1983
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• In an ideal literacy program, children are
  constantly reading, writing listening, and
  speaking. They are engaged learners who are
  constantly expected to apply what they are
  learning to new contexts.
• Michael F. Optiz