Lesson Plans

Some standard teacher tasks still overwhelm me. Lesson planning is one such task. While I was working on my master's, our literacy class was asked to develop a week's worth of informal literacy lesson plans during yesterday's class. My group was excited to dive into something so obviously practical and useful. We reviewed the examples of daily schedules and literacy blocks we'd been given by our professor, leafed through the books and supplies we were to use in our lessons (an insect and butterfly theme), and quickly became activity generating machines!

We could visit the community garden! Or a butterfly house! Plant butterfly-attracting plants at school! Have caterpillars in the classroom! Create a paper and felt garden with the class!The kids could create pretend seed packets and plant stakes! A gardening themed play center!

Fortunately, it didn't take us long to realize that, while we were not lacking enthusiasm about our topic, we'd forgotten our goal: to create literacy lesson plans. This, I think (I hope) is a common pitfall for novices. We're so excited about getting into a classroom and teaching kids new things that we lose sight of the vital structure that makes a classroom enriching, not enraging.

Back on track, we focused on developing specific types of literacy activities that matched our theme. We could write about where the butterflies in Waiting for Wings go once they are fully grown. We could raise caterpillars in the classroom and write down our observations as they changed from larva to caterpillar to butterfly. Word work would focus on breaking apart and assembling -ing words. Lessons were actually starting to take shape.

A very helpful reminder came from our professor at the end of class. She said two things I'll need to remember to keep myself from going crazy. First, it doesn't need to be cute for the sake of being cute, and next, building one richly connected literacy unit a year is plenty. I should not try to have an entire school year of in-depth cross-curricular units created my first year teaching.

Briefly, I was overwhelmed by this experience. I worried that even my enthusiasm was now a potential handicap. Now though, my take away is this: when it comes to teaching, too much enthusiasm is less of a problem than not enough.

Teaching and Learning with Popular Media

Many of my blog posts have focused on the importance of using a variety of media and activities in order to engage students in developing literacy skills. In the past few weeks, we have been able to put those ideas into practice. Myself and another pre-service teacher helped the early readers we have been working with this semester make a movie.

The students we have been working with are kindergartners. Each has a very different personality. One is very eager and talkative, but likes to focus on exactly how characters are portrayed in books or movies. The other student is very shy and needs much encouragement to participate. Knowing that, we went to their kindergarten class with picture books and art supplies, ready to engage the students in telling us about what interests them. Myself and the other pre-service teacher told them that we were going to help them make a movie about anything they wanted! This turned out to be an overwhelming offer and both students told us they did not have any ideas. This is when relying on popular media came in handy.

We immediately asked about movies the students had recently seen. Had they seen anything they really liked? Would movies they like be fun to recreate here? With some careful questioning we were able to find out that our more talkative student had recently seen a movie about dinosaurs he called Meet the Dinosaurs. He told us it was a very new movie, still in theaters, and that it was okay that we hadn't heard of it. I did some investigating on the internet and found a 1999 made-for-TV movie called Meet the Dinosaurs, but I also found out that there is a Discover the Dinosaurs show happening in Indianapolis in addition to The Children's Museum's dinosaurs attractions. Wherever the interest came from, we had an enthusiastic dinosaur expert. As we suspected, our shier student was happy to go along with this suggestion.

To make the movie, we gave the students the options to be the dinosaurs themselves or to make dinosaurs for their movie. They opted to make dinosaurs and we provided our two students with paper and drawing materials in order to create the characters. With our dinosaur enthusiast explaining who the main characters were in the movie, we helped create a background and the start of dinosaur shapes. Our movie was a work in progress from start to finish. We filmed a few scenes when the students decided we needed to create two more dinosaurs, so it was back to the art supplies before we shot more footage.

Working with the kindergartners to make a movie taught me to be open-minded to whatever topic they were interested in and also to however they wanted to make their movie. The students we worked with did not have any interest in planning a story out ahead of time. The student who had seen the dinosaur movie usually started the scene wanting to replicate something he'd seen in the movie, but usually switched to playing a dinosaur who just ate everything. I enjoyed letting the students decide what made sense to do next while facilitating an end product. 

Playing with Literacy

Just as a child progresses through different levels of learning to read, so does the child who develops literacy skills through play. Children may start by mimicking social situations they have seen in their daily lives (talking on the phone, shopping, making dinner, etc.), but as the child is allowed to play through the literacy skills they observe in life their play evolves as well. Students begin using familiar characters to recreate favorite stories from books, movies, or TV. They may even make up new adventures for their favorite characters.

In order to learn about this process from the student's point of view, we were asked in class to use McDonald's Happy Meal toys to make a short movie. We were instructed to subvert the intended use of the toys. Our group had a stuffed animal, two scantily clad fairy women, a robotic dog-type pet, and Sherman from the cartoon Mr. Peabody and Sherman. Immediately one of our group members suggested that the fairies rescue Sherman. We opted to create a series of short situations in which Sherman finds himself trapped and the fairy women must rescue him. I believe we found it easier to work outside the original plot lines of theses characters because, for the most part, we were not familiar with the TV shows and movies from which they originated. This process was helpful for me, though, to see how students ideas evolve from expectation, to story ideas, to play.

There are many other ways to encourage play as a literacy-strengthening activity. For instance, Literacy Playshop suggests "Playing Action Scripts with Puppets." This activity helps students focus on communicating ideas through movements and actions. In this process, narration is used sparingly and the story is explained through the puppets actions and dialogue. Children must stretch their creative muscles in order to get away from tradition descriptive narration. What a useful tool for demonstrating different types of writing in an engaging way. I think this would be a very useful activity for second or third graders who have enough independent writing skills to begin to experiment with different narrative techniques and story structures. This activity is also useful for helping students understand the story in a read aloud text. The students develop ownership of the story and characters if they have firsthand experience with the situation.

It is important to allow students as many different ways to engage with curriculum. We do not use our ability to read for reading only one type of text, so why should students develop literacy skills through one type of activity. Using various kinds of play, whether it is puppet shows, movie-making, or role playing in the classroom, students engage with literacy on different levels when they play with it.

Using Picture Walks Fully

In Beyond Picture Walks: Revaluing Picturebooks as Written and Pictorial Texts, the authors praise the picture walk as a comprehension strategy, but explain that the way they are commonly used in the classroom frames the illustrations as merely an accessory to the words. This article argues that artists', including illustrators use colors and symbols to create meaning in their work and decoding that meaning can be a very meaningful activity for students.

The first thing the authors need of their students is for them to "revalue" picturebooks. They explain that "in our context, we use revalue to mean identifying and highlighting a less-valued aspect of picturebooks, namely, reading the meanings in the pictorial text." Not only can paying attention to the pictures aid in understanding the story, this practice can teach students about the emotions associated with different colors, why artists use different styles of art, and how artists use elements like line to portray movement or urgency. These evaluation skills have the ability to help students in and out of the classroom.

For instance, in their research the authors observe an art teacher's collaborative lesson with the nonfiction book a class of third-graders is reading. The art teacher uses illustrations from this book to demonstrate principles of design. "Stacey used illustrations to talk about how McCurdy's use of neutral colors emphasized the extremely cold temperature, how his use of shapes with pointed edges depicted danger..." Students then chose a sentence from the story to illustrate. In this way, students learned about the similarities and differences between conveying a message in written and visual forms.

The authors found at the end of their study that by using revaluing with picture walks, students were more confident moving between sign systems and taking ownership of their interpretations. It is not hard to see how these skills apply to life outside the classroom. Students who are confident making meaning from written and visual sign systems are better equipped to begin navigating the internet, text messages, and the bombardment of advertising present in everyday life. Teaching students to value and interpret both written and visual information is a necessary skill in today's classrooms.

Maderazo, C., Martens, P., Croce, K., et. al. (2010). Beyond Picture Walks: Revaluing Picturebooks as Written and Pictorial Texts. Language Arts. Vol. 87 (No. 6). pp. 437-446. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41804215

Interactive Read-alouds

Catching Readers Before They Fall describes in Chapter Six many compelling reasons for having interactive read-alouds in the classroom. They allow students to discuss a common topic with each other, they can be tied to math or science curriculum to enrich a lesson, and they can act as brainstorming sessions for students' writing. However, I believe the two most important reasons to have frequent interactive read-alouds in the classroom are to model enjoyable reading and to expose students to a variety of books. Students will likely be enthusiastic readers if they know it can be fun and they have books that interest them. 

Using read-alouds to model enjoyable reading is something I hadn't considered until my first literacy class this Fall. I knew that reading to children was fun. I knew that using funny voices and good inflection were helpful to keep a group of students engaged. It hadn't occurred to me though that kindergarten and first graders who find reading challenging could look to a read-aloud for proof that it gets better! What a wonderful reason to read to a class- to show how fun it is! 

Catching Readers reminds us that modeling enjoyable reading is not just for struggling readers. English Language Learners (ELLs) benefit from hearing books read in English and even the strongest readers will learn from listening to a teacher with good tone and inflection. So, read-alouds serve many purposes. They are also helpful for exposing students to a variety of books.

I can look at my own habits to see how important this demonstration is in the classroom. I am not particularly varied when I choose a book to read for fun. I know I enjoy science fiction and mythology-based stories. I know I like certain authors or series and I tend to stick to what I know. It is always a thrill though, to have a book outside my predictable sphere recommended. Children do the same thing. Whether it's butterflies, the moon, or Scooby Doo, students tend to stick with what they know they like. Catching Readers reminds us to manage the "diet" of books we give our students to prevent this miopic view of reading. For instance, because I loved Madeline as a girl I might be tempted to read every Madeline book to my students. They will benefit more though, from having one Madeline book read to them for a purpose (the story structure, repeated language, character development, etc.) and then having the option to explore more Madeline books on their own. 

By choose a healthy variety of books, we are increasing the chances of every student finding something with which to connect. When students have a personal connection, they have an incentive to read. I was glad that Catching Readers reminded me as I read that read-alouds can happen during any part of the curriculum, too. Students still get the benefits of seeing an enthusiastic reader when hearing a non-fiction book about shapes or seasons. 

Chapter Six of Catching Readers was helpful in reinforcing my interest in reading aloud to a class by providing detailed reasons read-alouds are beneficial. Read-alouds can be varied in a number of ways to fit any situation and appeal to any students. That makes for a very helpful resource in a teacher's toolbox.

Beyond Words

It's no secret that exposure to text is vital to students in the early elementary grades. The more a student sees letters, words, and sentences, the more familiar they become with the structure of language. However, in order to enrich the meaning making process, it can be helpful to encourage students to do visual work as well. In Violent Red, Ogre Green, and Delicious White: Expanding Meaning Potential through Media, Leigh explains that "daily access to a variety of media (e.g., marker, crayon, pencil, colored pencil, pen, pastel, and paint) influenced how children constructed meaning through drawing and writing."

Leigh believes that elementary classrooms are too focused on pencil use. She explains that pencils are privileged over other types of media because they allow students to correct their work. The alternative Leigh offers is that "we should be pushing for a process-oriented mindset where daily access to drawing/writing media makes it possible to respect process, to value experience. There are several benefits to allowing students more freedom of media when working in the classroom. First, students learn to manipulate the different supplies they have to create their work (splattering paint, blending pastel colors, etc.). Further, when no two students are using the exact same materials in the same way, valuable practice in verbal communication can be had by explaining techniques to each other. Leigh explains that students in the classroom where she worked were very interested in learning how to make unique colors by layering the provided crayons or markers. Students explained to each other not only how by why they created these new colors for their work.

Possibly the most important argument for allowing students a variety of media to express themselves is that it gives students a new way to demonstrate their understanding. Leigh begins this article with an anecdote about Marcus, a second-grader who is drawing a response to read-alouds about storms and tornadoes. Marcus asked other students if they had a "violent red". This showed Leigh and Marcus' classroom teacher that he had understood the mood of the books about storms, that they are intense and sometimes scary things. Leigh explains that "Marcus needed a kind of red that would communicate movement, agitation, unrest." How great that Marcus had this way to express himself! As a second-grader, Marcus may not have had the written vocabulary to explain in such detail his understanding of this topic.

Leigh broadens this idea about children relating to the media they have access to by telling us "Children who are given rulers will likely measure their world, but if a ruler is their only tool, their knowing is limited." I think Leigh makes a very valid argument for giving our students access to many different types of media. In this way, we are encouraging our students to think about what tools make sense for the task at hand. Leigh says of students' access to media in her study, "Announcing to children when they can take out their markers to draw, a common school practice, seems to us contrived and controlling, putting emphasis on us rather than on them." I found myself realizing that if our goal as teachers is to encourage students to think independently and form their own thoughts about what is being presented to them, it doesn't make sense to tell them how to show us that they understand.

Certainly writing is a vital tool for life and it should not be replaced by drawing or painting. Leigh demonstrates, though, that working in media like markers, pastels or paints, does not have to be limited to the holiday keepsake craft.


Leigh, S. (2010). Violent Red, Ogre Green, and Delicious White: Expanding Meaning Potential through Media. Language Arts. Vol. 87 (No. 4). pp. 252-262. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41804190

Organization and Communication

Chapters 10 and 11 of Catching Readers Before They Fall by Johnson and Keier fit together very well. Chapter 10 discusses how to interact with students in order to make observations about their reading skills and what to do with that information to make it usable. Chapter 11 addresses communicating with parents about student reader progress. I think these two areas of teacher go hand in hand.

For most elementary school teachers helping students develop reading skills is paramount. It's no wonder then that so much time and effort is spent getting to know our students as readers. Catching Readers outlined great ways to interact with students such as individual conferences and small guided reading groups. The most valuable part for me was the information about how observations in this groups and conferences is organized. Seeing the charts and forms that teachers actually use gave me a much better idea what my student records need to look like. How valuable to have well organized information about the entire class as well as individual students at your fingertips. As is explained in Chapter 10, this information is necessary to best plan for whole class instruction as well as small groups. As I continued to Chapter 11, I discovered another important reason to develop a successful organization system for student observations. Communicating with parents will be much easier and much more effective for me if I've made organizing and maintaining my reading observations a priority. These observations about students as readers influence their success in every other subject area (reading word problems in math, doing research for social studies, etc.) so being able to confidently discuss this information with parents is a vital skill I had not anticipated.

Chapter 11 is structured as question from parent/answer from teacher. Johnson and Keier explain that they selected sixteen of the most commonly asked questions about reading in the classroom. The questions range from 'I know my student is struggling. How do I help?' to 'The books my student is bring home are way too easy! What gives?' to 'What level is my student at? High, middle or low?' Reading the provided responses to these questions made me realize how important those records in Chapter 10 will be. If I received an email from a parent asking about how to help their struggling child. I would want to know exactly where I could reach to find up-to-date information about their student's reading progress and notes about my plans to help them. While I'm sure a certain amount of information about students is always rolling around in a teacher's head, I think parents would find recorded observations more professional and reassuring.

There was one answer to a question in Chapter 11 that I found confusing though. The question reads "It seems like my child just memorizes the books he brings home. Last night he even told me he could read it with his eyes closed. Is this okay?" The answer that Johnson and Keier provide includes explaining that "Oh, but that's not really reading though...readers do not memorize books." I understand that what they're getting at is a student who has figured out the structure and story of the book without working through the words to make meaningful connections, but readers do memorize books. At least, this reader does. I don't think I'm alone in falling in love with a story and reading it dozens of times, especially as a child. I memorized some of Aesop's fables, poems my mother shared with me that she loved as a little girl, and entire passages of A Wrinkle in Time. As an adult I continue to memorize sections of books I love. I think to tell a young student that readers don't memorize books may send the message that books are impersonal. Certainly, students should be encouraged to use reading strategies to process the words and make meaning first, but what about the student who loves a story so much they commit it to memory?

Overall, I found these chapters incredibly helpful. I realized a connection I hadn't before that I believe will make me a stronger teacher. I enjoyed the real world examples of organizational tools and the insight regarding parents' concerns about their students reading progress.

A Sociocultural Approach to Literacy

This week I read Razfar and Yang's article Digital, Hybrid, and Multilingual Literacies in Early Childhood. In it they discuss research pertaining to changes in early childhood literacy due to information technology and increased diversity in many schools. The point that "No ten-year period in human history has seen such rapid growth and change in information technology, digital media, online gaming, and children's access to them" is, I think, a valid one. As teachers, we have no choice but to acknowledge the growing place technology has in our students' lives. This article focused on three aspects of modern early childhood literacy: electronic and digital media as mediational tools, hybrid languages as mediational tools, and the use of multiple languages, literacies, and discourses in school communities.

The authors discuss the principle of semiotic mediation that is, the way children learn about and interpret signs and symbols in order to make meaning. The authors explain that "though semiotic mediation, children participate, negotiate, and interact in cultural and social practices." It is important then, for teachers not to limit children to one kind of interaction or to devalue certain types of social practices unless they are harmful to the children. We may have students from varied backgrounds in our classrooms and it is not our place as teachers to place value judgement on the types of semiotic experiences students have. During early childhood, the important part is to let the children discover as much as possible for themselves. The authors cite Vygotsky's idea that "During early childhood, children and adults develop multiple literacy practices through participation in socially organized activities, such as play, oral storytelling, and painting. These activities are often fluid in terms of roles taken up by young children, and dynamic in terms of the cultural tools they use to achieve concrete ends."

Furthermore, this article provides several examples of children demonstrating awareness of how technology is used in everyday life through their play. One example is of a 2 or 3 year old boy who has been using CD-ROM storybooks and one day asks his father to 'click' on him. His father points at the child and makes a clicking noise at which point the child starts singing and dancing. He is demonstrating his understanding of the links and buttons in his computer storybook. When the reader wants an action to happen, they click on a character. Another example comes from Karen Wohlwend and involves kindergarten and first-grade children using classroom supplies and found objects as placeholders for items like cell phones and iPods in their play. The authors explain that "These examples demonstrate how the technology itself has become an object of activity during pretend play and an intimate part of children's lives. So, just as we must reserve judgement about cultural and social interactions during play, we must allow children to use technology or representations of technology in their play. Because technology is part of the average adult's everyday life in this country, we must allow children to develop their own understanding of how and why these things are used.

These play situations are forms of early childhood literacy. They are examples of children demonstrating how they understand social situations and the use of technology in their lives. For children who are not yet writing, play is their primary form of literacy. We can learn about what types of things are important to children by observing their play. For instance, many children will reference characters from pop culture. This shows us as teachers what our students are experiencing outside the classroom. It is important for teachers to not only accept the type of play our students want to partake in, but to encourage diverse play. This means presenting a variety of cultural and social situations and different kinds of technology. Allowing students to explore these elements during play will prepare them for interactions as adults.


Razfar, A., Yang, E. (2010). Digitial, Hybrid, and Multilingual Literacies in Early Childhood. Language Arts. Vol. 88 (No. 2). pp. 114-124. Retrieved from http://jstor.org/stable/41804239

A Story for Story's Sake

This week I read Children's Literature for Reading Strategy Instruction: Innovation or Interference? by Patricia M. Cooper from Language Arts. Cooper argues that teaching reading comprehension strategies in kindergarten and first grade may not be the useful practice we think it is. She explains that "readers operate from self-interest" and so the most important thing to get young children to engage with a book is that it is one in which they are genuinely interested. At this point, I don't think Cooper ruffles many feathers. Personally, I remember falling in love with A Wrinkle in Time because I loved the idea of time-traveling, not because it's a great example of a character's conflict with their surroundings or because I could make a text-to-self connection about having a strange family.

Where I think Cooper might cause eyebrows to raise is when she says "The use of imaginative children's literature for overt reading strategy instruction is counterproductive in the pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grades." Cooper explains that she believes "the untaught story-or a story for story's sake" is not used in today's classrooms because there is not research documenting the benefits of such an activity. Schools, she says, have become so focused on teaching strategies and being able to measure student progress that things like imagination are being overlooked. Our current reading-strategy-focused system is flawed for two main reasons according to Cooper. First, young children need the opportunity to read and be read to just to use their imaginations. By being exposed to new ideas, characters, and places, students learn how the world might work outside their limited experiences so far. Second, Cooper does not believe that kindergartners and first graders are developmentally ready to get much out of the reading strategies they are being taught, particularly meta-cognitive reflections. So, is the untaught story a better model for literacy in K and 1 classrooms?

Cooper explains that "The untaught story plays a distinct and essential role in fostering young children's psychological relationship to and need for story-based children's literature, an essential first step in early of emerging literacy development." Using children's literature to teach reading comprehension strategies, Cooper argues, teaches children that there are right answers to enjoying a story. She uses the common classroom activity of predicting a story based on the book's cover. Because a teacher is usually hoping students will notice certain elements, children might get the idea that there are correct and incorrect connections to make to a story. Cooper puts it this way, "Innocuous as the prediction strategy seems, in reality it reflects a problem common to many reading strategies for young children: it engenders an uncertain sense of success." In my limited classroom experience, I think a good teacher can introduce or model reading strategies without taking away from a child's enjoyment of the story, but I think that depends on the teacher remembering that each student comes to a story with different background and developmental abilities.

Beyond potentially inhibiting imaginative development, Cooper worries that students are simply not developmentally ready to think about what they are thinking. She says about young children "How their thought processes work requires a level of cognitive sophistication that is only beginning to emerge by the end of first grade or so, and is so inexact as to be of very litter practical use to young children." I agree with Cooper that certain activities designed to strengthen reading comprehension are not appropriate for young students. For instance, it is unrealistic to expect a kindergartner to fit their feelings about a story onto a Post-it note. They probably haven't had enough experience writing to ensure that they will have enough space on that small square to express themselves fully. I think the answer here, though, is not to not teach reading comprehension strategies, but to modify them to fit the needs of the students.

Cooper believe that "The true contribution of story to the early childhood classroom is its power to teach young children, not to comprehend or even decode, but to imagine alternatives to the way things are." I do not disagree with her. I think the ultimate purpose of using great children's literature in the classroom is to show students all the wonderful stories in which they can lose themselves. I don't think, though, that reading comprehension as it currently being taught has no place in K and 1 classrooms. In many ways, learning to be aware of the connections they make as they read, can encourage students to read more. It is always vital, in reading comprehension or any other classroom activity, to think about what the students are getting out of it. No one benefits from just teaching a lesson because it is on a list somewhere.


Cooper, P. (2009). Children's Literature for Reading Strategy Instruction: Innovation or Interference? Language Arts, Vol. 86 (No. 3), pp.178-187. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41483524

The Evolving Literacy of Kindergarteners

I recently read Literacy in Motion: A Case Study of a Shape-shifting Kindergartner by Siegel, Kontovouri, Schmier, and Enriquez from the National Council of Teachers of English. In this article, a case study, the authors discuss a kindergarten student named Jewel. Jewel moves between languages (Bengali and English), cultures (home and school), and literacies (writing and drawing). This issue raised by this article is one of perception. Jewel does not, the authors observe, cause a commotion in making all these changes. Jewel is an example of a multi-literate student. Multiliteracy is a relatively new idea, one that needs to gain footing in order to prepare students for the modern world.

This article argues that systems like balanced literacy, as it was practiced at the observed school, created a culture discourse which valued certain types of reading and writing over others. I think this is something that can be very hard to identify in your own school and even if it is identified, making changes also proves challenging. Even in my limited experience in classrooms, I have heard teachers and administrators say things like "Well, it's always been done that way." In the article, students in Jewel's classroom were praised for sitting correctly during mini-lessons, using the mini-lesson strategies while reading, and completing writing exercises in the correct order. If Jewel did something out of order she was reminded by her teacher or fellow students what the correct procedure was. Repeatedly, Jewel was reminded to add words to her drawings, that they were not done without the addition of words. I found myself asking what I might be able to do if I find myself teaching in a school that does not value cultural diversity in it's curriculum.

This article proposes looking at young students' work through a lens of multimodality, that is assigning value to all aspects of symbolic representation. I could transfer this viewpoint to the classroom by asking students about their drawings instead of just reminding them to add words. As we've learned in Catching Readers Before They Fall, every student has their own developmental timelines. Not all kindergartners are ready to write sentences at the same time and that's okay.

The students I teach will need to be prepared to use their literacy skills everywhere in an ever-expanding variety of forms. They will not only need to be able to identify narrative elements in stories, but know how to use all of the features on a standard website, smartphone app, or grocery store self-checkout station. This article emphasized that it is important to think about who a literacy program benefits. Is it designed for ease of measurement or to value students' developing skills and build on them in a variety of ways?


Siegel, M., Kontovourki, S., Schmier, S., Enriquez, G. (2008). Literacy in Motion: A Case Study of a Shape-shifting Kindergartner.Language Arts, Vol.86 (No.2), pp.89-98. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41962327

Learning to See Progress

We need to have more confidence in our kids.

"Just as children move from babbling and incorrect pronunciation when learning to talk, children move rapidly from the invented spelling to correct or conventional spelling." Rasinski and Padak explain this process in their article, Teaching Phonemic Awareness. As I read this, I was surprised that what seems obvious now seems so profound. Children's development will progress. It's what children do. In Raskinski and Padak's article, as well as in Every Mark on the Page by Cusumano, it becomes clear that if we give students the opportunity to explore their developing skills and experiment with techniques they will show great progress. No need to freak out.

I understand though, why parents or in my case, novice teacher might be nervous about a student's writing and speaking skills developing properly. Those are critical life skills. Cusumano does a wonderful job explaining how to find the progress in young students' writing. The first thing I found important to keep in mind was that children are not born knowing that spaces go between words and that the same letters can be combined in different ways to make different words. Those are huge milestones that we often overlook because we're too busy correcting spelling or worrying that the student's d's are still backwards. Cusumano explains that recognizing a child's independent willingness to attempt spelling the words they want to use is a skill that will serve them well throughout their early writing process, that even if most of the words are spelled incorrectly, the real success is in the student's desire to try, to experiment. Cusumano explains "The learning can progress rapidly if the child discovers and tests out the rules themselves instead of having them imposed without."

This philosophy is echoed in Rasinski and Padak's Teaching Phonemic Awareness. They say "Most children develop phonemic awareness naturally through everyday play with language sounds..." By giving children the opportunity to play with language, they can develop the skills we want them to independently. Both articles make the point that this type of development leads to stronger mastery of the skills. Children are not just told what to do, but discover that by using correct pronunciation or spelling their messages are conveyed more effectively to others. In fact, the two are connected. Rasinski and Padak say "Literacy scholars argue that writing in which students use their knowledge of sound-symbol correspondence, also known as invented or phonemic spelling, is a powerful way to help students develop their phonemic awareness as well as their basic phonics knowledge." So, in fact, the two skills are linked and can be practiced simultaneously by children.

I am sympathetic to parents who worry about their children's speaking and writing development, as a new teacher I know I will want my students to be hitting their benchmarks right on schedule. These articles remind us though, that more important than the schedule we've made for the students is the students' ability to explore their developing skills themselves.

Learning About Struggling Readers

In Catching Readers Before They Fall, Johnson and Keier explain that regardless of how reading is taught, some students still struggle. This, they reason, means that the basal readers, phonics software, or textbooks are not always to blame. The problem is that struggling readers have not been given the mental tools they need to succeed. Struggling readers do not think the way successful readers do. They lack a reading process system. I will admit that until now I thought it was completely understandable that teacher's blame their materials or their curriculum for lack of success with students.

A personal reading process system though, is necessary for anyone to make meaning from a text. Johnson and Keier explain that the process is the same for first graders as it is for college students. I agree, having fundamental skills to make meaning of any text is a vital tool in all stages of life. Inside the classroom, students must decode not only the literacy reader but science and math textbooks. These texts only get more complicated as school goes continues. Everyone needs to know how to use the same strategies; catching mistakes, knowing when what you've read doesn't sound right, thinking about the author's message, and reasoning through difficult or unknown words for example. I thought about the reading I do everyday, the reading required at our literacy dig and the strategies presented in these chapters fit those purposes. Reading signs and mail, understanding what your boss is implying in an email, or decoding new technical terms in an instruction manual are things just about anyone will need to do often.

Struggling readers either have not been exposed to these reading process ideas or have not learned to implement them in a helpful way. Johnson and Keier cite P. David Pearson who explains that is does not matter who is at fault for not preparing the struggling student with adequate reading tools. Blaming parents or previous teachers won't make reading easier for the student. Pearson says "Take the students in your class from where they are and move them forward from there." This point of view is a refreshing one. I understand now how many educators might fall into a problematic habit of assuming that the materials are what needs changing, not their perspectives.

Johnson and Keier tell us that it is ideal to start teaching students to use decoding strategies as they read as early as possible, but not every student gets the attention they need in those early years. So, what's to become of the fourth grader who can barely make it through Henry and Mudge? Johnson and Keier tell readers to maintain a safe environment where students know they can make mistakes, work with reading materials from real texts, and keep the student working at the edge of their abilities, later referred to as ZPD or zone of Zone of Proximal Development, coined by Leo Vygotsky. The ZDP is the level at which the student can work successfully with a teacher's help. Any lower and the student gets bored, higher and frustration can take over. I know I've experienced this in various aspects of life. The hardest part of striving to keep students in their ZPD must be knowing where it lies not only for reading, but for all classroom challenges. Again, paying close attention to students, not flaws in materials, is key.

It seems that using the comprehensive literacy framework described in Chapter Five of Catching Readers Before They Fall might be very helpful in this process. A comprehensive literacy framework has several components, each with less teacher support. It starts with reading aloud which allows the teacher to model genuine interest in books and stories. Next is shared reading. This is still a read-aloud but one in which the teacher models comprehension strategies for students. Guided reading is the next component. This allows a teacher to see exactly what a student is doing when presented with a certain text. Teachers can encourage and model specific strategies depending on what types of challenges the student faces while reading. Finally, students read independently. Of course, this allows students to use the strategies they have seen modeled with the fewest supports. By slowly eliminating supports, it can become clear where the student becomes overwhelmed. Furthermore, this is a great system for building confidence in struggling readers.

I see something similar in all of these strategies for helping struggling readers; struggling readers are all similar and different. While this may not initially seem like a helpful connection, stay with me. As a teacher, I believe it is my responsibility to know about how children develop and learn. Because of this, it is useful to know about common struggles for most readers and strategies that have been proven to help make meaning. However, it is also a teacher's responsibility to pay attention to each student as an individual. So, just because standards or past experience say that all first graders will be able to master a certain text the student who doesn't is not flawed, the materials might be fine, and the curriculum could be great. There will always be students who don't fit the mold. I am anxious to become a teacher to get to know which molds each of my students don't fit! Isn't that what keeps the job interesting?

Engaging Early Readers and a Literacy Dig

We recently read an article about a literacy project called the Donut House. A classroom teacher in Kentucky found a way to engage her diverse group of students in an impressive range of literacy experiences through creating and operating a donut shop in their classroom. The students actively participated in every step from hiring a contractor to "build" their shop to finding shareholders to creating operating instructions for making donuts. The students wrote thank you letters, loan applications, lists, invitations, and interviews all to create their donut shop. Hall makes the point in this article that the literacy valued in classrooms (novels, plays, poems, etc.) is not the literacy valued in life. This donut shop brought the literacy of daily life into the classroom.

In this way, students got to develop various literacy skills using real life applications. I assume this teacher did not have to answer "When am I going to use this?" very often during the donut shop activity. In fact, in Chapter 1 of Catching Readers Before They Fall Johnson and Keier emphasize how important it is to know how to engage your students in the material. Furthermore, the authors of this article say that students are able to develop self-worth by practicing these types of real-life applications. I can see how this is possible, especially as the article says, with at-risk students who perhaps do not see themselves as skilled readers or writers.

For class, we went on a "literacy dig" in which we evaluated a local business for it's literacy practices. We were instructed to choose somewhere children might go frequently. Our group chose a local, co-op grocery store. We looked at concrete examples of literacy such as written signs and price tags, advertisements for community events, coupons, and receipts. We also observed that in order to most effectively navigate this place, one would need the social and cultural literacy of a grocery store. For instance, a customer must know to get a basket or cart and begin selecting products off the shelves themselves. A customer must also know though, that for certain items like fresh meat or fish, a store employee must get those items for you. Spoken literacy is prevalent in this store as well. There is a somewhat scripted interaction between the check-out clerk and the customer. The employee will ask if the customer found everything they were looking for and ask if they have a member number. The customer will most likely say that they found everything and tell the cashier their member number if they have one. This conversation is usually casual and polite. We also found that there is a great deal of vocabulary specific to shopping for food, especially at this grocery store which specializes in natural foods. Understanding terms like organic, gluten-free, non-GMO, BPA free, and eco allow better understanding of the products for sale. Further, because this is a co-op business words and phrases like cooperative, stronger together and member-owner are seen in various places throughout the store. So, how does all of this help us teach elementary school literacy better? Like the students did in the Donut House, we had to think about all the different types of literacy we would need to use in order to shop in or work at a business like this.

Our group discussed what running an in-the-classroom grocery store would look like. Students would need to create many of the same types of documents as in the donut shop article such as permits, letters to investors and design plans for the shop. For a grocery store, students would learn to design a logo and slogan, create signage for each department and price tags for the products. They could create a checklist of responsibilities for employees, receipts, and a newsletter for the community. The students would need to think about how best to inform the community of their business which might involve sending letters encouraging certain people to get involved in the planning and investment of the store. Students could also design advertisements and plan a grand opening event. There would be many opportunities to practice written, spoken, and visual literacy based on a necessary real-life task.

We also discussed the cross-curricular opportunities for a project like this. Running a class grocery store could be the basis for various math lessons like using money, creating a budget, addition, subtraction and multiplication in order to plan an inventory, or learning to use a scale in the produce department. Designing a logo, signs and advertisements would be great, practical art lessons. Science lessons could focus on why certain foods expire before others and the importance of keeping foods like dairy and meat in refrigerators.

However, there are literacy skills that are not as well served using real-life applications like the donut shop or a grocery store. Students are not able to create a character, setting or plot from their imaginations in this type of project. Exercises in writing short stories or poems, while not based as much in daily life, give students an opportunity to think outside the structures of a form, list or procedure. If we are going to encourage students to flex their creative muscles we must give a variety of opportunities to do so. I believe a project like the donut shop would be incredibly beneficial to any classroom. Exposing students to the many ways they will need strong literacy skills in their everyday life is very valuable. We must not though, become so focused on literacy skills based in the real, adult world that we skip giving our students the opportunity to create worlds, adventures and heroes of their own devise.

The donut shop project looks like a great way to get kids interested in literacy without dropping a giant reading textbook in front of them. Using a project like that in the classroom would be a wonderful way to practice a wide variety of skills at once. I'm sure planning and working in the donut shop was more engaging for many students than interpreting poems. I hope though that every student also has the opportunity to explore rich literature and the fun of writing their own stories.

Learning to Teach Literacy

As a soon-to-be teacher, I am taking a class about literacy in K-3 classrooms. This is the place where I will be sharing ideas, questions, and observations about what I am learning. I am particularly interested in how to encourage struggling readers, ways to incorporate writing across the curriculum, and reading great children's literature.