Image of the Child: The Reader

Whether you teach kindergarten or seniors in high school, we are all teachers of readers!

That is the message from Leslie Hopper and Chris Edwards.  Leslie is the Library Media Specialist at Thorpe Creek Elementary, and Chris is a history teacher at Fishers High School.  They eloquently argue for us to use in the classroom what we know and believe about children.  Enjoy!

From Leslie Hopper: Voice and Choice

How many quotes like the ones above have you seen circulating around social media? How many of these are proudly posted in our classrooms? Not a single educator can rightfully deny words like these. These are beliefs that we hold true as teachers and readers.

Now consider this: How many of our instructional practices reflect these undeniable beliefs? How do our learning environments encourage and support lifelong readers?

Student voice and student choice! 

Previous blog posts have explored how learning is about the whole child. So is reading! Our students want and need ownership of their reading.

Think of your own habits as a reader. What do you love to read? What if someone told you that you could not read a book that you chose? How does it feel to finally read that book that YOU have been wanting to read because YOU chose it?

Kate loves nonfiction.
"Mom, thanks, but I do not care for Elephant and Piggie."

This year my daughter, Kate, is an eager first grader! She loves nonfiction. Craves it. She wants to learn about everything: animals, maps, cooking, and the list goes on and on. We read a lot of these books together, and she often claims that the book is too hard for her to read on her own. In an effort to boost her independent reading confidence, I shared some of Mo Willems’s easier-to-read Elephant and Piggie books with her. I knew that she could read these! And personally, I love fiction, adore Mo Willems, and secretly hoped she would love these books as much as I do.

She did not!

She stated, “Mom, thanks, but I do not care for Elephant and Piggie.” While my heart was slightly broken, I knew that this wasn’t about me at all. It was all about her. So we continue reading nonfiction together. One recent evening, she excitedly announced that she would be reading to us from her very large animal encyclopedia. And she read two pages all on her own! There were challenging parts that we helped her with, but to see her pride and confidence as she read was powerful! She took ownership of her reading.

Of course, we should introduce our students to a variety of genres and reading experiences with purpose and intention. But if we inherently believe in developing lifelong, excited readers, let us find every possible way to support our students’ choices, interests, and passions through our reading instruction.

Let a sixth grader read 20 picture books and a kindergartener explore an enormous atlas! What if the book is too easy? Too challenging? We, as passionate educators with strong beliefs about creating lifelong readers, will be there to support them on their reading journey, no matter what they choose.

It's all about the reader, not the book!

Respond to Leslie by email at LHopper@hse.k12.in.us

Follow her on Twitter: @librarytce

From Chris Edwards: Connecting the Dots

Right now, a lot of teachers feel as if we are juggling many balls at once. There is the Project Based Learning (PBL) Ball, the Literacy Standards Ball, the new SAT ball, and, for some of us, the Advanced Placement test ball. (With the school year in full swing, this feels like juggling while standing on top of a speeding train.) The first step forward, however, is to realize that those are not balls in the air. They are dots.

Let’s pluck them from the air and connect them into a larger picture. The common factor among all of the dots mentioned above is that they require students to master certain elements of literacy.

Chris argues for using what we know about our brains
to engage students and increase learning.

Neuroscientists have known for a long time that people learn best from reading when:

• Information is presented in a narrative form;
• Information is connected to other forms of information (neurons that fire together wire together); and
• Information is explained using analogies that connect the narrative to something that students already are familiar with.

One of the more perplexing things about American education is that the textbook and workbook companies that supply educational materials incorporate exactly none of these findings.

Since we know how students learn from reading, and since textbooks seldom reflect this knowledge, a crucial component of being an effective teacher is helping our students discover readings that are engaging. Once the readings have been chosen, the following steps help lead to mastery:

1. Students should be supported, using clear questions, to pull out the relevant evidence from the readings. The use of “textual evidence” is a major component of the new state literacy standards.
2. Students should be required to create a thesis, use evidence, develop a narrative, and use analogies in essays or presentations.

To use a short example, I use a wonderful excerpt from a book about the “Little Ice Age” of the medieval era written by the historian Brian Fagan. The selection explains how heavy rains and cold weather in the 14th century destroyed crops. After students have read this text and pulled out textual evidence, they read another selection about the impact that starvation has on the human immune system, and then they connect this new information to the outbreak of the Black Plague. Finally, students read a paragraph from a Scientific American article that explains how modern global warming has allowed for certain warm weather viruses to move into northern territories.

Students then grapple with questions like these:

• How similar and different is the modern era to the 14th century?
• Did global cooling once facilitate the spread of the Black Plague?
• If so, do people in the 21stcentury need to fear the spread of disease as the world gets warmer?

For the teacher, one question is about how the students will express their learning. It’s a long school year, and I can see no reason why my students and I cannot learn how to write traditional essays and create projects. The variety itself likely benefits both processes; preparation for one is preparation for the other.

Take a look again.  Those are not balls in the air. They are dots, and teachers can connect them by understanding that all forms of learning stem from a mastery of literacy, the development of a thesis, the creation of a narrative using analogy, and an eventual application either through writing or presentation.

The picture that emerges by connecting the dots will be of students who are engaged and learning. 

Respond to Chris by email at cedwards@hse.k12.in.us

Have a great week, HSE.

HSE Teaching and Learning Team