Celebrating Educators Recap and Reflections

Each week of Celebrating Educators has inspired me and gave me a lot to reflect on. I wanted to reflect on some of the many lines that stood out to me from the first three posts.

"I loved every minute of my time at Lewis and Clark College and read the writing of so many people who helped me understand this complex thing called teaching." - Penny Kittle
*One of my most favorite aspects of going back to school for an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction was the chance to learn alongside other professionals from the student side. Prior to starting my program, I had been narrowing in on my specific school and content area, and it has been so enriching to maintain that focus while also zooming back out to broader issues in education. Through reading, writing, and discussing, we learn so much!


"Today I keep a notebook and write in it most days, I read like a wolf eats, as Gary Paulson says, and I still love teaching." - Penny Kittle
*Penny Kittle always has powerful statements that energize me as a teacher.


"For me, this career has been about risk taking and reflection. I have been given opportunities and I often didn't think I knew enough to take them, but I did. I learned along the way, challenging myself to read and think about this work in complex ways and never settle for less than reaching every student. Teachers are powerful. I work every day to use that power well." - Penny Kittle
*This year is about taking risk for me, as well as an opportunity to really reflect on my career as an educator so far. It's never easy to step outside of our comfort zones, but I love Penny's positive attitude toward learning from new contexts.

"While this is accurate, telling the story in this manner does not describe the joys that I find in being an educator; new experiences are available to me as both a teacher and learner, so long as I'm willing to avail myself of them." - Troy Hicks
*Troy Hicks reminded me of the role of being a teacher and a learner, as well as focusing on ourselves as writers in order to be a better teacher of writing. I have enjoyed writing more than ever in the last couple of years and utilize the concepts I have taught my students to continually develop as a writer myself as well. This statement also reminded me of how there is always so much more beyond the surface level with teaching, so much rich description.


"Writing has the power to change lives [...] We teach kids to become writers, and in doing so we teach them to become themselves." - Troy Hicks
*The power of writing never fails to amaze me - so much potential. Being able to experience writing alongside my students and to watch them make sense of their worlds through writing has been fascinating and so fulfilling. 


"When I view myself as a leader, I can only see myself in relation to those colleagues that surround me. As I do what I can to teach them, to inspire them, and to help them become better teachers, I become a better teacher myself." - Troy Hicks
*I have been lucky to be surrounded with inspiring colleagues throughout my teaching career. Being able to collaborate within my school, on-line, or in classrooms is always energizing.

"There really weren’t many reading teachers around then.  And there had never been a program before for the 7^th graders to have a reading class, thus there was no curriculum for me to follow. Nothing." - Pat Johnson
*This quote reminds me that so much of being an educator entails being determined and motivated to consider what we know in relation to our present contexts and then go through many cycles of reflection and discussion in order to continually build our capacities as teachers with a sharp focus on students and their needs. There's rarely (if ever) easy answers. Yet, it is essential to allow for this time to grow and develop, rather than pushing for an emphasis on programs vs. teachers as professionals.


"I ran a tutoring clinic in my home, and I taught myself a lot about teaching kids to read by watching one kid at a time." - Pat Johnson
*One kid at a time - I have learned so much as a parent being able to closely observe my girls and their literacy development. It informs me as a teacher, as well as my students helping me grow as a parent. I love the range of data sources available through writer's workshop - conferring, comments in discussions, writing samples... So much to learn from each individual student.


"Because I know it’s NOT possible for every person to get trained in Reading Recovery, I constantly think,  “How can I help? What is it from my new understandings that I could share with other teachers?” And each year since then – through all my series of workshops at schools, through my LLG (Literacy Learning Groups that I did with Title I teachers for 3 years), through my graduate classes at George Mason University, through my two books (One Child at a Time and Catching Readers Before They Fall) – each year I try to find ways to say it better." -Pat Johnson
*Once again, the vital role of collaboration comes through. Each of us has the power to contribute to a collective discussion and understanding about content, students, and teaching. I love Pat's wording focusing on constant refining.

As educators we are on a constant journey. Where will it take us next? 

Celebrating Educators: Pat Johnson

Pat Johnson and Katie Keier's Catching Readers Before They Fall was released at a perfect time last year as I was trying to learn more about supporting my daughter's reading development. Since Johnson is a Reading Recovery-trained teacher and often mentioned her experiences and learning as a result of it, the book also piqued my interest about Reading Recovery. When I heard that the two authors had a blog by the same name as their book, I instantly added it to my blog roll so that I would make sure to check in with each new post. I always learn so much from their thought provoking posts. I am pleased to have Pat Johnson as the third guest writer for the Celebrating Educators series, sharing about passion in education. I love that her post gives glimpses into the recent history of literacy in the United States. 

While searching the newspaper one day for an obituary of someone I knew, I accidently came across this one of a woman musician who had lived in Washington, D. C. The woman played the harpsichord, the violin, and jazz piano.  Here’s part of what it said about her, “Her passion was teaching music to young children, toddlers and kindergartners. She was affectionately known as Ms. Mara, the Music Lady. Her pupils danced to the Gypsy Kings, learned about new instruments and sang nursery rhymes.”  Her passion…I loved that.  I loved the way she combined her two passions of teaching young children and music.

That idea of PASSION really spoke to me.  I’m worried about where all the passion for teaching has gone these days.  I see so much discouragement, frustration, or just plain lack of excitement about teaching. New teachers are leaving the profession by an alarming rate.  Whether the cause is the testing craziness, or the leveling frenzy, or the national standards, or the overwhelming curriculum – whatever the reason for it, I thought I’d write about passion in hopes of bringing some of it back. 

I have had ONE PASSION for the past 13 years.  And that is… to help and support as many teachers as I can to learn about a reading processing system so that they can better understand how to support the struggling readers in their classrooms.   But this hasn’t always been my passion.  In fact, maybe it takes a large part of your career to come to your own passion clearly.  So take a walk down Memory Lane with me, if you will, and although I’ll write mostly about my own journey it may still ring true for what’s been going on around the country.

I graduated from Douglass College, part of Rutgers University in NJ in 1972.  At that time there were about a gazillion baby boomers also graduating college and many of them were teachers.  Alas, there were no jobs.  AND to make things worse, my degree was in teaching English, k-12, not a degree for elementary school. I landed up taking a job as a 7^th grade Reading Teacher in a Junior High an hour from my home. 

There really weren’t many reading teachers around then.  And there had never been a program before for the 7^th graders to have a reading class, thus there was no curriculum for me to follow. Nothing.  They had an English teacher – who did grammar teaching, diagramming sentences, and the 5 paragraph essay – but the school was finding that many of the kids were not strong readers.  The principal asked me to sign up for a Reading class at a local university graduate program and when I agreed, I got the job. That’s how I accidently began going for a masters degree to become a reading specialist. 

 At the junior high I had 6 classes a day with 30 students in each class, and there was quite a range of reading ability in every group.  I was handed some workbooks that included pages on synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, prefixes, suffixes, main idea, draw conclusions, fact and opinion, and so on.

I had no idea what to teach, and I soon discovered neither did anyone else.  I went across the hall one day and asked the English teacher (who had been teaching for about half a century), “Is there something else I should be doing besides these workbooks?” She proceeded to explain to me about long and short vowels and suggested I might start there.

Somehow I didn’t think that was what these kids needed.  I kept thinking, “Hmmmm…. a reading class…maybe they should be reading! Reading real books!” I asked the principal for a little more money and bought tons of paperback books. I remember one was Sounder and another was Mr. and Mrs. Bojo Jones – (about teenage pregnancy, believe it or not.)  I found a book called “Hooked on Books” published in 1969 (instead of hooked on phonics). I set up, as best I could, an individualized reading program. I spent that year trying to get kids turned onto reading.  

Was my eye on struggling readers yet?  

Not really.  If I had a passion at all back then it was about surviving each day.  And for any of you who are brand new teachers I’m sure you can relate! 

My next three years followed along a similar path. I had moved to the DC area, got a job teaching 6^th graders this time. Six classes a day, thirty kids in each, a range of abilities once again.

 My memories of my first 4 years of teaching were not very happy ones.  I barely survived each day.  Discouraged by my chosen career I decided to stay home when my first child was born. I stayed home for 8 years until my youngest was in first grade.  I still had a passion for teaching, but I wanted to be good at it.  I didn’t just want to go through the motions of giving assignments, marking papers, and giving grades. While I was home I did two things. First, I finished up my Masters in Reading and while doing so I read all kinds of professional books about teaching reading.  Secondly, I ran a tutoring clinic in my home, and I taught myself a lot about teaching kids to read by watching one kid at a time.  In my clinic I kept getting  younger and younger students– and loving it.  And I knew, when I went back to work, I was going back to elementary school.  I had found my niche.

Along comes the 1985 school year, we were living in VA, and I landed my first job as a Reading Specialist in an elementary school. That was right around the time that Don Graves published his book Writing:  Children and Teachers at Work.  Reading teachers were busy helping classroom teachers develop authentic writing workshops.  It was a most exciting time to be a young reading teacher because we were among the ones trying to figure it all out. And we were doing it WITHOUT the help that exists today.  We had none of the work of Ralph Fletcher, Katie Wood Ray, Carl Anderson, or Georgia Heard.  The Lucy Calkins kits didn’t exist and Giacobbe and Horn had not done their work with writing in kindergarten yet. We only had Graves, Lucy Calkins, and Shelley Harwayne at the very beginnings of their research.  (And of course, Nancie Atwell’s In the Middle.) Their work was brand new.  But the excitement they shared was invigorating. 

Back then, Don Graves, Lucy Calkins, and Shelley Harwayne were the most inspiring speakers anyone could have heard. I can still hear Graves’ unique voice.  I bet if you closed your eyes some of you can too. And we are all so sorry he’s no longer with us.  But we were so lucky to work in this big county of Fairfax, Virginia, because they could afford to bring these speakers in.  I heard Don, Lucy, and Shelley speak many times.  And afterwards I’d go out to dinner with friends and we’d be so fired up.  We couldn’t wait to get back to classrooms to help teachers with new ideas.  It was all so new and classroom teachers had so many questions.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Many times we bumped up against resistance --- teachers who wanted to hold onto their grammar books and spelling books and not do writing workshop at all.  It was a challenge, but we welcomed it.  We had a passion for all this new understanding. 

 So was my eye on struggling readers yet?  

No, I was very busy with writing workshops! And besides that, the schools I worked at had Title I Reading Teachers who were in charge of teaching all the struggling readers. (Isn’t it interesting how easy it is to say that struggling readers are someone else’s job?)

What was going on in reading at that time, in the mid 80’s and early 90’s?  Well first off there was the appearance of Big Books and Shared Reading in primary grades.  All of that was based on the work of Don Holdaway.  But, again, schools didn’t have the wealth of wonderful Big Books to choose from that exist today.  Each school was lucky if they had 10-12 to share among many classrooms.

Also, in reading, the Whole Language approach to reading and writing was taking shape in classrooms in my county and all across the country. Ken and Yetta Goodman, Frank Smith, Regie Routman and several others helped Whole Language to flourish in the U.S.  Teachers began moving away from only using a basal, to using real books in the classrooms.  I read children’s literature like there was no tomorrow. I was passionate about Whole Language because it came with an aspect of ‘turning kids on’ to books and into lifelong readers, writers, and learners. Whole Language pushed for bringing enjoyment of reading into classrooms and encouraged teachers to support children as they made their own choices, as they read authentic texts instead of basals and workbook pages, and as kids wrote for real purposes.  And it was fun!!!

There was no talk of Guided Reading yet, no Interactive Writing, and no leveled sets of books in classrooms. Because teachers wanted to know how to work with kids who were reading their own books, my work headed in that direction.  We developed many generic ways to respond to texts – we had response logs and response activities coming out our ears! Perhaps many of you can remember those days.

Was my eye on struggling readers yet? 

 No, but we’re getting closer.  I was reading children’s literature like crazy and I was trying to get teachers to match children to books better as a way of motivating them.  In fact, talk of motivation was big back then, and I’m embarrassed to say I even jumped on the reading incentive bandwagon --- reading for pizzas or ice cream parties and balloon launches.  I quickly realized the error of my ways and saw the problems and the dangers of these incentive programs.  Now I abhor those and want to support children in learning to read for intrinsic purposes. I always remember an article that came out back then titled something like “Are we raising readers, or just fat kids?”

But let’s get back to Whole Language.  I won’t go into the details of the misunderstandings of the WL movement, how the media played a role in destroying it, but soon it became a dirty word in our county and elsewhere.  Whole Language gave way to a Balanced Literacy Approach to reading and writing.  And we began to understand the different contexts of a comprehensive balanced classroom that included Reading Aloud, Shared Demonstrations, Guided Reading, and Independent Reading.  In writing it also meant modeling writing, shared or interactive writing, and independent writing time.

By the time that Balanced Literacy was in full swing, I had moved to a different school in my county and stayed there for seven years.  This school had a very diverse population and we had a much larger group of kids who were struggling with reading.  Fountas and Pinnell’s work was becoming very popular; they had put out their first book about Guided Reading and we were all taking note of how we could actually teach kids in K-2 better.  We knew we needed more early intervention and to give all students a better, stronger start.  We thought,  “Why wait until 3-4 grades when they were totally frustrated and then test them and place them in LD programs?  Wasn’t there something we could do to help more kids, especially in grade 1?”  As an answer, our county implemented a low student/teacher ratio (15:1) in grade one, but required teachers to take a “Beginning reading strategies” class.  The idea behind this was: “You don’t just get less kids.  You have to be doing something different. You have to better meet the needs of individual learners!”  

Around this same time Reading Recovery had also come to the county  (1986) and some reading teachers were getting trained. Our county was actually the second site in the U. S. after Ohio to begin training RR teachers.  When it began it actually snuck in very quietly.  No one knew too much about it. Little by little a few more teachers were trained. I was a bit skeptical about it at first but only because of my ignorance.  The training for it was so intense that those who were trained just didn’t feel like they could share any of it with others who were not trained.  Many of us used to tease that there was a ‘secret handshake’ and only those trained knew it.

But I was reading more and more about guided reading, about early intervention, and about struggling readers needing to build their own reading processing system. I facilitated countless Teachers-as-Readers groups, reading and discussing professional books together, learning more about running records, about guided reading, about leveled texts, about teaching for strategies, and so on. I believed strongly back then as I do now that the way to support teachers is through long-term staff development – slow change over time is the best way.  Eventually, around 1994, I was Reading Recovery trained. Woo Hoo, I got my Reading Recovery tattoo and learned the secret handshake!

All kidding aside, Reading Recovery changed my world!  Now I look back and wonder, “How could I have called myself a reading teacher for those first 12 years if I had never taught a struggling reader to read? I’m not saying every reading has to be Reading Recovery trained, but I am saying that a reading teacher should know how reading works.  A reading teacher should know about reading process. And a reading teacher should be able to share with classroom teachers, ELL teachers, LD teachers, special ed teachers, how to support their struggling readers.

Was my eye on struggling readers now?  

Oh yes… clearly…absolutely.  And I’ve been focused on struggling readers for the past 13 years now. I’ve been an advocate for struggling readers because I’ve made it my mission to reach as many teachers as I can and help them learn about 3 things:

• how a reading processing system works
• what that means for struggling readers
• and how to teach in ways that support struggling readers in building a reading processing system. 

Because I know it’s NOT possible for every person to get trained in Reading Recovery, I constantly think,  “How can I help? What is it from my new understandings that I could share with other teachers?” And each year since then – through all my series of workshops at schools, through my LLG (Literacy Learning Groups that I did with Title I teachers for 3 years), through my graduate classes at George Mason University, through my two books (One Child at a Time and Catching Readers Before They Fall) – each year I try to find ways to say it better.

I hope my journey has stirred up some memories for those of you reading this.  Or I hope that sharing my passion will help you focus on your own personal passion about literacy teaching. 

Catching Readers Before They Fall

This summer an educational topic that has been occupying a lot of my thoughts has to do with me as a parent and educator than with my own students. All the details could be a separate post (or multiple posts on their own), but here's a brief explanation. There are some concerns about my daughter's academic progress; however, I have noticed a lot of growth for her last year. She is a June birthday, so as a kindergartener she was one of the youngest in her class, but luckily my school has a track for two years of first grade (one year, which my daughter did last year, is a smaller setting of around 12 students before the academic first grade year). This was definitely a good decision for her. Her teachers also commented on her progress throughout the year.

Yet, looking into adding special education services was mentioned. Therein came my biggest conflict. I am not opposed to the concept of special education, but the only option available at my school is pull-out scripted programs that are a stark contrast to what I believe is best for students. I have concerns that missing a significant portion of the day would leave my daughter confused when she is in her class because of all of the gaps in her day. In the long run I do not feel a high sense of security that scripted pull-out would help move her closer to grade level expectations. To the contrary, I worry that it could move her further and further away. As long as I am noticing her making progress, I am very hesitant to have her receive scripted pull-out special education services. Instead, I am going to make sure that I leave work earlier this year to spend time with A providing additional support as opposed to always trying to spend time with her when she is already exhausted and ready for bed.

Since this has been on my mind a lot I have been ever-increasingly more interested in primary literacy so that I can provide further support for her at home. Pat Johnson and Katie Keier's new book Catching Readers Before They Fall: Supporting Readers Who Struggle, K-4 was an excellent place to start. Though it is written for K-4 teachers, I found my thoughts alternating between wanting to help my daughter and thinking of my 6th-8th graders who still struggle with reading. The book provided me with many great ideas to think about, as well as resources for further exploration. In particular, I want to read more of Marie Clay's work. Part way through reading the book I went on-line and was ready to spend a lot of money on a lot of Clay's books even though I have been trying to limit my non-necessary spending. However, then I thought about utilizing library resources. My university library had plenty of Clay resources (more posts on those later).

Here are some take away points/favorite ideas from Catching Readers:

• The authors comments strengthened my personal literacy beliefs, including the power of licensed teachers who value on-going professional development, the need to recognize ways to support students in developing efficient reading processing systems that focus on meaning if they have not already done so, and the importance of teachers really knowing their students and focusing very closely on what they can do and what teachers should do to help move them forward.
• I was especially excited for Chapter 4 - Beyond "Sounding It Out". Since aside from my daughter, my experience is with adolescents, helping students who still struggle with decoding words has always been a challenge for me. I feel much more confident with comprehension support. (The authors talk about how they do not like the term decoding, but I can't think of another word to accurately express my thoughts.) Over the years I have picked up some considerations about this, but I wanted to know more. Their emphasis on focusing on meaning and the three different sources of information (what I am familiar with being termed cueing systems) complemented my literacy philosophy and helped strengthen my perspective for this important piece to reading. I loved their strategy poster example on page 65, and I plan on making one to talk about with my daughter. 
• Another chapter that I was thrilled to see was Chapter 11 - Sharing Information with Families, formatted as a Q&A of common questions that parents asked. What I loved about this section is that not only do they include the question and example answer, but then they follow that up with further background information for teachers on why they would answer that way. Many of these related to questions that I have and others helped me see other ways that I can explain to parents what I do in my own classroom, even though I teach older students, because their literacy philosophy so closely aligns to my own. 

Overall, I loved this book from different lenses - as a parent, a 6th-8th grade teacher, and as an aspiring literacy leader, helping me to expand my understandings to a wider age range. Most of my main points were from my parent/teacher perspective; however, when thinking about it as a resource in a literacy leader role, it is an excellent introductory text because it mentioned a lot of foundational ideas, such as literacy philosophy, zone of proximal development, and gradual release of responsibility. Yesterday, I was excited to see that the authors have started a blog. As soon as I click to publish this post, I will be adding their site to my blog roll. I am excited to continue learning with them.

Now, I am planning on continuing to read more books as I am able to, balancing between prep for my students, spending time with my family, finishing up my homework/assigned reading, and my professional development reading for fun. I know that I will not be able to read all the books that I want to as quickly as I would like to, but I will thoroughly enjoy any chance I get. With earlier literacy the books I will be reading in the near future are Marie Clay's books, Jennifer Jacobson's No More I'm Done (another new Stenhouse book that focuses on writing), and some other books that I found at my university library when finding all of the Clay books.