Common Reading Time: Data and QRIs

Yesterday I started an update of how our shift to a 6th-8th grade common reading time is going so far. I explained what it was like the first couple of days. Today, I am going to continue on by sharing what my push-in colleague and I did next.

On the third day we took what we had observed in the various classes, as well as our background knowledge of the various students and met to map out a plan for starting QRIs. From previous years, we knew that conducting QRIs could end up taking a large portion of classroom time. We did not want it to stretch out over a period of a month and a half as it easily had before (or worse, even longer as a result of having all three classes at the same time).

Previously I had administered QRIs on my own to all 6th graders (since they were new to me) and to a select group of 7th and 8th graders since I had already had them for a couple of years. Instead, this year we prioritized students and mapped out a plan. We narrowed down to new students and students that we want to monitor more closely. Once we got to that point, we still wanted to think about efficiency. When we considered how long it would take us to complete the QRIs if we did multiple passages with students, we both agreed that we would want to avoid that length of time.

Instead, we chose one passage to use with all of the students in order to get a general snapshot. We know that we can always go back later and do more in depth QRIs with some of the students if needed. The fourth day we were able to begin the process. Because each of the grade levels was in a classroom with a teacher, we were able to pull students from the classroom to conduct QRIs and we were able to be fully present to the students, rather than also being in a supervisory role of the rest of the class. We also did not have to worry abou the interference of students overhearing responses of students before them. Walking in the hall we were able to have quick asides with students about the books they were reading.

By having both of us conducting QRIs, by being able to fully focus on the student that is with us at the time, and by going in with a plan for one passage, we have been able to move through our lists efficiently. Most likely, we will be able to finish up next Monday or Tuesday. At the end of each session, we typically have a little bit of time where there is not enough time to check in with one more student, so we have been quickly debriefing about what we are noticing so far.

And we are still observing... As we go into classrooms to get students, we notice student engagement. Even though it slows down the QRI process, we make sure to have quick check-ins with students who really need it in order to find the right book. As a team, we talk about what we are seeing and the possibilities of our next steps now that we have a little bit more flexibility in what we do. We consider how we can best meet the needs of the students in the different classes.

Time and time again, I am discovering that one of the aspects that I most appreciate about teaching alongside my colleague is the opportunity to have deep conversations about adolescents and reading and the history behind what we are doing and new possibilities.

In the future I will be doing posts about a shift in the way that we are doing reading logs this year and how that is working out, as well as a post about our post-QRI steps.

Scheduling Update

A little bit before the school year started, I posted about some changes in scheduling for this year. Now that we are two weeks and two days into the school year, I thought that I would give an update on how the shift to a common reading time for our 6th-8th grade classes (just one class/grade level) has been going.

We started school on a Thursday, but we did not begin our independent reading time slot until Monday. In some ways, my first two days of school felt rushed. Thursday was busy with First Day activity, and Friday I knew that I needed to make sure that every student checked out a book and was ready for Monday. I also needed to explain the new reading log to them that they will be using to log both their at school and at home reading requirements.

Monday mid-morning rolled around and each of the classes were reading - the building was silent. My push-in colleague and I quietly moved through the three classrooms to observe for signs of student engagement. We were able to have quick hallway asides about what we noticed as we were in the classrooms at different times. We began to formulate lists of students who we might be most concerned about, students who we would want to focus on in order to connect them with books in contrast to student who have already established a sense of the joy of reading. We continued doing so on the second day.

Those first days the reading block was actually longer than typical because of a 4th-8th grade common language development time that had not yet started. Teachers decided to use the time to facilitate talk about books. Each teacher did it differently with a mixture of talking about the books they were reading, whole class student sharing, partner sharing, and small group sharing. As I rotated between classes, it felt odd to be on the periphery of these interactions. Teachers had already set the stage for the conversations, so instead, I sat back and observed, taking notes on my iPad, highlighting what each teacher was bringing to the table to enrich the literate lives of our students. I thought about how seeing glimpses into each classroom would allow for common conversations of what seemed to be working really well.

By the end of the second day, we felt like for the most part, the various classes had settled in. We had checked in with some students about making sure that they were reading books that were a good fit for their interests and where they are at right now as readers. We were ready to move into a different phase, in order to get into a more active role, rather than observing and scaffolding the first days.

Tomorrow I will be posting about how we shifted to considering data and mapping out a plan on the third day.

Scheduling, Scheduling, Scheduling

As maybe all workshop teachers, each year is a new opportunity to consider how to maximize the time that I have for each class period, determining how to prioritize. Over the last three years that I have taught the amount of time that I have had has varied as our school has grown and schedules have changed. The third year when trying to squeeze everything in, I ended up not including word study or a read aloud with my 6th-8th graders. Nonetheless, I wasn't happy with the shift. It was just one possible way to try to provide sufficient time for students to read and write, balanced with instruction/discussions. I continued to reflect on the impact of those decisions throughout the year.

Last year when I took a leave of absence, I let the teacher who was filling in for me know about the rationale for my decisions but also about how I discovered that I would have wanted to try to layer both back in if I was going to be in the classroom again. She met the same challenges with time though.

This summer when thinking through how we could reconfigure the schedule, one option that came up was having a common time where all students are doing their independent reading. I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand it made me nervous. It was hard enough for me and my push-in colleague to feel like we were able to confer regularly enough with all students. How would that feel with all three grade levels in one common time? Nonetheless, when I looked past that nervousness and considered the alternative, facing the time crunch, I realized that it was time to also consider the advantages of the change in the schedule.

The top advantage is that students will have a guaranteed time and space for reading independently four days a week (Friday the schedule is completely different for PBLs and Electives). Another huge benefit that I love about it is that students will get to see all of their teachers as readers and adults who care about them as readers. In addition, students receiving special education services for reading were pulled out during my reading workshop and did not have an opportunity to have choice in what they were reading during their pull-out session. Now they will be able to participate in the independent reading portion of the day and still receive their pull-out services at another time.

I also thought about how while my colleague and I won't necessarily be able to interact with each student as regularly, we will have at least three other teachers to help us. Here is the initial vision of how it will look:

• 6th, 7th, and 8th grade will each be in a classroom. The fourth teacher on our prep school team who does not have her own classroom will be in mine. The push-in teacher and I will have flexibility to rotate around the three rooms. I recently found out that we will most likely also have one special education assistant who will push-in as well.
• Our first priority will be making sure that kids are engaged and motivated to read. As a team of 5-6 adults, we will be closely observing to see who already has an established habit of reading and a high motivation versus students who can use more support to make sure that they have a book they will enjoy.
• My push-in colleague and I will be able to provide support with conferring. The great thing about conferring is that it will not require any outside planning/preparation (other than conversations about it and time to reflect) - something that we wanted to be careful about when considering how the shift would impact other teachers.
• Eventually we will layer in book clubs. Having one common reading time will allow for multi-grade face-to-face book clubs. The groupings will be more flexible. Other teachers will have the option of opting in or to continue conferring, as facilitating a book club would require time outside of the independent reading time slot in order to read a book along with the students. Other staff, such as administrators are interested in seeing if they can participate in book clubs at times as well. 

Reconfiguring how the space for students to have choice and read independently shifts other aspects of my typical routines and procedures. I have been thinking through the check-out process for books as well as status of the class. I have been thinking about goal setting and students playing a more active role through self-assessments and reflection.

I look forward to seeing how it all emerges as well as the deep reflection that is sure to come with a shift like this. Sometimes in education, it is necessary to try something even though aspects of it make us a little nervous. Looking beyond those feelings to consider how there is the potential for something great and then problem solving how the logistics of a shift can have a big pay off.

On-going Reflections & Workshop Components

Throughout the year, I am always reflecting. This year I realized that each change in order to seek refinement is not necessarily better than previous years. Instead, I found myself reflecting on what was working better, as well as aspects that I shifted away from that I needed to weave back in. For next year I will be moving in to a mentoring role as I take a leave of absence in order to fill in as a sabbatical replacement. This summer I will be working closely with the teacher who will be teaching language arts next year. Even though we are just getting started, I am already enjoying having a chance to work as a collaborative team.


Below are some components that I told her I have realized throughout the different years are most important, which we will discuss in more detail throughout the summer. These are considered some of our starting points for dialogue. 

Focus lesson:

Each day there should be a focus lesson in either reading or writing. Depending on your schedule, you may have a focus lesson for each every day, but this all depends on the amount of time that you will have for each class period. For reading, these focus lessons might focus on aspects such as: choosing books, purposes for reading, reading strategies (modelling/think alouds)... In writing the focus lessons will vary, but Nancie Atwell's resource (Lessons that Change Writers) is great because it provides a lot of support, including suggestions with examples of what she says to her students. In general, focus lessons will be on genres, looking at mentor texts, talking about the 6 Traits (on the Oregon scoring guide), focusing on a specific area, such as leads, transitions, conclusions... There will also be focus lessons where you are guiding students through writing activities with writer's notebooks and times when you are sharing your own writing with students.

Independent Reading:

During independent reading students choose a book to read, while the teacher walks around conferring with students. I recommend starting independent reading with a status of the class (from Nancie Atwell's In the Middle) to find out the title and page that each student is on. This helps give you a quick snapshot of how students are progressing. For example, you can see if they are sticking with the same book and progressing well vs. picking up a different book each day. You can also see if they are reading the same book but making very slow progress. This is also an ideal time to have book clubs at times. We can talk about setting up book clubs later, but they are a great opportunity to create a better sense of a community of readers and to see how different students interact with the same text.

Independent Writing:

Similar to independent reading, students will all be writing while the teacher goes around to confer. In the past, at times it is hard to get students used to the idea that they need to write the whole time. They are never simply "finished". This goes back to start of the year writing workshop launch, which we can talk about more together, but students should know the expectations for workshop time and know that though they have options, they should always be writing. I typically have one writing that is due that is the first priority, such as a personal narrative or an imaginative short story, but students know other options in case they finish that. You can also start independent writing with a status of the class to see which phase of writing students are starting with and the topic of their writing. This helps to see trends in their progress and growth over time.

Word Study:

I did not end up doing word study this year because of the time crunch, but I realized many students still need it, so I recommend finding a way to weave it back in this year. Again, we can talk about this when we meet.

Everyday Editing:

This is a way to focus on conventions of writing in context, but it also extends to other traits. This can be incorporated into writing focus lessons or something separate on its own. I can show you the Jeff Anderson resource texts for this from Stenhouse.

Read Aloud:

Read aloud was another area that I did not do consistently all year long for the first time this year because of some challenges with the amount of time and with switching between languages. I think that Nancie Atwell's idea of sharing a poem a day together would be a great way to have the balance of sharing a text. I can explain more about this as well as other read aloud options that I have tried.

Reading Response Letters:

Students can complete reading response letters weekly either with time provided in class or as homework. I have done both, and I can talk to you about advantages/disadvantages of both. This has seemed to be the best way to have consistent insights into students as readers. I can share with you the rubric that I used this year for their reading response, as well as talk about logistics. You can either respond to all of their letters or you can do a combination of teacher/peer responses. 

Writing Sharing/Celebrations:

This is an area that I consistently do not do as well as I would like to as schedules seem too packed, but we can talk about ideas to make sure that students are sharing and celebrating their writing on a more consistent basis. It is also fun to do class books, and when I have done this, students have enjoyed reading each other's writing during reading workshop.

What have you found to be some of the most essential components of your classrooms?

Scheduling Ponderings

Last Friday was our last day of school, so I am officially in the reflecting/refining/planning for 2010-2011 school year mode. Next year will be the first year that our school will have grown through 8th grade. The exciting piece that comes along with that is that I will be teaching all three grades 6th-8th in language arts only. While I will miss social studies, I am glad that I will not have to try to fit reading, writing, and social studies into a shorter block of time.

One of the major areas that I am pondering right now is with the schedule. I am anticipating that I will have about 1 hour 12 minute blocks daily with each class. My priorities are to have time for read aloud with a reading focus lesson, writing focus lessons (writer's notebooks, Everyday Editing, traits, etc.), independent reading time, independent writing time, and word study. Then there are also other components that are not daily, such as Author Tip Tuesday, that I am trying to figure out exactly where they will fit.

Here are some initial thoughts running through my mind for options. I would love any feedback/thoughts on the different options. I am going to try to work through in my mind about what my preference is by the time I go to Heinemann's Boothbay Literacy retreat (only 33 days away, but who's counting?) because I know the retreat will be a great time to reflect on my ideas/thoughts.

Option #1: Have both independent reading and writing every day but only enough time for either a writing or reading focus lesson

• 20 min. Independent Reading
• 20 min. Read Aloud with focus lesson or Writing focus lesson
• 20 min. Independent Writing
• 10 min. Word Study

Option #2: Have focus lessons in both areas each day but only enough time for either independent reading or independent writing

• 15 min. Read Aloud with focus lesson
• 10 min. Word Study
• 15 min. Writing Focus Lessons
• 30 min. Independent Reading or Independent Writing

Option #3: Have time for everything each day but with shorter durations for some areas, such as independent reading and writing

• 10 min. Word Study
• 15 min. Read Aloud/Focus-Lesson
• 15 min. Independent Reading
• 15 min. Writing Focus Lesson
• 15 min. Independent Writing Time

My initial thought is that I would go with either option #1 or #3. It is hard to justify not having independent daily reading and writing. I have not completely ruled out #2 yet though.

Nice Reaffirmations

It is always nice for students to hear students make comments that validate the teaching practices I do. Today some of my students participated on a panel of students at our school for some university students taking a children's literature class. I had been excited for the panel, thinking my students would enjoy talking about the books they love. Yet, I didn't realize until after that it would also be an experience to reaffirm my literacy beliefs. This afternoon the college professor who was coordinating the panel was sharing different comments from my students about what they like about class and how they find books. For example, they brought up Author Tip Tuesday, book talks, reading response letters and our classroom library. I am glad that I have been able to play a role in my students' literacy lives, and look forward to spending one more year with this particular class!

iTouches Have Arrived

Friday was teacher work day, and we spent it getting the new iTouches that we received ready to roll out on Monday. For now each classroom gets ten iTouches, but eventually we will build to have a 1:1 ratio. The prep school students (grades 6-8 - the grade levels I teach) will be filled up to a 1:1 first. Eventually, next year the older students will be assigned an iTouch that travels with them instead of having them assigned to classrooms. Students will be able to take them home as well. However, we will not be checking them out this year as we still need to figure out exactly what our procedures will be related to that. One of the huge areas that I am excited about for the touches is using them as a response system for data. I am also looking forward to the possibilities with content creation, including having some of my students create audio books as a service project for the younger grades. We are not quite there on understanding exactly how to do these pieces yet.

For now I am thinking about how I will use them for the last five weeks of school. There are some applications for Spanish that students will use once we are back to our last two Spanish weeks. In the meantime, I am planning on launching them by having student read on them during reading workshop. There is one App that has a dinosaur montage and students can zoom in to individual pictures and then read information about them. One of my 6th graders is fascinated by dinosaurs, so I am going to offer this to him first. Then, there are a couple of other Apps with information about notable people and another with history classics*. I also want to add a link for University of South Florida's Lit2Go to the home screen of each touch.

I have also been considering putting some of my classical music into iTunes. This year my class has been pretty lucky. Because my classroom was the only one completed at the start of the year, we spent the majority of the year with out many distractions during reading and writing workshop. Even though I thought the construction that started up in the winter was a distraction, I quickly realized that amazingly enough, it was still relatively low on the distraction scale in comparison to having another class in the building.

As there was a higher level of noise in the building I talked to the students about how we still had to be productive but that we could experiment a little with ways to help us remain productive. For example, students have been able to give feedback on whether they would like to have classical music playing in the background to block out some noise, or if they prefer to block out the other class on their own. Students have had differences in preference, so the iTouches could be an opportunity for students to make decisions for themselves.

I was just reading Ruth's post about noise level in writing workshop. I had originally been thinking about having the music on iTouches available for reading workshop, but she got me thinking about how it would also be a great option for writing workshop. There are so many possibilities. It will be amazing to see different ways I will be able to maximize the benefits of iTouch in the classroom.

Reading Workshop Reflections

Today was one of those magical days in reading workshop. Lately during the day it has felt more like spring than winter, and today we were able to crack the door open a little and have a breeze of fresh air while the students were spread out around the room with their independent reading books. As I scanned the room ready to start conferring I noticed one of my students that I have had since last year in the corner quietly reading the words aloud to his book. He was in the zone, absorbed in his book, taking steps each day to building a life-long love of reading. Around the rest of the room I saw many other reasons to celebrate. I always love conferencing with my students and seeing the wide variety of books that they are reading at any given time.

Lately, I have been thinking back a lot to Steven L. Layne's "Alliteracy Poem" and about the goal of fostering that sense of life-long reading, rather than having the majority of the focus on meeting on a standardized assessment. Seeing Reading Countess' post also made me think about the same concepts.