Chapter+6

===//1. Shared reading in small groups? Honestly, that is one structure I hadn’t considered, and am very excited to try. For some reason, I hold very concrete images regarding the elements of balanced literacy and when I consider a structure such as shared reading to be a whole group element, I don’t readily think about its use in small groups. This text is bending my mind, however, to consider a melding of approaches, groupings and options to meet the differentiated needs of our readers.//=== ===//One quote that jumped off the page for me was on page 156. When describing a shared reading small group it is suggested that, “It is important that children look at the same physical copy instead of having their own personal copy, as children are more likely to be attentive to the text and engaged with the instruction when all eyes are in the same place.” Hmmmm… interesting. I’ve heard that more than once lately.//===

//What quote from this chapter prompted YOU to think differently or deeper?//
//Shared reading in small groups I find to be valuable in my students learning. Using one physical copy makes sense as a focusing technique. My minilesson may be focusing on the "dreaded " fluency. Using a familiar piece of work as a demonstration and modeling aloud. The whole group will practice with a partner. During that time they will work on pausing and phrasing. When we move to our small group session I will have a just right article to assess my lesson. One of my best lessons is when I'm teaching music for a concert. This is a great way to put language into the soul of my children.// //Margaret Fox// //﻿// Chapter 6 from Bobbi Friend #1 – I have struggled tremendously recently with the idea of reading fluency. Due to the fact that we identify our struggling readers based on a DIBELS score, I cringe when I hear people talk about how many words per minute (WPM) a student can read. I know and understand that fluency is a part of reading well, but it is not the most important part. The quote in the book that states, “Some have taught children to read too fast, timing them with a stopwatch, which often means comprehension gets the backseat. This is not what I believe about fluency instruction.” I agree! I have had so many discussions and arguments about what a fluency score means. I have had students who were slow readers (meaning not very fluent) who can comprehend stories and write stories and discuss stories better than the most fluent readers. That is why the other quote that states, “It was then that I began to understand that hearing the story fluently and expressively is part and parcel to being able to comprehend the story. For most children the two are inextricably linked.” In order for students to be the best readers they can be, they need to be able to read with expression as well as fluency. I was so glad to read these quotes in the book!

Thanks Bobbi, the whole child's needs is the goal. I think my "aha" moment in Chapter 6 is the Warm up and Transfer of groups. Reading is like preparing to exercise we warm up the thinking process before we move on to more difficult material. Reading involves so many areas, fluency, comprehension, decoding. Moving this to

"Originally, the method of shared reading was meant to mimic the experience of a child sitting with a parent while the parent reads aloud." "When a child reads with a parent, they look together at the same physical copy of the text, and pause and respond at parts of interest." This made me realize why shared reading during different times of the day to build their love of reading is so important. I also now know that the students who don't have parents that read with them are at such a disadvantage which is another reason that it is important to fit it in many times during the day to give them this missed experience. Another "aha" moment was that children need a "warm up with a familar test or an easy one, and then immediately, with coachign and support, to their just-right independent reading books." Holy cow,,,,makes so much sense and yet I never thought of doing it. I can't wait to try it to see if it improves fluency. Ronda

I like on pages 162 and 163 where Jen sending the children off to read independently and she included a chart with "Coaching Prompts for Fluency." Until I am more comfortable it is nice to have some coaching comments at my fingertips. The wording they come up with is much better than what I would probably say so I like being able to follow their model. Another idea that really stuck with me is the "Warm-Up and Transfer Groups" lesson. I cannot begin to count the number of times a colleague or I have said, "They could do this this morning why can't they do it now?" The author suggests that when working with students have them read a level lower than their independent level as a warm-up. Next move right into the at level book while the teacher is available for coaching. I want to share the next 2 sentences from page 171 with my colleagues-- "One important thing to keep in mind when teaching children with the goal of improving fluency is that comprehension and fluency are linked. It is hard to read fluently if you don't understand what you are reading, and it is hard to understand what you are reading if you don't read it smoothly."--Jodee Tuttle Like Bobbi, the part that really struck home was ""timing them with the a stopwatch, which often means comprehesion gets the backseat" I had a student in 3rd grade who "tested" well above grade level. This student read at 170 wpm, could pronunce difficult vocabulary correct, and read many books. Comprehension levels were below grade level though. Why? It goes back to "word recall without understanding is not reading." Our school uses Dibels also as a fluency method. I agree that it is not a great tool but a tool nontheless. If we use it to simply compare and group students it may be more usuful than as an assessment tool. I too have had that discussion based on wpm doesn't relate to great readers, just fast readers! I might have to stretch myself even more this year and attempt some timing done during running records to see how my students do. I will definetly spend more time though on listening for the way they sound and hoping to teach them that//**" hearing the story fluently and expressively is part and parcel to being able to comprehend the story"p.154.**// Because so much of our teaching is research driven I found this intersting also//**:"**//Kuhn (2008) writes that fluency contributes to a reader's comprehension in two ways:"accurate, automatic word recognition and the appropriate use of prosodic, or expressive, features such as stress, pitch, or suitable phrasing."p.154 I hope I can use that information if wpm assessments are part of my performance assessments! Mike

The part that jumped out for me is a simple concept that I have never really thought of in shared reading. The author talks about reading with the students during shared reading if they need a little extra support and then she says..." my voice might drop out to decrease scaffolding and to better hear what the children can and can't do without my support". This is something so simple to support students but I never thought of being that purposeful in dropping off my voice when reading with students to increase their independence. Smart and easy! Carol Dawson

As a Title I teacher, I can't help but comment on the discussion on fluency. The quotes that Bobbi cited also struck home with me. Our district, too, uses Aimsweb (same assessment as Dibels but data is housed on the internet) to measure fluency. It only measures speed and accuracy, which, as Mike mentioned, doesn't necessarily lead to comprehension. It was originally our only data point for determining eligibility for Title I services. (We also used teacher input, because, as mentioned by others, the WPM didn't give the whole picture of the reader.) I oftern wonder what kind of impression, about what good reading is, we're giving the students by timing them and focusing on whether their WPM goes up or down. I noticed that kids were reading just for speed, not for enjoyment or meaning. Which seems so ridiculous since the whole point of reading is for meaning! However, since the implementation of reading workshop, I am noticing that kids are slowing down to stop and think about their reading, have conversations about their books, and enjoy the experience of digging into a good book. We also have added other data points that measure phonics skills and comprehension skills. This information, as well as teacher input, helps us see students' strengths and weaknesses with reading skills, and it helps us place children in intervention groups based on their needs. I feel much more comfortable with our more informed decisions about students who receive Title I services now. ~ Stephanie Benedict

My interest quote is in page 165: “You should pause at the end of ideas, but not after each individual word. ”When you generally teach lower elementary—you do this often. This happens especially if you have vocabulary concerns. So now I need to remember they are all look at the text and we are reading list by line for fluency. Then we can come back for content and vocabulary exploration. KDN

===//2. How does the concept of “warm up and transfer groups” fit with your experiences, thinking, the research you know, etc.? What about performance groups? Do either of these descriptions or examples confirm or encourage your practice? What specifically in the text stirred your background knowledge of reading instruction or highlighted a similar strategy you currently employ? Are you considering looking closer at either of these groupings this coming school year?//=== //Ok, I am on the right track. I have used Performance Clubs, I didn't have that term. As I set up my program this year I will be more consistant with this area of a literate community. The tips for this activity pg. 170 is in my notebook as a minilesson. My clubs can go all year. I plan on working with one group a week. By the end of my third unit there will be a big celebration including all my groups. This celebration will be based on transfer of information that they have choice. And of course my concert in December, that is Performance Clubs in action.// //Margaret Fox// //﻿// Chapter 6 from Bobbi Friend #2 – The warm-up and transfer group makes sense to me in order to push students to a comfortable level of reading by beginning with an easier level. The performance club seemed a little less obvious to me because I am not very good at performance. I have used poetry and songs to teach concepts, but not as a reading tool. It does seem to make sense that singing songs using words written on the overhead would help with fluency. Poetry would work the same way. The funny thing is that as I read that this is so helpful, it seems to me that this is simply choral reading which we have done for years as teachers and I would think would be a very outdated concept. Using the research that was stated in the article and how helpful performance clubs can be, I will definitely consider using them in my classroom next year. I will need to find a way for them to fit into the sixth grade curriculum, but if nothing else I can use them when working on my poetry unit for a genre study.

The "warm-up and transfer groups" section of this chapter was probably the most interesting for me. This makes so much sense and I think lots of teachers are doing this without giving it a name. I usually have the entire class get "warmed-up" before reading by the sight word list together and a couple of well known poems. I will not add to that by having students who struggle with fluency go back a level as a warm-up. I have explained this to parents reminding them that sometimes their child will bring home a book that is at a level lower than what they are reading to practice fluency. I need to follow that up with going right into an on level book supported by coaching. --Jodee Tuttle

I like the sports analogy to the warm-up and transfer group. We stretch before exercise and run quick warm-up drills to get our bodies ready, why wouldn't we do that for reading? It just makes perfect sense. A thought I had was trying warm-ups just before performance or benchmark assessments. Would it improve results? Would year end testing be the best time to incorporate warm-ups that are related to assessments in the hopes for the "highest" growth? I reread the the quote on P.164 "There is overwhelming evidence that repeated readings of familair texts have positive effects on fluency (Rasinski 2003; Kuhn 2008). I found myself wondering how that works or doesn't work with our Accelerated Reading program. Our students earn "points" for reading books if they pass a comprehension quiz on those book. If I delete that quiz result from the system they lose the points. Many of my students in the past have been driven to read more books (volume) because of the points/rewards system, but I can see how this would effect their desire to reread for fluency. The example of the hand moves that came about in the performance group example made me wonder also about Brain Gym and reasearch that shows that activating different parts of our brains helps some learners learn better. I was excited to think about adding that movement piece to some performance groups. I did question though about finding the "performers' that would benefit from this type of grouping. My experience has been that most of my poor readers were also shy and introverted. I will have to look closely to see if this strategy is a viable one in my classroom. Mike

I agree with Mike in that I love the concept of the sporting analogy and reading warm ups. As a teacher, I would often start reading groups or reading time off with a quick read for fluency practice and for getting their brains ready to read. I didn't realize then that it was a warm up necessarily but it was indeed my goal. I love the research cited that "middle school children who did shred reading of poems and songs for 30 minutes a day, three days a week, for 12 weeks made one year of progress in fluency"...that is outstanding!! I always used a sport analogy with my students when we discussed the importance of reading just right books and it helped them see the value in making sure they were "practicing" with a book that made them stronger...rather than "playing" a book that is too hard and always getting beat or " playing" a book that is too easy and always winning...it is best to "play" a book that is just right so they can grow themselves as readers while they play or practice. Carol Dawson

This is an excellent same to explain it. It is like priming the pump. Having students gain experience and confidence then set them set to continue is brilliant. The students modeling for each other or running a small strategy group will yield big results. This is kind of the advice I give parents that I would rather have them practice on easy book then bang their head on the wall with books that look impressive but are not close to just right books. KDN

===//3. It may be helpful, at this point in the reading, to look back from the chapter 3 to chapter 6 a the last page of each, specifically reading the tenant of “Teach strategies explicitly so that readers become proficient and skilled.” If you reflect on these past three chapters through the reading of this tenant it may help to take in all that we have explored, notice comparisons and contrasts across the different small groupings offered, and help to synthesize the information so far in the text.//===