Grit and Growth with Debbie Miller

A group of 23 teachers were able to attend the Wolf River Reading Association's Spring Meeting with Debbie Miller, author of many early literacy resources including, Reading with Meaning- Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades.

She shared a story about how she help transform an inner-city classroom.   She focused on providing a physically positive space to begin their work on building grit and a growth mindset.

Here are the notes from the shared Google Doc from the evening:

I love how she reinforced that learning should be joyful.  

We need to look at helping our students improve the non-cognitive skills like perseverance, stamina, agency- these are all part of Grit.  

Loved the TED talk video re: Grit by Angela Duckworth. Definitely worth viewing again.

http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit

Post-Assessment- Student Reflection

I love the four questions she had students answer:

1.  What does it mean to work hard?

2.  Why should I want to work hard?

3.  What will help me(or what do I need) in order to work hard?

4.  How does it feel to work hard?

Growth Mind Set- failure is not a permanent condition (the belief that ability to learn can change with effort) Along with this I also loved how she said you have to be willing to fail and start over.

We need to help students see themselves in a new light.  

“I am the kind of kid who. . .(can help myself learn, shares with others, helps others learn, can work hard, etc.)- Choice Words by Peter Johnston

Conferencing and Sharing questions:

During whole class sharing- Students should share about themselves as learners(readers/writers).  This is a different approach than just sharing what they read or wrote..  Have two or three students(those you met with that day) share about themselves as a reader.

• What did you learn about yourself today as writer/reader?
• What did you do?  What exactly did you do to figure this out?
• What problems did you have?
• What did you learn today that you will do tomorrow?
• Then pose to the group:  Who wants to try what(student’s name) did tomorrow? Use language like- (Student’s names) was inspired by (Student’s name)

Question I asked Debbie:  What was the student tallying during his reading?

I found out what the students were tallying- They were tallying each time they read the a section of the text.  She wanted them to dig deeper using some close reading strategies.  She had the boy pick one section to read and then tally each time he reread it.  He was working on fluency and comprehension.  She had him reflect how his understanding and fluency increased as he reread it more.  She said he reread a section about 3 to 4 times.  

Picture book entitled Those Shoes is a good mentor text for the “Good Fit Books” lesson in the Daily 5 book

Use wordless picture books and have kids tell the story (“The author trusts us to go beyond the words.”)

Encourage students to think of themselves as readers and draw pictures: This is what I look like when I am an engaged reader.

Informational Report Writing

I have had a chance to work in several classrooms to help students develop their informational report writing.

Student-Created Anchor Chart

Using informational articles from magazines like Ranger Rick provide great mentor texts for students.  One teacher took the mentor article and created an interactive anchor chart with Features of a Great Informational Report. Here are some of the features the students discovered by reading mentor texts:
*Title that describes the topic
*Strong Introduction/Lead
*Strong Conclusion that restates the main idea
*Listed Sources
*Precise Nouns and Powerful verbs
*Linking words that add information and connect ideas
*Captions
*Bold Key words
*Photographs
*Labeled Diagrams
*Illustrations

Reading and Analyzing Nonfiction

Many years ago, when I was teaching at Fairview, I was part of a group of teachers that read the book, Reality Checks- Teaching Reading Comprehension with Nonfiction K-5 by Tony Stead.  One of the strategies that he talks about in this book is the R.A.N.(Reading and Analyzing Non-Fiction) strategy.  It is a modification of the KWL chart. I really like this strategy for helping students, when they have misinformation or misconceptions about a topic.  I recently used it to help students when working on informational report writing and doing their research and have seen it being used in a Kindergarten classroom for science instruction. You can use it on chart paper for whole class discussions or as a graphic organizer for independent of small group instruction.  It is a very versatile strategy that helps kids find evidence to confirm their thinking and allows them to clarify misconceptions in content.

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Writing Conference Format

Making the most of an individual conference is an area that many teachers want to learn more about.  I came across this great blog on the structure of a reading/writing conference.  This blog has a short video clip of a conference from the The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project with Jennifer Serravallo conferring with a fifth-grader working on a persuasive writing piece.  

Check out the full blog from Two Reflective Teachers.

tworeflectiveteachers.blogspt.com

Getting Back into Blogging

Hey, I can't believe it has been over a month since my last blog entry.  During this time, I have been very busy with literacy coaching in classrooms, adding to my professional learning toolbox, curriculum planning, and much more.  There have been many things that I have wanted to add to the blog, so I will add a few posts about current topics to share with you all!