Closing the Gap: What we say and do matters.

1. Closing the Gap: What we say and do matters. http:/education.gsu.edu/RR/

2. “Thus the greater the gap between the teacher and the learner the harder the teaching becomes.” Donaldson, Children’s Minds, 1978

3. “ less room for error in teacher decision–making for those children.” that is, the ones who are finding learning to read and write most difficult. Johnston, Contemporary Educational Psychology 27 (2002) 636-647

4. “The learning that is essential to cognitive development,…..is most likely to occur from engaging in activities in which it is necessary to recognize and solve problems of increasing difficulty.” Wells and Cheng-Wells, Constructing Knowledge Together, pg 55

5. Two requirements: • activities that are “in certain respects at or just beyond the limits of the learner’s current capabilities” • “appropriate support”, “the help that a collaborative partner can provide in enabling the learner to marshal and exploit resources he or she already has available.” Pg 56

6. “Through language, children learn how to become strategic thinkers, not merely how to use literacy strategies”

7. We often encounter classrooms in which children are being taught strategies yet not being strategic. Teaching children strategies results in them knowing strategies but not necessarily in their acting strategically. Ivey, Johnston and Cronin, 1998

8. “Teaching for strategies is not just teaching strategies” pg 31

9. “Simply using the Reading Recovery framework and engaging in the recommended behaviors will not guarantee a high level of success… [teachers] must tailor their responses to individual children’s revealed strengths” Johnston, Contemporary Educational Psychology 27 (2002) 636-647

10. Teaching must be responsive therefore teachers must work from a “theory that gives significance to the literate behaviors they observe and ties their teaching decisions to those behaviors in productive ways” Johnston, Contemporary Educational Psychology 27 (2002) 636-647

11. “…arranging for events to be successful…is fundamental” pg 39 “If children are not making errors, they are not putting themselves in learning situations.”

12. “Teacher’s conversations with children help the children build bridges between action and consequence.” (pg 30)

13. Watch too much instructional talk Clay said “you can teach a lot without talking”

14. Agency and becoming strategic

15. Telling Revealing Discovering Cazden

16. Telling- “ the teacher is explicit up front and then the student practices what he has been taught to do by someone else.” pg 32 Revealing- “the strategy of arranging for a student to figure out independently, without full awareness, and then reflecting on it..” “ Its benefit is that the child actually does the constructing or problem-solving.”

17. Child trying to write went. He has the t and knows the w. Teacher: “What’s at the beginning? What can you hear?” Child: “I don’t know.” Teacher: “Say it again slowly. It starts like something in your book.” Child: “Watch?” Teacher: “That’s right. So what will you write?”

18. Text: We climbed over the gate. Child: fence gate Teacher: We climbed over the fence makes sense, but look at the way this word starts.

19. Most accomplished teachers do not spend a lot of time in telling mode. Taylor et al, 2002

20. “If a student can figure something out for him- or herself, explicitly providing the information preempts the student’s opportunity to build a sense of agency and independence..”

21. “drawing attention to their successes and showing them how their decisions and strategic actions were responsible for them, increases children’s perceptions of their ability and the effectiveness of their focused efforts.” pg 39

22. Teacher: I liked the way you went back and tried again to check when you weren’t sure.

23. “Drawing their attention to their effort ( “you worked really hard at that”) or their intellect (“You are so smart.”)” is not so helpful.

24. Noticing and naming

25. “However no learner can afford to be dependent on the teacher for everything that needs to be noticed, so teachers have to teach children to look for possibilities.”

26. Teacher: That looks like another word you know. Child: Look, that word is like ‘my’. Teacher: You are right, (getting book with ‘my’), how is ‘fly’ like ‘my’ Child: they both have ‘y’ at the end.

27. ‘We want children to attend to their feelings of surprise, which is a good indicator of conflicting patterns or theories.” pg 18 “The teacher is helping the child notice the internal signals and contemplate how to respond.”

28. Text: sleep asleep Teacher: Hmm, you stopped, what did you notice? Child: ‘a’ Teacher: Yes, you are right, it says ‘asleep’. I liked the way you were looking carefully.

29. “Much more important is noticing- and helping the students notice- what they are doing well.” In Clay’s terms attending to the partially correct.

30. Text: I see a lamb Child: horse/ lion lamb Teacher: It starts like ‘lion’. What would make sense? Child: l-amb Teacher: Does that make sense and start the right way? You worked it out.

31. Task: writing ‘jump’ Teacher: Wow, you just about have it all. There is one sound that is hard to hear. Let’s put it in a box.(putting the word in boxes and putting in the letters the child had heard). Look you have those sounds. All we have to do is hear this one (pointing). Say it slowly and listen carefully.

32. Flexibility and transfer

33. Teacher: You reread to make sure it sounded right and makes sense. How else could you check if you are right? Child: It starts with a ‘W’. Teacher: You checked to see if it made sense, sounded right and looked right.

34. Teacher: that’s like what we were doing at the board. You thought of a word that looks like the one you were stuck on.

35. Knowing

36. “when a teacher waits for a child to figure something out or self-correct, it conveys the message that she expects the child to be able to accomplish it.” pg 56

37. How did you know? How could we check?

38. So in both reading and writing children learn a host of things: • The aspects of print to which they must attend. • The aspects of oral language that can be related to print. • The kind of strategies that maintain fluency.

39. The kinds of strategies that increase understanding • The kind of strategies that detect and correct errors • The feedback control mechanisms that keep their reading and writing on track.

40. And most important of all how to go beyond the limits of the system and how to learn from relating new information to what is already known. Learning of this kind depends upon children being active processors of printed information and constructive learners. Becoming Literate, p326

41. “In general, teachers with higher student outcomes were described as more attentive to problem-solving strategies- both those initiated by children and those for which they prompted after observing a potential opportunity.” Partners in Learning, p82

42. Allows time for independent problem-solving • Persistent in prompting students for what they know • Requires children to problem-solve while reading • Questions in a way that makes children think and act • Asks children to be responsible for checking

43. Questions in a way that helps children check several different sources of information. • Helps children discount or verify their predictions • Accepts the child’s efforts, even those partially right • Observes and responds to child’s moves

44. MEANING STRUCTURE VISUAL CUES AWARENESS OF SOUND

45. STRATEGIES Monitoring Searching Cross-checking Self correcting Confirming Anticipating Linking Building Initiating Risk taking etc………..

46. Troy reading: I can read to my bear. “My brother says teddy bear. I used to say teddy bear like him. I told him teddy isn’t there. This starts with a ‘b’.”

47. Samisoni reading ‘Butch By the River’ Text : Butch is by the river. Child: Butch is by the sea/stream/water/tree river I don’t know, I’m just making it up, I’ll have to look.”