Home/School Connections

1. Home/School Connections • Hoffman (1991) wrote a famous paper on “Teacher and School Effects on learning to Read”. • Eight attributes to effective schools: 1. clear school mission 2. effective instructional leadership and practices 3. high expectations 4. a safe, orderly and positive environment 5. ongoing curriculum improvement 6. maximum use of instructional time 7. frequent monitoring of student progress 8. positive home/school relationships

2. Other Studies on Home/School Connections • Hope Study: school staffs work hard to win confidence of parents and then work together with parents on achievement • CIERA study found most effective schools made more of an effort to reach out to parents: phone or written surveys, focus groups, calling to stay in touch • Prospects study: high performing schools reported better school climate, better relations with community, more parental support • Texas study: parents were part of the team effort to improve achievement; school staff effort to accommodate non-English speakers • Adler & Fisher (2000) reported families were engaged in homework system; children and parents sign a contract and weekly checklists turned into teachers. • Book experiences and exposure to literate environment influence children • Listening to books develops “book language” which is different from “spoken language” • Language of the home influences children’s language development; helps children comprehend books • Number of words children learned between ages 1 & 3 indicated the amount and kind of talk teachers were seeing in kindergarten • Estimated vocabulary of three year olds is correlated to later reading achievement

3. Home School Connections and Effect on Reading Achievement • Tabors, Snow, Dickinson (2001): project with at risk children: extensiveness of vocabulary in conversations and support for literacy at home found to contribute to literacy & ability to tell stories in kindergarten. • Not knowing standard ways to communicate in the classroom (pragmatics) puts children at risk for not learning from classroom environment • Talk in classroom as important as talk in the home • Rasinski (p. 245 in our text) talks about newsletters—articles can describe ways parents could support their children at home. Include student work, descriptions of accomplishments. Get ideas for parents from www.ReadingRockets.org

4. Text Features and Previewing • Mel Levine says previewing is an important life skill. • One of aspects of understanding text (or even producing good behavior) is to estimate before hand or preview the likely effects if the intention is carried through. (this could be for behavior or with reading words) • Previewing then serves as an important blueprint for a plan of action. • Students who use text features to preview books or articles prior to reading them then activate their background knowledge which supports good comprehension.

5. Previewing Text/Difficulties Encountered with Learning Styles • Students who have attentional problems may accelerate this previewing or omit it for much of what they do. (It appears they do things randomly and in a half-hazard way) • Children may fail to ask, “What if…?” questions to themselves. (i.e. difficulty estimating answers to math problems. They have trouble planning a long term project because they can’t think ahead what it would be like.)

6. What Can We Do? • Mel Levine says parents could encourage children to come up with a plan before writing a report, starting a project or drawing a picture. (Preview consciously and visualize and describe the outcomes or results). Let kids know they are doing this to build up their previewing skills. Engage in previewing skills everyday with questions like: “How do you think Susan will feel when we tell her we won’t be home this weekend for a visit?” • Parents could play, “What if?” games with kids with hypothetical situations. • Stephanie Harvey shows kids how the information in a text book is organized by previewing chapters. (Think aloud about what we notice as we skim and scan. Encourage kids to look at features…previewing helps the students to get a sense of what they’ll be reading about and what they can anticipate.”

7. FEATURE Title Photograph Table of Contents Map Key Diagram with arrows Close Up Labels/captions PURPOSE Tells us what we’ll be reading about Shows us exactly what something looks like A list of chapters and topics in the book and the page numbers of each Tells us how to interpret information on a map Shows movement & tells sequence and order Picture or photo that shows all the details Words that explain a photo or picture Text Features(Anchor Chart from Harvey’s Lesson)

8. Reading is Thinking • Purpose of comprehension instruction is to teach strategies as tools to expand and deepen understanding • Teach kids a repetoire of strategies they can use flexibly in many circumstances and with a variety of texts • New edition of Strategies That Work highlights ACTIVE LITERACY (Students “actively engaged in doing the work” –great thinking happens in every context and in every content area) and also activating background knowledge.

9. Another Reason for Comprehension Strategy Instruction: • Children have increased enthusiasm for reading and thinking – “quantum leap in children’s eagerness to talk about, write about, sketch and react to their reading”; interacting with text and with their reading is important. • Harvey changed subtitle: NOW: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement (used to be just to ‘enhance understanding’) • David Pearson: “Learning happens when today’s new knowledge becomes tomorrow’s background knowledge”; highlight activating background knowledge for all strategies!

10. Monitoring Comprehension • “Inner Conversation” – proficient readers have inner conversation with writer and the text; Inner conversation is what active literacy looks like when read is reading silently; • Readers create meaning and understanding by paying attention to the “inner voice” • Lesson on “Fix up strategies” (rereading is good strategy) • Lesson on “Read, Write and Talk”

11. Directed Reading and Thinking Activity (DRTA) • Some say the strongest way to help students learn what it means to become actively engaged in literature is to scaffold reading via this strategy • Stauffer (1969) developed strategy; widely used for listening and reading • Teacher works with small group as they read short story or selection; pausing at teacher selected points to pause and predict • Helps students think actively and become personally engaged in reading • “What do you predict will happen?” • “How were your predictions?” • “Can you support what you thought from the story?” (i.e. prove or disprove your prediction? • Teacher focuses on discussion of the story and predictions students make.

12. DRTA , continued • Teacher does not ask factual questions of the students • Teacher’s role is to guide students’ thinking as they make predictions, as they read to find evidence to support/challenge predictions • If student read the story before, they can be observer (take notes or verify ideas) • Before reading, teacher previews story and selects the various sections to be read • 1st: teacher asks students to make predictions • 2nd: students read to prove or disprove predictions and note evidence from text • 3rd: students discuss their predictions and formulate new predictions to lead them into the reading of the next section • Children learn that they sometimes need to revise their predictions based on story happenings • Can be used for fiction or nonfiction

13. Bookmarks • Can be used to enhance students’ engagement with other forms of thinking • May ask students to connect, visualize, compare with other characters • Bookmark is a way to capture thinking and use it to return and share ideas later

14. Language Experience Approach • See p. 87-88, Rasinski text • Teacher writes the students’ text on paper • After several readings, students are familiar with many of the words • Can use sentence strips and cut up them apart for concept of word practice, if children are emergent readers • Have students’ names in text; take it home to share with parents and for more practice with finger point reading • Word Bank: Book Buddies text uses just the words children recognize immediately in isolation

15. KWL • Started by Ogle in 1986 • Students are more engaged in reading when they form the starting points for new inquiry and learning • Teacher models and guides active engagement with informational texts • Teacher and students begin brainstorming –teacher stimulates students to think broadly about what they bring to the study---activate knowledge and develop interest in the topic • Teachers can ask, “If we were going to write a table of contents about the topic, what would we include?” • Ogle: “Students won’t be able to retain much of what is studied until they are able to put themselves into their learning by finding their own questions and level of knowledge” • May be helpful for students to write their own answers to the questions as they are reading • At the end, students reorganize and rehearse the knowledge and connect it to what was previously known---teacher structures this process.

16. Exit Ticket • Write about something new you learned tonight. • Will you implement it with students? • Happy Thanksgiving!