Face to Face with the SEM-R: Social and Emotiona l Connections

1. Face to Face with the SEM-R: Social and Emotional Connections Joe Helbling JennaJ. Bachinski www.gifted.uconn.edu/semr University of Connecticut

3. Three Goals of SEM-R To increase enjoyment in reading To improve reading fluency, comprehension, and increase reading achievement To encourage students to pursue challenging independent reading

4. What is Reading? • …a complex, purposeful, social and cognitive process in which readers simultaneously use their knowledge of spoken and written language, their knowledge of the topic of the text, and their knowledge of their culture to construct meaning. • NCTE Commission on Reading “On Reading, Learning to Read, and Effective Reading Instruction”

5. What is Unique about Adolescent Literacy? • Students encounter increasingly complex interdisciplinary discourses and concepts. • Period of significant physiological changes in students. • Students are navigating new and complex social relationships. • Independence and a sense of identity become foci in students’ lives. Oberle,Schonert-Reichl, & Thomson, 2010

6. What Current Research Is Showing Teachers

7. Students need: • Time • Variety (genre, format, etc.) • Multiple perspectives on real life experiences. • Autonomy(self-selection) • High interest texts

8. Students need: • Conversations/discussions regarding texts that are authentic, student initiated, and teacher facilitated. • Such discussion should lead to diverse interpretations of a text that deepen the conversation.

9. SEM-R Conferences • Should first and foremost be a conversation about the student’s selected book. • Incorporate higher-order thinking questions to elicit deeper student responses. • Encourage students to share their own thoughts and feelings about their book.

10. Students Need • Experience in thinking critically about how they engage with texts: • When do I comprehend? • What do I do to understand a text? • When do I not understand a text? • What can I do when meaning breaks down?

11. SEM-R Connection: Metacognition and Self-regulation • A culture of student empowerment is established on the first day in a SEM-R classroom. • Post-Its • Status cards • Student logs

12. Students Need • Experience in critical examination of texts that helps them to: • Recognize how texts are organized in various disciplines and genre • Question and investigate various social, political, and historical content and purposes within texts • Make connections among texts, and between texts and personal experiences to act on and react to the world. • Understand multiple meanings and richness of texts and layers of complexity

13. “…it is a scandal that so many millions of children and teenagers spend their days in boredom in classes that systematically avoid questions of genuine interest and importance.” -Katherine G. Simon, author of Moral Questions in the Classroom

15. What Teachers of Adolescents Need

16. “Adequate and appropriate reading materials that tap students’ diverse interests and represent a range of difficulty.”

17. Texts “If children are to read a lot throughout the school day, they will need a rich supply of books they can actually read.” -Allington

18. SEM-R Classroom Libraries • Span several reading ability levels. • Represent a wide range of genres and formats. • Based on student interests and local norms. • Are always growing!

19. Teachers Need • Continued support and professional development that assist them to: • Bridge between adolescents’ rich literate backgrounds and school literacy • Recognize when students are not making meaning with text and provide appropriate, strategic assistance to read course content effectively • Facilitate student-initiated conversations regarding texts that are authentic and relevant to real life experiences. • Create environments that allow students to engage in critical examinations of texts as they dissect, deconstruct, and re-construct in an effort to engage in meaning making and comprehension processes.

20. SEM-R:Instructional Model vs. Curriculum • Flexibility of SEM-R allows teachers to incorporate current events, life experiences, etc. into a lesson on the spur of the moment. • SEM-R allows teachers to utilize their skills and instincts on a daily basis. • At the heart of the SEM-R is a trust and belief in effective teachers.

21. The Six T’s of effective elementary literacy instruction Richard Allington: “What I’ve Learned About Effective Reading Instruction from a Decade of Studying Exemplary Elementary ClassroomTeachers”

22. Time “Extensive reading is critical to the development of reading proficiency. Extensive practice provides the opportunity for students to consolidate the skills and strategies teachers often work so hard to develop.” -Allington

23. S.I.R. (Supported Independent Reading) • Phase 2 of the SEM-R. • Goal: 35-40 minutes of silent reading. • Teacher is available for “emergency conferences” during this time.

24. SIR Rules - You must have a book to read. - If you aren’t enjoying a book and have given it a fair chance (10 pages!) ask someone to help you choose a new one. - Remain in your reading area during SIR. - Only reading is happening. - Books must be appropriately challenging. - Do your best reading the whole time.

25. Teaching “The exemplary teachers in our study routinely gave direct, explicit demonstrations of the cognitive strategies that good readers use when they read.” -Allington

26. Phase 1 • Exposure - Book Hooks: • High interest read alouds and higher order questions

27. Teacher Read AloudGuidelines in Phase One • Use a book you enjoy. • Illustrate reading strategies • Change intonation, speed, and volume. • Leave them wanting to hear more. • Scaffold higher level thinking skills. • Choose multiple books by the same author. • Change genres and styles often. • Utilize great books on tape. • Invite special guest readers.

28. Reading: Strategies vs. Skills • Reading skills = instruction in the following • Word identification • Fluency • Vocabulary • Comprehension • Study skills • Reading strategies = process with which readers interact with the text to create meaning

29. Reading Strategies Paris, 2004 Keene & Zimmerman, 1997 Harvey & Goudvis, 2000

30. Talk “The classroom talk we observed was highly personalized, providing targeted replies to student responses. Teacher expertise was the key, not a scripted, teacher-proof instructional product.” -Allington

31. SEM-R Questioning Techniques Bookmarks - • Integrate higher order, open-ended questions • Model appropriately challenging answers • Model reading strategies through think-alouds or questions • Enable students to considerdifferent ideas and responses

33. The individual conferences were so helpful. My average to above average readers really surprised me. They went beyond what I ever thought they could do with advanced thinking skills and questioning skills. ~ Treatment Teacher

34. Tasks • The work the children in these classrooms completed was more substantive and challenging and required more self-regulation • We described the instructional environment as one of “managed choice.” -Allington

35. Conferencing Questions What book are you reading? What do you do when you encounter a word you do not know? What made you interested in this book? “What gift would you like to give the main character?” How would the book be different if the main character was a girl instead of a boy? How can you try to interpret the meaning of this section of text?

36. Testing • Evaluate student work and award grades based more on effort and improvement than simply on achievement. • The complexity, though, of effort-and-improvement grading lies in the fact that teachers must truly know each of their students well in order to assign grades. -Allington

37. The one on one five minute conferences are the best way for me to monitor each child’s unique learning needs, and be able to use strategies individually for each student that benefits them the most.

38. Conferences Provide: • Support for each student’s needs - • Enthusiasm about books • Reading skill development • Interest-based reading opportunities • Self-regulation/monitoring • Increasing ability to focus Opportunity to assess reading level and book match Thoughtful conversations about literature Opportunities to use higher order thinking skill questions from bookmarks Differentiation for students in skills, questions, and book selection for OPTIMAL CHALLENGE!

39. “Our study of these exemplary teachers suggests that such teaching cannot be packaged. Exemplary teaching is not regurgitation of a common script but is responsive to children’s needs.” -Allington

40. Components of the SEM-R Framework Increasing degree of student selection

41. Coles: Moral Intelligence • Character development as the basis of intelligence • Children learn from: • The example of others • Explicit dialogue about moral issues • Acknowledgement of thoughts and feelings surrounding these moral issues Adapted from Coles, 1997

43. Resources for Finding Books

44. High-interest social justice literature • Boxes for Katje - World War II, poor girl in Holland gets a box from a girl in Indiana that ends up affecting townspeople from Holland and Indiana alike (inspired by true story).  • Ana Dodson Advocate for Peruvian Orphans - from the Young Heroes biography series - true story about an adopted girl in Colorado raising money to buy vitamins for an orphanage in Peru.  • Ryan and Jimmy And the Well in Africa That Brought Them Together - true story about a Canadian first grader who collected money to build a well in Africa....a boy from Africa (Jimmy) ends up moving in with Ryan's family. • The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark - the legend of the Danes in WWII who wore yellow stars so that the Jewish people wouldn't stand out when the Nazi soldiers occupied the country.

46. Kids Can Give Back website • Links to latest research on social awareness and social justice • Open line of communication among educators • Database of the best-of-the-best social justice resources for teachers, parents, and students http://sites.google.com/site/socialactiondatabase/ Created by J. Bachinski & J. Helbling