Letter to a Principal

1. Letter to a Principal Paige Cole Stephanie Shumacher Elizabeth Sears Michelle Wright

2. Punctuation Prompt • While you’re reading, look for three passages or central ideas that make you do the following: • Give you pause or make you stop and think. Use a comma (,) to mark this passage. • Cause you to wonder or ask a question. Use a question mark (?) to mark this passage. • Provoke a strong reaction of some kind. Us an exclamation point (!) to mark this passage.

3. Dear Principal X, Our students are in need of another approach in reading. They currently lack the joy and understanding of reading that is necessary to help them improve in their comprehension skills, become motivated to read independently, and to develop a love of reading. With the various types of students in mind, from our highest to those who struggle, we have decided that the shared reading approach would be the most helpful component to add to our teaching. This approach both encourages and supports students as readers. Shared reading is a carefully thought out and planned approach in which the teacher is in control of reading a text of high interest to the students while each follows along, as they will have access to a copy of the text. It is valuable reading time, not wasteful or counterproductive to our students’ ability to become better independent readers. On the contrary, shared reading is a scaffolded approach that offers many benefits to our students. One of the strongest arguments for shared reading is that it allows for students to “focus their cognitive energies on the tasks of comprehension: visualizing, questioning, inferring, making word associations, predicting, connecting, and analyzing” (Allen, p. 61). Because the teacher is in control of the shared reading, she is able to model and provide reading strategies to students. In doing so, both teachers and students are able to accomplish meaningful goals –teachers are able to move from “assigner and comprehension checker” to “teacher of strategic reading” (74) and students are able to progress from literal readers to inferential and finally metacognitive readers (75).

4. Many of our students are reluctant to read text outside of their comfort zone, which is often familiar and not challenging enough. Shared reading provides an opportunity for students to have access to a wide variety of interesting genres of texts that they may have never considered before. Additionally, the task of decoding, which for some students is time-consuming, is moved from the cognitive realm to the associative so that the students can focus their cognitive energies on interacting meaningfully with the text. During shared reading, “the decoding is done by the teacher (or tape) so student readers can focus their cognitive energies on the tasks of comprehension” (61). Many of our students are reluctant to read text outside of their comfort zone, which is often familiar and not challenging enough. Shared reading provides an opportunity for students to have access to a wide variety of interesting genres of texts that they may have never considered before. Additionally, the task of decoding, which for some students is time-consuming, is moved from the cognitive realm to the associative so that the students can focus their cognitive energies on interacting meaningfully with the text. During shared reading, “the decoding is done by the teacher (or tape) so student readers can focus their cognitive energies on the tasks of comprehension” (61). Some may see shared reading as “watering down” reading for students who are at a high reading level, but with shared reading it is possible to increase the level of texts for all students. If the teacher reads the texts fluently and scaffolds along the way it will open up more texts for all students, not just struggling readers. “Shared reading provides access to texts too difficult for independent reading, and those levels of text can be increased and become more diverse as students’ reading levels change” (Allen, p. 76).

5. Meaningful conversations, in which students begin to talk about texts and clarify their thinking, will also become of part of these experiences. Students will take part in authentic reading activities during the shared reading segment that, once automatic, will transfer to their own independent reading. We can never forget that stronger independent readers will have higher test scores on our district’s end of grade assessment. Outside of all these wonderful benefits to shared reading, students just like it! It is the perfect “open door”to capturing our students’ attention towards reading and capitalizing theirburgeoning desire to read and read well.

6. Though we are excited about implementing this approach, it is important to remember that shared reading is not seen as the end in itself. It is still important to select appropriate and engaging texts. Just reading a textbook out loud with students is not necessarily going to offer a valuable literacy experience. Texts should be interesting and the teacher should establish purpose, establish key background information, scaffold the texts by having students make predictions, and all of the necessary things to help in the before, during, and after reading. There is also a need for caution! Shared reading should not be confused with round robin reading, where fluency is lacking and eyes are not on the text being read because students are “practicing” their upcoming passage. Also as opposed to round-robin reading, the teacher is in control and can stop to clarify or ask questions to move the reading forward.

7. In order to make the most of the shared reading experiences we hope to have with our students, we need funding to purchase a large variety of texts in the form of book sets, magazines, news articles, and recorded books. Recorded books are helpful because they build fluency and promote independence in reading because they allow students to choose from a variety of materials, choose books that are appropriate for their interests and reading level, and to choose more challenging texts than they might otherwise. Recorded texts “extend the support of shared reading into students’ periods of sustained silent reading, providing yet another opportunity for increased reading fluency” (63). Books on tape also enable the teacher to have more time dedicated to planning, facilitating, and finding other resources to further support students. We also need tape recorders, CD players, and headphones for each classroom.

8. It is important to understand all aspects of shared reading in order to implement it well. With that in mind, we are requesting professional development in which we can further our knowledge of this approach. Not only do we need training, we think it’s necessary to have an allotted time to meet as a team to collaborate and discuss how the implementation of shared reading is taking place in our classrooms. Training will provide invaluable input as to the various texts that can be used and how to choose them, materials that can enhance the readings, different scaffolds to support students, and much more. Our time of collaboration will also give us the opportunity to work together to develop a database of the texts we have and ways we can use them for both reading and writing. The better prepared teachers are for a shared reading experience, the more likely they will be to impart valuable reading strategies that students can carry with them to other reading experiences. Taking time during a development day to create shared reading lessons plans will save teachers valuable planning time later and allow them to collaborate in meaningful and productive ways.

9. We’re also requesting funds that will allow for two or more of our team to attend the upcoming reading conference, where there are several sessions on book choice, reading activities (before during and after), and shared reading. The information we learn will be invaluable as we take on the challenge of using shared reading with our students. We feel the funds used will be well used dollars, as those who go can provide information and insight during our times of team meetings and professional development days. Shared reading can help make the difference in our students as readers. The truth is students must first want to read and be able to connect to it before they ever begin to use reading skills strategically and for many purposes. We believe that through shared reading experiences, students will begin to stretch as readers and become motivated to read widely despite the challenges. This approach will present reading as a pleasurable experience, and "people repeat behaviors that are pleasurable" (Allen p. 79). If students can make a connection to reading this way they are more likely to read on their own. They will become more fluent and reading won't be as difficult. It will be enjoyable and they will want to do it more.

10. After we’ve finished reading, go back to these passages and discuss with your group why they affected you in these ways. You may want to use these sentence stems to get you started. , -this passage made me stop and think because…. ?-When I read this passage, I wondered…… !-I reacted strongly to this part of the text because…..