I have found that developing a system for looking across multiple running records, as well as lesson records, to be a vital process necessary for consistent progress that leads to acceleration. When I make time to look for patterns of behavior across lessons, rather than only looking day by day, I feel like I know …
Continue reading Analyzing Student Progress in Reading Recovery: Guiding Questions and Next Steps
Most educators acknowledge the significance of fluency, yet it often fails to receive the attention it truly deserves. While fluency is widely recognized for its impact on student comprehension, its evaluation is frequently limited to reading speed alone. However, fluency encompasses numerous other vital aspects that necessitate closer examination. In this post, we will delve …
Continue reading Beyond Words: The Impact of Prosody on Comprehension
I wanted to use this post as an opportunity to share about one of my most challenging rounds of Reading Recovery. All four of my students entered with mostly stanines of 1 for each task on the Observation Survey and very low raw scores. My students required various types of support to help with significant …
Continue reading First Round Reflection: When Learning Letters is Difficult
A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to see Dr. James Schnug present at the Literacy for All Conference on the topic of phrasing. If you would like to read more about this topic, Schnug wrote about his research in an article called Paying More Attention to Phrasing in Fluent Reading in the Fall …
As educators, we hear the term "research based" ad nauseam. "This strategy works. It's research based." "We want you to do it like this because that method is research based." "This new curriculum is research based so it's definitely effective." When we constantly hear the term "research based" being used, we become passive and we …
First, I will start out by saying that I had Intentional From the Start: Guiding Emergent Readers in Small Groups on my wish list for a while. After expressing my jealousy to a friend who received a copy from her employer, she generously bought me a copy for my birthday (Thanks, again, Gen!). I have …
Continue reading Teaching our Emergent Readers: Guidance From Carolyn Helmers & Susan Vincent
As I was perusing through some posts in a literacy Facebook group, I came across a particular post that caught my attention. A literacy teacher asked if a specific program was good to use for students who were struggling with learning how to read. What spurred me to write this post was not a teacher …
Continue reading The Best Way to Support Literacy Acquisition: Never Stop Learning
At the beginning of my 2nd round of Reading Recovery I wrote a post about participating in a LitCon session, The Quest for Accelerated Gains in Writing, presented by Mary Fried, reflecting on my own practices during the writing part of my Reading Recovery lessons, and my desire to do some action research centered around …
Continue reading 2nd Round Action Research: Accelerating the Learning Part 2
I thoroughly enjoyed participating in various sessions through the on-line LitCon 2022 Conference last January-February. One particular session entitled, The Quest for Accelerated Gains in Writing, provided by Mary Fried had me looking at and reflecting on my own practices during the writing part of my Reading Recovery lessons. Mary defined high-impact teachers and discussed …
Continue reading 2nd Round Action Research: Accelerating the Learning
Over the past few years, I have heard more and more teachers question the purpose of a book introduction during guiding reading groups. In some cases, teachers have even moved away from providing a book introduction. Teachers are concerned that by providing a book introduction they are "giving away" the book and it appears to …
Running Records are an essential component of my day-to-day planning for my students. At times, I hear running records talked about in terms of a student "passing" or "failing". When we put too much emphasis on the accuracy rate and think of running records as "pass/fail," we can not make student-centered decisions about our teaching. …
Agency I recently read the book, Wire for Agency: Four Simple Moves That Transfer Learning, by Jenn Hayhurst and Jill DeRosa. If you are interested in shifting your teaching to increase students' independence, then this is a must-read. This text walks educators through four important moves to support student agency: Watch, Intend, Reflect, and Engage. …
Many of you know that I spent the last school year teaching kindergarten instead of Reading Recovery. While I missed Reading Recovery, I tried to stay positive and use my Reading Recovery knowledge to support my students' learning in the classroom. Leaving Reading Recovery to go back to the classroom was not new to me. …
When staring into a pool of still, clear water, the reflected image is sharp, almost perfect. When the water is disturbed, the reflection is still there, but it is distorted, no longer a perfect copy. Our water has been disturbed. For some of us, in the most violent way. Our year has resembled past school …
Continue reading Lessons Learned: Reflections on a Remarkable Year
Are we keeping students in levels 1 and 2 for too long? Our Reading Recovery Teacher Leader had us mull over this question during a Reading Recovery professional development session. I am still reflecting on this question. The majority of my incoming Reading Recovery students start in levels 0-1. I know that I need to …
"This book delightfully provides ways in which to weave joyful and engaging reading experiences into every aspect of an early childhood classroom, because strengthening fundamental skills and knowledge of reading is easier if children love to do it!"
Our rewards, even in the form of our verbal praise, shape how our students think about themselves and others.
Language & Literacy Marie M. Clay (2016) explains that learning to read is making connections with visible print to the invisible knowledge one has of oral language. Many families who have a young readers learning at home this year, or who have spent significant amounts of time learning from home, are worried about sufficient reading …
At the beginning of this school year, like many literacy interventionists, I was asked to fulfill a different role. After years out of the classroom, I suddenly found myself teaching "in-person" kindergarten. Despite having been a classroom teacher for years in the past, I'll admit that I was nervous and wondering how I would handle …
Continue reading Experimenting with Action Research in the Classroom
EDIT: Our Made for Learning book study is now full! If you are interested in future book studies please fill out this brief form. Join us and colleagues from around the world for an exciting book study opportunity! Space is filling up fast, so make sure you register soon for this free 5-part study and …
Continue reading Register Soon for the Made for Learning Book Study
EDIT: Our Made for Learning book study is now full! If you are interested in future book studies please fill out this brief form. literacypages We are pleased to announce an exciting professional development opportunity! Join us for, Literacy Pages: The Book Study. This 5-part series features the text, Made for Learning: How the Conditions …
"...the goal is to strengthen the learning setting by bringing intentionality to decisions that make learning more likely to occur..."
Proficient readers are able to read effortlessly, devoting the majority of their attention to comprehending what they are reading. Scholarly reading with unfamiliar academic vocabulary would provide some challenge to a proficient reader, but everyday reading would require minimal effort. The goal of freeing up a reader's attention should be kept in mind as we …
Join us for a twitter chat to wrap up Literacy Pages: The Series on Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 7:30-8:30 pm EST. The pre-chat begins at 7:00pm!
Integration, the efficient orchestration of many sources of information, is a clear sign of a developed self-extending system.
Literacy Pages: The Series presents the fifth post in an 8-post series related to Reading Recovery and Teaching with Discontinuation in Mind from Early Lessons. Cross-checking is the behavior in which a student checks one or more sources of information against each other. The act of cross-checking can lead to a self-correction in which all …
If you are in the field of education, then you are most likely very familiar with the terms progress-monitoring and data-based decisions. These terms are “hot” and at the center of many school meetings. Progress-monitoring and data-based decisions are important but I wonder what would happen if effectiveness of an intervention and teacher expertise became …
Literacy Pages: The Series presents the fifth post in an 8-post series related to Reading Recovery and Teaching with Discontinuation in Mind from Early Lessons. Click below to check out our previous post. Self-Extending Systems: Teaching with Discontinuation and Independence in Mind Part 1: Actively Self-monitoring Part 2: Searching for Different Kinds of Information Part …
Rereading to confirm is one visible piece of evidence that students are asking themselves, “Was I right?”
Literacy Pages: The Series presents the forth post in an 8-post series related to Reading Recovery and Teaching with Discontinuation in Mind from Early Lessons. Click below to check out our previous post. Self-Extending Systems: Teaching with Discontinuation and Independence in Mind Part 1: Actively Self-monitoring Part 2: Searching for Different Kinds of Information When …
Literacy Pages: The Series presents the third post in an 8-post series related to Reading Recovery and Teaching with Discontinuation in Mind from Early Lessons. Click below to check out our previous post. Self-Extending Systems: Teaching with Discontinuation and Independence in Mind Part 1: Actively Self-monitoring Searching is when the reader actively looks for information …
Continue reading Part 2: Searching for Different Kinds of Information
"Virtual learning can simulate many traditionally in-person learning experiences, but it cannot replace the feel of a book in your child's hands or the sensation of writing on paper."
Literacy Pages: The Series presents the second post in an 8-part series related to Reading Recovery and Teaching with Discontinuation in Mind from Early Lessons. Click below to check out our previous post. Self-Extending Systems: Teaching with Discontinuation and Independence in Mind Self-monitoring is an integral ability needed by students in order for them to …
Due to COVID-19, I have found myself taking a departure from my role as a literacy interventionist. For this school year, I have returned full circle to where my teaching career began more than 20 years ago - a kindergarten teacher. My primary literacy goals for these little ones are to instill a love of …
"If you have a virtual learner and you want to incorporate routines into your day that will support their offline literacy learning, then stay tuned for more Raising Remote Readers posts in the coming months. And remember, don't skip the bedtime story!"
"In order to help students achieve successful processing, we must ask ourselves an important question, are we doing the necessary analysis and planning with the development of self-extending systems in mind from week to week, day to day, and moment to moment during our students' programs?"
“It is important now, more than ever, to be intentional with every moment of our instructional time whether it is in person, virtual, or a combination of the two. Please join us as we think deeply about teaching for independence from our earliest interactions with our students.”
We are happy to announce that we will be speaking at the 31st Annual PreK-8 Literacy For All Conference which takes place from October 25-27!
We are very excited to be live featured speakers at this year’s all virtual LitCon: National K-8 Literacy Conference on Thursday, February 3rd, 2022 with a live Continued Engagement follow-up session on Saturday, February 5th, 2022. Our session, Shifting Our Language for Strategic Processing will focus on recognizing the strategic actions that are indicative of …
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