The "Wonder" of it all...

This week, I am in charge of kindness week at my school. This program is a part of the No Place for Hate movement through the Anti-Defamation League. The program since its launch has been extremely successful at providing a safe school where students combat bullying and spread kindness. 
It also has the mission of making sure all students have a place to belong.

I can't help but smile as I see elementary students spreading acts of kindness and writing sweet notes of encouragement to one another. One of my students asked, "Why do we only do this for a week? Shouldn't we do this all the time?" Of course, the goal is for these lessons to stick and for students to incorporate the core value of kindness in their lives consistently.

As I spend time reflecting on the book, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, I think about kindness, inclusion, and acceptance. Wonder is a testament to simple, basic kindness. It tells the story of Auggie who was born with a facial deformity who attends school for the first time. Although he is brave, he combats bullies, pressures of fitting in, and people making fun of him because of his appearance. It takes so little kindness to make such a big difference. I wonder if there was a kindness week at Auggie's school if it would have made a difference in acceptance? Unfortunately, bullying is not an issue that I believe is going away overnight, but it is my job as an educator to continue to model the right behaviors and advocate for my students. 

"If every single person in this room made it a rule that wherever you are, whenever you can, you will try to act a little kinder than is necessary—the world really would be a better place. And if you do this, if you act just a little kinder than is necessary, someone else, somewhere, someday, may recognize in you, in every single one of you, the face of God." -Mr. Tushman from Wonder

Another Slice of Life

One, two, three, pop! An explosion of confetti filled the sky and quickly started to fall to our feet. For just a moment, the air above our heads was like a stream of cotton candy and our voices all let out shrieks.  My dad and some of my nieces and nephews still struggled to open their popper. I stood in disbelief as I hugged my husband and he shouted, "I can't believe it's a girl!" I was so sure we were having a boy. So sure that I would tell people how strong the boy vibes were. Joke was on me though - the streamers were pink. Our families surrounded us and we hugged a cried (happy tears) together.

A baby girl will be joining our family in late August and I could not be more excited. These special moments that we share as a family make this journey so fun and memorable. I don't know if there is anything more exciting to me than bringing a tiny human into this crazy life. For now, bring on the bows!

Slice of Life

Convertible. Top down. Open road. Nothing but wind in my hair and the sounds of God's beauty all around me. The road trip I took with my husband through California last week brought such rejuvenation to my life. It is amazing how calm and stress-free a simple car ride can be. No deadlines, no agenda. We decided to stop whenever we drove by something beautiful. Fresh air, ocean breeze, birds chirping. Our world is extraordinary and it is so easy to get caught up in the busy, mundane everyday life. Taking some time out to do something as simple as driving with the top down made me feel more alive than ever. Road trips (especially with a convertible and a beautiful background) should become a mandatory part of life. 

Reading is Thinking

One of the very first anchor charts I made when decorating my first classroom was titled "reading is thinking." Everything I learned about teaching reading during my undergraduate experience emphasized this main point. At an early age, we try to teach readers that reading is more than just decoding words on a page. It is the most complex of processes that involves doing multiple things at once. Although this looks a little different for each reader, every reader should be thinking and responding as they are reading.

Reading comprehension is so much more than simply understanding what you read. Starting at the primary level, we teach students how to find their "inner voice" as they read and respond to texts. We model constantly through read alouds and think alouds to show students how our brains respond. "This makes me think..." "This makes me feel..." "This makes me wonder..."

Readers have to think about what they read. They have to think about the setting, characters, plot, mood, or theme. Readers have to do a variety of juggling as they read. They have to figure out new vocabulary, remember what they read previously, make predictions as to what may happen next, and make connections. In today's classrooms, students are taking notes about their thinking and then we encourage our students to talk about their books in clubs to share their thinking with others.

Over time this becomes a more automatic and natural process, but it is something that takes lots of practice and modeling. Learning how to do all of the juggling is difficult and it is no surprise that this is an issue we see in our secondary students.

Listening to the Literacy Needs of Adolescents

The article, The Literacy Needs of Adolescents in Their Own Words, features stories of seven students and their struggles with reading. It examines the reading intervention programs happening in schools and how they are meeting students' needs. I was amazed to read the results and also hear how knowledgable students and parents were about the issues.

The students surveyed varied from students with special needs or English language learners. All students were reading below grade level and struggled in the area of comprehension. Most students were good decoders, but struggled to understand what they were reading. When asked about reading strategies, most students didn't even know what strategies were. They needed help but weren't getting it.

A few shocks and surprises while reading this article. For starters, I was happy to see how many parents were involved and knew their child's specific reading needs. I was disappointed to see the interventions put in place at schools to not be meeting student needs. As a reading teacher, my job is to teach specific strategies to students based on their needs. Through assessment, a teacher should be able to see if it is a fluency, comprehension, or decoding skill that a student needs and then teach to those needs. Specifically in secondary schools, these adolescents need intervention programs that will directly enhance their literacy lives for all subjects. We need to be preparing our students for the workplace and a solid literacy foundation is essential. What good is an intervention program if it isn't intervening? What good is a teacher if they aren't working cooperatively with the student and the parents?

Pitcher, S.M., Martinez, G., Dicembre, E.A., Fewster, D., McCormick, M.K. (2010). The Literacy Needs of Adolescents in Their Own Words. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 53(8), 636-645.

Evolution of my Reading Life

In our last class, we discussed the different types of readers we may see in the classroom. I learned about a new type of reader - the "dormant" reader. Dormant readers are those do not read outside of school but do what is needed for their classes. They do not find reading very enjoyable and are not as engaged in reading as much as they could be.  After some reflection, I feel like this was me growing up and still is to some extent. 

Growing up, I was a good student and took my studies seriously. I enjoyed challenging classes and took many advanced English classes in middle and high school. The book lists for these classes were long and rigorous. I enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that I had read so many classics and could add them to my reading repertoire. Looking back now, I don't think I truly enjoyed that and it definitely wasn't fostering a love of reading. I was and still am a good reader, but I had no drive to read for pleasure.

Fast forward to today and part of me still feels dormant. I am always involved in a professional book study with my school, always reading children's books ahead of time to prepare for read aloud instruction, and now I have textbooks to read for graduate school courses. Finding the time to read for pleasure has still been difficult for me. Luckily, in my literacy in secondary schools class, I have the opportunity to read a young adult novel for a book club. This has given me the opportunity to get back into reading for pleasure. I immediately was hooked from the first page of the novel, Wonder, and now I am very excited to carve out time to read.

I have also noticed that the environment which I read is crucial. I can't read in bed if I'm tired and I can't have a lot of background noise. Reading outside is ideal if it's a pretty day outside or reading next to a window where there is natural light. I had never really considered the parameters of where and how I read to matter up until recently. When the conditions are right and distractions are removed, I am a much more successful reader.

If my job as an educator is to foster a love of reading in my students, then I know it needs to start with good modeling from the teacher. I am making it a goal to improve and move past the dormancy. 

Reading & Writing Lives

I love teaching my students how to become successful readers and writers. I enjoy watching them foster a love of reading and finding books that hook them. It is my passion and ultimately why I chose my graduate school path in reading instruction.

I grew up as an early reader and enjoyed books. When I got to middle and high school though, this all seemed to change for me. I was given a list each year of classic novels to read, read them, took a test, and repeat. Although I love knowing that I've read so many famous classics and can check them off my "list", I don't feel like that enhanced my reading life. Now as an adult, I find I need to schedule time to read for pleasure. Up until recently, my reading life consisted of browsing daily news articles and reading children's books with my 2nd graders. By the time the end of the day came, I had no energy left for books for pleasure.

It is evident that I need to practice what I preach. I need to have a scheduled time for reading and writing in my day - beyond children's books. Randy Bomer, author of Building Adolescent Literacy in Today's English Classrooms, explains that you need to establish habits and conditions for forming a reading and writing life. Everything from your schedule, to the place, and even the light should play into your conditions for reading and writing.

Bomer states that "Educated people should know how to pursue their own intellectual projects. Educated people should have agendas that take them to texts. Educated people should have habits that allow them to have reading and writing lives." (Bomer 2011) If I want to create educated, lifelong readers and writers, I have to build these habits early and also build them within my own life.