responsive literacy giveaway!

You are going to love Responsive Literacy: A Comprehensive Framework! This book will not only explain in great detail what this framework is all about, but SHOW you in a multitude of colorful photos about every aspect of this framework.

If you're familiar with balanced literacy, you're right on track with responsive literacy. This framework is all about providing structures for students to engage in literacy via reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but thought a multitude of modalities. Students will find these experiences in the Reading, Writing, and Word Study Workshop formats.

The foundations of this framework rest in the Zone of Proximal Development, teaching students to be participants in active thinking, engaging conversations, and authentic reflections about texts. Students engage in this work as the teacher plans with the workshop model in mind:

• Whole Group Teaching in mini-lesson, including interactive read-aloud, literature discussions, and shared and interactive writing
• Workshop time, where students have an opportunity for application of new learning on their own, in pairs or triads, or in small-group meetings with their teacher
• Share time, which is typically a celebration of learning related to the mini-lesson and closure for the day's learning

This workshop model works for reading, writing, and word study instruction, each practiced overviewed in detail in this comprehensive text. This book in broken down into six sections:

1. Professional Learning
2. Organizing for Learning
3. Reading
4. Writing
5. Building Blocks of Language
6. A Learning Community: Students, Teachers, Principals, and Families

Some of my favorite parts of the book include:

• Discussion of Author's Craft, pages 44-55
• Starting the Reading Workshop: The first 30 days, pages124-147
• Systems of Strategic Actions Wheel, and descriptions of thinking Within the Text, About the Text, and Beyond the text, page 196
• All of the references to quality books that serve as mentor texts for students, which are found throughout the text
• Possible ideas for writer's notebook entries, page 266
• "Your goal is to lift the writer, not fix the piece." page 273
• A WHOLE CHAPTER on handwriting!! Page 305 and Specific and Consistent Language for lower and uppercase letter formation - a dream for all of the K-2 teachers who scaffold their students to write the letters correctly! Page 311
• The last section that is of particular use to Literacy Coaches and Administrators, so that a building-wide culture can be built around this framework

If you are new to this framework, this book has it all, and thorough explanations and so many photos of classrooms, organization systems, student work, student-teacher interactions - everything! This book is geared toward K-6, but ideas can be adapted up to seventh and eighth as well.

I have a copy of this book to give away to one lucky winner! In order to win, leave a comment or question on this blog post and follow me on Instagram (@bigtimeliteracy). Can't wait to share the wealth of information with someone from this book!

Happy Saturday!

from striving to thriving - a giveaway!

It's time to coin a new phrase, friends. No more 'struggling' readers - let's change our mindset and go with 'striving' readers. In their new book, Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward have just this point to make, and share with us how we can move our readers from Striving to Thriving.

First Impressions
I just got these copies a few days ago, and haven't had time to read more than just the introduction, but already it's a hit. Here's why.

First, the work is grounded in research by two of my favorites: Rosenblatt and Goodman. I've written about Louise Rosenblatt before, but she came up with the transactional theory of reading. This theory states that no two readers read the same  story, because each text is a transaction between the book and the reader. Since all readers bring a different set of experiences and schema to the books they read, each interpretation of the text will be slightly different.

But Yetta Goodman, well I haven't written much about her. She's a pretty prominent person in my studies, too, because of her 'kidwatching' research. This is basically about how teachers have to observe their students in their work with literacy (teachers as kidwatchers), believe in their own professional judgments, and respect children's abilities. With all of that success will come.

In a time when we have so many exteranal ways to collect information - various applications students work on that put out reports of their progress (i.e. Accelerated Reader, Achieve 3000, Lexia, etc), I'm happy to read and be reminded that the teacher is the trained professional in the room, the teacher is the person who should be doing the observations, having the conversations, taking the anecdotal notes, and moving our children forward, rather than waiting on a system of some sort to tell us what to do.

Framework
The guiding framework throughout this text is Trust, Teach, Transform. The chapters are written in a common format, beginning with a vignette, including key research and teacher moves, and with practice and lessons. In addition, there is a section entitled Assessing Readers in the Round (ARR) which provides questions to guide your kidwatching.

I just went through the first chapter and loved what I saw. First, research upon research upon research. There tons of studies referenced and other books that are associated in meaning. Additionally, the practice and lessons are plentiful. One awesome idea that came along with helping kids build their identity was choosing a Walk-Up Song - you know, like at pro baseball games? Well, each reader chooses their own song, they share it with one another, and perhaps a teacher would pay it as they walk up to do a presentation.

Through each chapter you will find all of these things: research, classroom vignettes, practice, lessons, and questions to guide your thoughts and actions. All of this is delivered on beautiful, colored pages with tons of graphics and examples of work.

The Big Idea
After getting through the introduction and first chapter, I'm seeing that the big theme here is that time with books is what is best for our striving readers. Many times, the kids that need the most time with books are pulled to do work with programs to intervene, but in reality, what students need most is time with books and meaningful opportunities to confer with their teachers and peers. Harvey and Ward remind us that, "Programs don't teach kids, teachers do." and that "Becoming a wise reading teacher takes time, thoughtfulness, deep study, and sheer effort." What I'm getting is that you can't just impose a program on kids, but instead, you have to meet with them, read with them, and coach them... and most importantly, provide them HOURS and HOURS and HOURS of reading time. That is the way they will move from striving to thriving.

You guys, there's just a little bit on the book, but there is really so so much more. I can't wait to spend even more time with this book, and I'd love for you to do the same!

Giveaway
I have an extra copy of the book to give away! To be entered into the drawing, just leave a comment here on this blog post. Tell me about how you kidwatch in your classrooms - what observations are you using and how is that guiding your instruction with your students?

Next Saturday (10/28/17) I'll randomly select a winner from the list of comments. But a few things:

1. Make sure you are not a no-reply commentor. Check out this link to make sure I'll be able to reach out to you if you are chosen.
2. Chosen winner must be from the United States.

Looking forward to hearing your kidwatching stories! And, if you like what you've read here, follow my blog and connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @bigtimeliteracy :-)

Have a fab weekend!