many tools are greater than two

I just finished listening to Emily Hanford's podcast entitled, "At a loss for words, what's wrong with how schools teach reading." 

I feel agitated. 

First, at the heart of reading is meaning. If you read an article or a book, and then someone asks you what it was about, and you have no idea, did you really read it? I teach my students that this is an example of fake reading. If I pulled one of these kids to confer with me, I may listen and hear them read all the words accurately. If they cannot talk about what the author said, I do not believe they read the text.

This point - the comprehension of a text - was not discussed in the podcast. How can we leave that out?

Second, reading is a problem-solving endeavor, and sounding out a word and memorizing sight words should not be the only two strategies a child uses to solve a word. I'm so irritated as to why the teachers in this article call everything that is not sounding out or sight words "guessing." What about using phonology, morphology, and etymology (which, if your curriculum uses a phonics program under a balanced literacy framework students have this knowledge) to solve words? What about prompting a child, "Check the end letter in that word. You said /k/ but there's a 'ch' in there. Try it again." What about asking a child, "Does that make sense?"

I think the using the three cueing systems (Meaning: Does that make sense?, Syntax: Does that sound right?, Visual: Does that look right?) as cues to make meaning are just a few of the ways good readers approach text. Teachers who use the cueing systems are prompting students to get metacognitive about their reading. Ultimate goal? A child is reaidng on their own, and then thinks, "Huh, that sounds wrong," and then backs up to reread. That's a win in my book.

As I mentioned above, primary readers need phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. They also need to build their vocabularies. They need a schema bursting with experiences. They need to have positive feelings about reading, be able to name favorite books, and will be thoroughly invested if their teacher sets up partnerships or book clubs where children read the same books as their friends.

Which leads us to balanced literacy, which I believe is a model great reading teachers follow. Keep that going, sis.

Here's a bigger problem I see: our universities are not teaching reading as thoroughly as they should in undergraduate programs.

When I graduated in 2003, I began teaching sixth graders in central Phoenix. I would have some kids come up to my classroom, and they wouldn't know what to read, and I had no idea what to do, except follow the curriculum I was given.

The day the textbook told me, "Make XXX inference," and I didn't make that inference was the day I started to question things. Shortly thereafter, I began my graduate studies at Arizona State in Language and Literacy. Without that work, I would have continued to not be prepared for my students and their needs.

But the biggest takeaway? Teachers MUST trust their professional judgment, and seek out peers and mentors when they are stuck and unsure what to do. Since graduate school, teaching for me has always been kidwatching (Yetta Goodman). I watch my students and respond to what I notice. I build my instruction with my resources and my knowledge of what kids demonstrate to me. I do not blindly follow some curriculum or some resource or some report from some form of assessment as my only way to make decisions about kids. I am the trained practitioner. I kidwatch, use the resources available to me, and I make decisions as to what is next for my students.

I think I'm just a little put off as to why the attack of the three cueing systems. They are just ONE TOOL our readers can use. They can also use their knowledge in phonics, and the picture clues, and the schema they bring to the text to form their specific transaction to the work they are reading.

Reading is not black and white, and it instead lives in this really large grey area. As long as we are working together with our colleagues and continue learning, I don't think we need to throw out a bunch of tools (like LLI, which I have personally seen do amazing things for readers!) because they don't fit into some new idea about how reading instruction should be thoroughly changed.

Let's trust ourselves as professionals instead, and lean on our colleagues, coaches, and instructional leaders when we need another opinion.

Let's send some feedback to our undergrad education programs and get some advisory boards going so we can have teachers stepping into their first year much more confident and knowledgeable than I was.

Rant over :-) hahahhah

But seriously though, drop a comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I am a Teacher of Conscience

"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the past few weeks these are some of the things that have happened:

1. One of my student bloggers wrote a blog (totally unprompted) about being nervous about the PARCC test.
2. I read a story about a boy who asked for prayers at church one Sunday - prayers that he do a good job on his PARCC test. (Wish I bookmarked that link...)
3. Jia Lee, a teacher from New York City addressed the Senate regarding the reauthorizing of NCLB. See her video here. (btw: Just watched that video again and the hair is standing up on my arms. Again.)
4. A freshmen in high school set up this petition to open a conversation with legislation about High-Stakes Testing.
5. More than 40 Superintendents in Illinois urged their legislators for a Common Core testing delay.

It's because of all these things and 100 more that I cannot remain silent any more. I share all of this with you, respectfully, and because morally-speaking, High-Stakes Testing really troubles me.

All this testing we are doing with children - it's not okay. I know I'm not the only one who believes this, and I know it's not easy to say something. If we want our profession back from Pearson and all the other people profitting on our children, we must speak up! Before Literacy Coach, I am a Michelle. I am a woman who is educated, who cares deeply for children, and who cannot silence the thoughts in my heart and mind any longer.

The testing has got to stop. Or in the very least, the conversation about testing has to get much, much louder.

I'll tell you why we're testing: Money. You know how much money Pearson is making on the PARCC test? Well, I don't know exact numbers, but it's a lot. A. LOT. How come in our profession, the professionals aren't trusted? I went to school for education. I have an advanced degree in literacy. I have worked with children for 12 years and have refined my practice day in and day out. Students don't need to take this test - now twice (once in March and then again in May) every year for my administration to know if I am an effective teacher.

Today I collaborated with three different grade levels in three planning meetings. At each one, we looked at student work - work specific to one standard with multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate learning - and we made conclusions about what misconceptions students had about each standard. We planned for reteaching and made rubrics that can communicate to parents if the child mastered the standard independently, with prompting, or not yet. This will be reflected in teacher instruction... tomorrow. We are the practitioners closest to our students. We are professionals. We know best.

Teachers, please join me in sharing your voice about High-Stakes Testing. In the very least, can you leave me a comment so I know I'm not alone?

Check out a great website: Teachers of Conscience. Be aware of what is going on in your local, state, and national political arena in regard to education. What I know now is teaching is far more political than I had ever thought as I grew up playing school in my basement dreaming of the day I would get to stand in front of a group of kids and teach them how to read and write.

ignorance is (was) bliss

Today is day 3 of the Big Time Blogging Challenge. Glad you're here to participate along with us! Remember to link your post at the end of this one and don't forget the rule of 3 - comment on the two posts before yours and the one after!

Also, Kerry over at Learning out LOUD, created a hashtag for us. Use #BTBC14 if you post your blogs on any social media platforms and all our posts will be collected together! Happy Blogging!

I can't get this image out of my head:

I found it through Larry Ferlazzo's twitter feed - he writes a great blog and then has his "best of" posts that go way back, and this image was in one of them.

When I got on Twitter, I followed Diane Ravitch right away, which led me to the Badass Teachers Association (BATs). The BATs just turned one year old and already have close to 50,000 members! The Badass Teachers Association is "for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests, and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning."

And so reading all the articles and news I get from the BATs and Diane Ravitch, I feel like that little guy in the image up top that originally prompted this post - because now that I know what I know about the attack on public education - I can't get it out of my mind. Everywhere I look is colored by what I've learned!

I sat with a group of Chicagoland bloggers on Monday at lunch, and teachers were asking, "Why are there so many tests?" PARCC twice (or more) each year, plus the district benchmarks as a formative on our progress, plus the others we do because they give us good information about kids - like the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmarking for reading levels.

Don't misunderstand me: I'm all for accountability. But the feds who impose these tests and the labeling and dangle RTTT money at us (when we're facing budget crises) for rapid implementation of CCSS and all that goes with them act like, we, as professional teachers don't care about the progress of our students. We are professional educators! Of course we are going to use assessment to inform our instruction! Of course we want our students to achieve at high levels!

And all the attacks on our due process rights and the unions? It's really just too much. Read this great article about why we need to have due process - in education it protects our professional decisions to educate our students in the ways we believe are best. And another article here that will remind you about how the unions work for better working conditions for it's teachers, which in turn leads to higher student achievement.

So readers, if you want to stay in the blissful state of unawareness with with the attack on public education and the push to privatize, do not read Diane Ravitch and do not follow the BATs. But, if you have any interest in learning more, check them out. Even though we don't have as much money as the 1% using their large bank accounts to lobby for education reform that is opposite of what is best for kids, we can speak truth to power in our numbers, in our 99%!

Now it's time for the challenge!

Don't forget to use our hashtag: #BTBC14!

An InLinkz Link-up

response to "the toxic culture of education"

Have you seen this video: The Toxic Culture of Education? If not, it's worth 17 minutes spent watching it.

I watched it a few weeks ago and then yesterday someone posted it again on facebook. We got into a little debate about it and then I was writing a response that turned into too much for a facebook comment so I'm putting it here instead.

I believe that assessment is absolutely integral to instruction - you have to know what kids are learning in order to inform your practice. I definitely use some standardized test prep with kids – they have to be ready for The Test, but other assessments like running records that track words per minute, errors, accuracy, and specific miscues inform my instruction, plus conversations about comprehension (Can they retell? Can they think inferentially about the text and talk about the author’s craft and structure?) Looking at writing and grading against a rubric also tells me what kids need and where they excel. All of these measures plus interest inventories are ways for me to look at the data and give kids what they need.

My problem with standardized testing is the now federal testing and labeling schools, teachers, and children with the results. (Note: I don't oppose a standardized test - I oppose the "high-stakeness" of it.) Now that it's on the federal level, Pearson can crank out one textbook that will teach the content and align to all states - everyone will buy it up and then we will buy the tests from Pearson, and we'll never be able to pass them, because the narrative (fueled by the reformers that goes all the way back to “A Nation at Risk” published in 1983) is that public school is failing. This narrative will not change as long as the corporate reformer people (Pearson, Gates, groups like Students First, and generally rich people like Silicon Valley mogul David Welch who financed the Vergara trial in CA that did away with teacher tenure) get on the airwaves and all over the web continuing the talk about how public education is in trouble. (It’s not). 

The media LOVES this stuff because their viewers who don’t follow the other side of the argument are outraged and worried about their children and the education their children are receiving. (What parent wouldn't be?) On the other side of the argument is Diane Ravitch – Educational Historian who wrote Reign of Error and The Death and Life of the Great American School System.  If you haven't read her stuff, I highly suggest it. Anyways, the general public doesn’t know the other side – just what the media covers. Corporate reformers *want* public school to fail so they can privatize, so they can bring in all the public tax dollars that flow into education through charter schools that do not have the same kinds of transparency that public schools do. Charters do not answer to the public (for example, with democratically elected school board) and have more freedom to put those dollars where they want (like pay the CEO hundreds of thousands of dollars). (Of course, I don’t want to generalize, but I’m sure it happens more often than not.)

*This* is my problem with the narrative about public education going on right now. The narrative is that public schools are failing our children. I believe the opposite is true.

Never has there been a time when teachers are more aware of what students are learning (or not learning). Never has there been a time of more differentiation and more decisions being made to best help students achieve at high levels. Want some hard data? Look at the PISA scores - this is a test that compares children in all different countries. It looks as if kids in the states are not doing so hot, but when you factor out poverty, we are right at the top with all the other high-performing nations. The problem here isn't a failing public school system. The problem here is poverty.

Anyways, that is just my two cents for Saturday morning. What do you think? Are you as worried about public education as I am? I believe that our country is *great* because we have free public education for all but I believe we are on course to privatize all of education, and that my friends, really scares me.

Because of this, I speak up :-)

What are you reading? (Five for Friday Style!)

Happy Saturday everyone! I am a little late linking up with Doodlebugs, but here's my five for Friday...all about what I've been reading lately!

This month, Ralph Fletcher has been sharing a poem a day on his blog, The Writer's Desk. (He's one of my favorite authors of books for kids and books for teachers!) This week, in second grade, I shared one of his poems, Rainbow in Ice:

After we read it a few times, we had kids write a response:

Here's Z's response:

Even though most of the poem is a little sad, about having the winter rainbow trapped in ice, I see where her thinking is coming from - finding a rainbow anywhere would make anyone happy!

I love that I can come to the blogs I follow for inspiration in my teaching! You can follow Ralph Fletcher here!

I started following The White Rhino - Ray Salazar. He's a Chicago Public Schools English Teacher and he writes lots about the kids he teaches and Chicago politics.

Chicago now has plans to open a new selective enrollment high school, named for our president. The thing is, that the school favors the higher income students of the north side....as per usual. I'm pretty sure that most (if not all) of the selective enrollment schools are on the north side. Meanwhile, the south side continues to be underfunded and doesn't have as many opportunities as the north side. This makes me so angry!

How will our city reduce the crime rate when we don't invest in the south side? This is why I also am following Amara Enyia and reading what she has to say.....

This girl is beautiful - inside and out. She's going to run for mayor of Chicago for the 2015 election. Her campaign wants to make a Chicago for the people...

She's been doing neighborhood clean-ups, meeting people on all sides of the city, and really just getting to know her neighbors on her "Unity Tour." Even though she's so young, she's super smart - A law degree and a PhD in Educational Policy. She worked under Mayor Daley when he was in office and then went and worked on a grass roots level on the south and west sides. She knows that there are people in our city who don't have a voice. She knows that Rahm is funneling money into big projects (DePaul Stadium...River Walk) that don't serve all the people of our city. She'll make a great mayor but we need to spread the word! Find her on facebook, on twitter, and at her website and spread it around!

Also - see her reaction to the new high school here.

This is a blog I follow and the writing on it is hilarious. In his post entitled "What Test Prep Is Not," he ends with this....

I'm seriously lol-ing. His voice is the best!! No matter what your opinion on standardized testing, we can all agree that he is a great writer!

Anyways, his posts are also pretty eye-opening about the state of our education policies. In case you're not following what I'm following, I'd say that this tweet is very much true:

For more on this, you can follow Diane Ravitch, Badass Teachers Association, (read more about the BATs here) and Network for Public Education. Then you'll be in the know of what I know!

Wonder

by R.J. Palacio

This book is about Auggie, a fifth grader who has a face that is a "medical anomaly." Some how, his genetics made his face look very different than everyone, and even with plastic surgery, he still looks very different than his peers.

He was homeschooled all the way till fifth grade, so Wonder is a story about his transition to school. What's great about Wonder is the narrator changes. Auggie narrates first, then his sister, then some kids from school. So, it's cool how Palacio unfolds the story bit by bit, depending on who is telling it.

I'm not all the way done yet, but over halfway and it's really great. Our fourth grade did it as a read aloud, and then I heard from my mentee that she read it with her sixth graders. Probably 7th and 8th could read it independently and get all the storyline and meaning from it.

Time to finish Wonder! What are you reading? Please share with me!

Happy weekend everyone!

PS - My blog is getting a makeover! It's currently in progress with Designs by Kassie and I can't wait to share it with you!

Confessions

I've been thinking about this post all the way home. It started when Raise 'Em Up came on (Keith Urban and Eric Church). Take a listen if you have time, or skip it for now, cause I'll cite the part that I love below...

Here's the verses that got me thinking today:

Raise 'em up

You got a voice, you got a choice

Go make some noise

Don't ever let 'em tell you

who you are

Raise 'em up

Fist black and blue

Fight for the truth

It's what you do

Hand on your heart

for the stripes and stars

See, recently I've become almost obsessed with the state of education policy/reform in our country. If you've been following me for the last few weeks at least, you've heard me mention Diane Ravitch - and I've started her book, and it's testing season...and yeah. The more I read, the more agitated I get!


And then there's Twitter. The thing they don't tell you about Twitter are all the people you're going to begin following once you start with it. (Expect to spend the first week sucked in reading post after post after post!) Twitter has connected me to so many people that have a similar set of beliefs, including the BATs. I give you their acronym first, because the A of the acronym is an inappropriate word. For a long time I felt like I couldn't talk about this kind of thing here on my blog - because of this word first, and also, I have a lot of strong opinions about what I'm reading, but I don't know everything, so I don't want to start debates without having all my facts straight. But the thing is...the state of education in our country is bothering me so much because of how much I love my career.

The things that I love - (here are the confessions) - all the things I love....I love them to the nth degree. Like crazy fierce.

My family.

My friends,

who may as well be my family.

My boyfriend.

My profession.

Teaching kids.

Literacy,

everything and anything involved.

People,

talking, laughing, collaborating.

Writing.

Reading.

These things - I love them so deeply and with such conviction. This is why today, after hearing about how I have a voice and it's okay to use it - I decided to let you in on the (confession) Badass Teachers Association (BATs). Here's a few videos that tells you who they are and what they believe in:

My big issue is that so many decisions are being made about education and teachers aren't being asked. I don't know why billionaires think they know best! It bothers me immensely that corporations want to profit off our our kids and our profession. Additionally, it makes me so angry that some people think that they could walk into a class of fifth graders, eighth graders, or kinders (hardest working people *ever*) and teach all day! It is an art and a science, this job we do!

So, I just had to get that off my chest. Maybe you already follow the BATs? Maybe you've organized something with them? I'm very interested in the work they are doing, and for the first time in my life, I feel compelled to raise my voice for education....which I care about with a 'freakish intensity.' (Thank you Curmudgucation for that one!)

Ahhhh....now that feels good.

Your thoughts?

Happy Tuesday!

a very late Five for Friday!

Hi all! So my fave time of the week - Saturday morning, coffee in hand, doing laundry, reading my blogs and now writing! Hope you had a great week! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today to share five awesome things about my week that just ended. Hope yours was great, too!

I love the Internet. Funny memes, BuzzFeed, and awesome blogs make me laugh about the ins and outs of our field. Here's a buzzfeed that had some super amazing protest signs teachers were carrying. This one was my fave:

Today on my facebook feed, a teacher friend posted this and it made me laugh, too:

idk who that lady is on the right - but I can't get her out of the pic!

And, a new blog that I love: Curmudgucation. This guy is HILARIOUS. Yesterday he was writing about the Washington Post interviewing Michelle Rhee. This part was just great - you'll see when you get to the 'freakish intensity' part. Michelle Rhee was quoted about in italics, and then his reply follows:

I mean, this is how I feel about literacy stuff - I have a freakish intensity about it and it's so true. Book talk books to fifth graders? Yes please! (See same kids in hallway three days later and ask all of them what they're reading...yup!) Do running records and then feel giddy about any teacher who wants me to show them how I track the data? omg! Plan word study lessons to get kids to differentiate short from long vowel patterns? The stuff of dreams! The possibility of teaching as an adjunct at a University - I just. hit. the jackpot! (I have an interview on Wednesday!) (Forever grateful, LH!)

Freakish intensity? Yep, and proud of it!

The Stripes Store - Tiger Tickets - and our Amazing Parents:

We use PBIS at our school and Tiger Tickets. Kids save up their tickets and then get to "shop" at the Stripes Store. Our parents are so awesome....in addition to all the events they do - Valentine's Dance, Movie Night, Book Fairs - they also help run our Stripes Store. The kids love it - one boy, A, bought vampire teeth and then left them on my colleagues' desk with a note. He actually stopped by the other day to ask her if she still had them, and there they were on her desk. Anyways, it does take a village and I'm so thankful for the awesome collaboration that happens with the families of our kiddos!

The Someday List

Do your kiddos use a Someday List? It's just a list they keep in their notebooks of the books they want to read someday. Keeping this list helps kids become readers who can figure out everything on their own. When they finish a book, they don't need to go to their teacher to ask what to read next, because if they are keeping a Someday List, they know right where to look! The key is getting them to think about it each week. I used to do this as part of my "Do Now" when I taught middle school. Kids would come in and their instructions (maybe once a week) would be to read their friends' blogs and then add to their Someday List. The constant reminder of the list helps kids remember how to direct themselves as readers!

"Ms. Brezek, I LOVE this book!"

Get ready for freakish intensity - I had the kids in my RtI group take Love That Dog home for Spring Break, and then J came back loving it, so I gave him Hate that Cat. We don't even read our independent reading books in our RtI group, but he brought it with him every day, and on the first day back, he was just ecstatic about the book. This is what makes me love literacy and get so excited about it. If we can get all our kids to be this excited about it - we're doing exactly what we should be!

Speaking of my kiddos....

Three fourth graders and three fifth - these are kids in one of the two groups that I see every day. I seriously love kids. Not only do I get to hang out with them for 40 minutes every day, but we also get to read lots of books together and work on our reading. Win - Win!

Yesterday we were talking about passions and after I asked them about theirs they asked about mine, and so this blog came up. I told them about it, they wrote down the title, and wanted to go looking. I told them I'd put their pic up, so here it is. As a 1:1 district, our kids are all over the technology, so it's pretty cool. The girls seemed interested in writing, so perhaps I'll have them blogging with me very soon!

And, you know we have to do a funny face picture, too:

That's all for me today. Gators play at 5...we're one game away from the finals! Woop-woop!

Have a fab weekend!