Literacy Curriculum the Paley-Way
In May of 2011, I'll finally complete all of the required coursework (and more) for an MAed in Reading and Language. If I had a classroom of my own, the training I've had would also grant me a Reading Specialist Certificate. The program of which I will soon be an alumni, is designed to:
Response to Intervention Principals
A few weeks ago, I was assigned a reading specialist position as a substitute teacher at a well resourced school. I looked forward to this day for a long time, knowing I'd have a chance to work in an environment specifically designed to support reading success for struggling readers. To my surprise, I arrived on site to find the curriculum to be the antithesis of my expectations. I found the lesson plan very hard to follow, with it's explicit instructions for both teacher prompts, and expected student responses. Most shocking, for the entire duration of 45 minute blocks with small intervention groups consisting of 6-8 students, they weren't doing any actual reading at all.
I realize it is not fair to judge an entire program based on one small window into it's soul, but for the sake of this compare and contrast analysis of reading instruction, I will compare the curriculum I was given to use for the day with Richard Allington's 8 key research-based principles for supporting struggling readers (p. 25) in What
Really Matters in Response to Intervention (2009).
prepare teachers for specialized teaching of reading and language arts to diverse populations of students and for curriculum and instructional leadership in the field of language and literacy. Required coursework focuses on the nature of literacy development at all levels, research and theory in teaching reading and writing, and the improvement of classroom curriculum and methods that emphasize the relationship of literacy to language and concept learning.
Response to Intervention Principals
A few weeks ago, I was assigned a reading specialist position as a substitute teacher at a well resourced school. I looked forward to this day for a long time, knowing I'd have a chance to work in an environment specifically designed to support reading success for struggling readers. To my surprise, I arrived on site to find the curriculum to be the antithesis of my expectations. I found the lesson plan very hard to follow, with it's explicit instructions for both teacher prompts, and expected student responses. Most shocking, for the entire duration of 45 minute blocks with small intervention groups consisting of 6-8 students, they weren't doing any actual reading at all.
I realize it is not fair to judge an entire program based on one small window into it's soul, but for the sake of this compare and contrast analysis of reading instruction, I will compare the curriculum I was given to use for the day with Richard Allington's 8 key research-based principles for supporting struggling readers (p. 25) in What
Really Matters in Response to Intervention (2009).
1. Begin an intervention plan √
2. Match reader and text level
3. Dramatically expand reading activity
4. Use very small groups or tutoring √
5. Coordinate intervention with core classroom
6. Coordinate intervention by expert teacher √
7. Focus instruction on meta-cognition and meaning
8. Use texts that are interesting to students
Score: 37.5%
Each of Allington's 8 principles were elaborated on with great detail and gave me plenty of information for how I might describe my pedagogy around reading instruction. In my own words, I've summarized Allington's principals in the following way:
Once a reader is identified as a struggling reader, it's crucial to implement an intervention plan that will deliver support that is customized to the specific needs of the individual reader. Instruction must highlight reading strategies that the student already knows, develop reading strategies where the student is lacking, and use texts that are interesting to the reader and relevant to core academic learning. Perhaps most importantly, text that is placed in the reader's hands must be accessible to the reader so that he or she can read the material accurately and fluently throughout the school day. Success breeds success.
The Paley-Way
On the tippy top of my pedestal for going deeply into literacy development is the great educator, writer and kidwatcher Vivian Gussin Paley. In her book, The Girl with the Brown Crayon (1997) she documents her final year of teaching in her kindergarten classroom. Through observation and field notes, she paints a perfect picture of inspiration as she discovers how the the most authentic forms of literacy development are embedded in an in-depth, year-long author study of Leo Leionni, born out of one imaginative student's profound interest in his literary characters. For the remainder of the school year, Leo Lionni and the members of Gussin Paley's kindergarten class interweave themes of race, identity, gender and the essential human needs to create and to belong which comes to mark the very essence of learning.
"I too require passion in the classroom. I need the intense preoccupation of a group of children and teachers inventing new worlds as they learn to know each others dreams. To invent is to come alive. Even more than the unexamined classroom, I resist the uninvented classroom" (Gussin Paley, 1997).
Again, I look analytically at the reading intervention lesson above, with the following lesson objectives:
The Paley-Way
On the tippy top of my pedestal for going deeply into literacy development is the great educator, writer and kidwatcher Vivian Gussin Paley. In her book, The Girl with the Brown Crayon (1997) she documents her final year of teaching in her kindergarten classroom. Through observation and field notes, she paints a perfect picture of inspiration as she discovers how the the most authentic forms of literacy development are embedded in an in-depth, year-long author study of Leo Leionni, born out of one imaginative student's profound interest in his literary characters. For the remainder of the school year, Leo Lionni and the members of Gussin Paley's kindergarten class interweave themes of race, identity, gender and the essential human needs to create and to belong which comes to mark the very essence of learning.
"I too require passion in the classroom. I need the intense preoccupation of a group of children and teachers inventing new worlds as they learn to know each others dreams. To invent is to come alive. Even more than the unexamined classroom, I resist the uninvented classroom" (Gussin Paley, 1997).
Again, I look analytically at the reading intervention lesson above, with the following lesson objectives:
- To introduce consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words with a
- To introduce words altered by the word ending -ing
Even the very language used in the scripted lesson:
These words imply that the teacher is the omniscient bearer of all knowledge, and the blank-slate students must be introduced to new information, (including sounds!) that they do not know yet. I won't even go into the connotations implied in "Sound Drill."
It's amazing to me that this form of teaching is still so widely used and valued in our culture. My four-year-old and I are currently reading On the Banks of Plum Creek (Laura Ingalls Wilder). There is a part when Laura and Mary go to church for the first time. They are taken away from the sermon to join a Sunday school circle with all of the children from the town and the Sunday school teacher gives the kids a bible verse to memorize as their lesson for the day.
I wonder how often kids feel surprised at their teachers, but respond with some modern-day version of yes ma'am after a lesson in school.
What if all literacy curriculum was taught the Paley-way? The entire theme of her story of authentic literacy instruction is summarized during a classroom discussion on Pezzettino, a small orange square in a land of towering creatures named after their special skills- the one who runs, the flying one, the swimming one, etc. "Am I your little piece?" He inquires of each figure.
Paley reflects on her students' character analysis of Pezzettino in the following way:
- To introduce
- New Words
- New Sound
These words imply that the teacher is the omniscient bearer of all knowledge, and the blank-slate students must be introduced to new information, (including sounds!) that they do not know yet. I won't even go into the connotations implied in "Sound Drill."
It's amazing to me that this form of teaching is still so widely used and valued in our culture. My four-year-old and I are currently reading On the Banks of Plum Creek (Laura Ingalls Wilder). There is a part when Laura and Mary go to church for the first time. They are taken away from the sermon to join a Sunday school circle with all of the children from the town and the Sunday school teacher gives the kids a bible verse to memorize as their lesson for the day.
She turns to Laura and says, "My very littlest girl must have a very small lesson. It will be the shortest verse in the bible and it's just two words! Now do you think you can remember that for a whole week?"
Laura was surprised at Mrs. Tower. Why, she remembered long Bible verses and whole songs! But she did not want to hurt Mrs. Tower's feelings. So she said, "Yes ma'am" (p 196).
I wonder how often kids feel surprised at their teachers, but respond with some modern-day version of yes ma'am after a lesson in school.
What if all literacy curriculum was taught the Paley-way? The entire theme of her story of authentic literacy instruction is summarized during a classroom discussion on Pezzettino, a small orange square in a land of towering creatures named after their special skills- the one who runs, the flying one, the swimming one, etc. "Am I your little piece?" He inquires of each figure.
Paley reflects on her students' character analysis of Pezzettino in the following way:
This is not a peer group story they are telling me. It is about the weakness of a small child in a world of fully developed grown-ups who are self-sufficient and lack nothing. Pezzettino is every child who has ever walked into a classroom. "Do I belong here? Does someone care about me? Perhaps the lonely Island Pezzettino is sent to does in fact represent school, where children are broken into pieces in order that adults may observe, label, and classify them. And having been so dissected, how does the child become whole again?" (p. 53)In the end, Paley found that an author study of Leo Lionni worked so well for authentic literacy development in her classroom because "the children come to school knowing how to think about such matters. We need only to give them proper context in which to demonstrate and fine tune their natural gifts" (p.87).
I'll now depart with a vision of Vivian herself speaking to ways in which children naturally "invent and reinvent themselves as thinking people- before the world tells them what to think."
You can also find a podcast on Response to Intervention with Richard Allington titled No Quick Fix HERE.
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