"Retelling as Written Response" Ideas

[This post is based on a question Lisa posed in the June 25th comment box.]

Dear Lisa,

I think you’re “right on” when you have your ELL first graders talk about the book you’ve read aloud before asking them to respond in writing. The types of guided responses you've asked them to make and the prompts you've provide seem varied and developmentally appropriate. And I totally get how this is so much more difficult when they attempt them on their own. This is always the case and, as you well know, their skill develops over time. So we need to be patient.

Let’s focus for a moment on the “retelling” part of your question. You’ve expressed concern that asking kids to retell stories would be tedious and boring. It may be, but the extend to which it actually is depends on how often we ask them to retell and the types of retelling we engage them in. Two things need to come into play: First, we need to balance written responses with oral responses such as readers theater, book talks, etc. and visual representations such as making pictures, character maps, etc. Second, we need to expand the scaffolds we provide for students as they retell. 

You mention Beginning-Middle-End (B-M-E) as one scaffold. In The Next Step in Guided Reading, Jan Richardson offers two others that work with early readers such as yours. They are Somebody-Wanted-But-So (S-W-B-S) and the Five-Finger Retell.

Here’s how Richardson describes S-W-B-S:

“The students write a one-sentence summary using the S-W-B-S scaffold. At first you will need to help students write this response, but eventually you should be able to say, Write a ‘Somebody-Wanted-But-So’ for this story.

Somebody: Who is the story about?

Wanted: What did this character want?

But: But what happened?

So: How did it end? What happened next?

The response should be written in a complete sentence. As students write independently, you should circulate among the group and scaffold students who need your help.”

In addition Richardson discusses the Five-Finger Retell where each finger represents one aspect of story grammar.

Thumb: The characters are…

1^st finger: The setting is…

Tall finger: The problem is…

Ring finger: The events are… (What happened first? Next? Then?)

Little finger: At the end…

Since your students are young and ELL, this is a scaffold you would introduce and initially use in whole-class settings. However as the students get the hang of it you might ask them to write about “one finger” with enough detail (and perhaps a picture) to show they understand how it works with the story as a whole. And of course, they will need multiple demonstrations of what you mean.

I close with this reminder. While responses to text—written and otherwise—are important and should be something kids do during their independent reading time of day, we need to remember that providing voluminous opportunities for them to read just-right books is still our number one priority. Kids can’t improve their reading if they don’t read.

Daniel Willingham Podcast-Background Knowledge and Reading Strategies

I was going through some files preparing for an institute I'm doing this week in ohio and came across a link to a podcast given to me by a soul-mate teacher in Portland, Oregon. Well...I finally listened to all 15-minutes of it and am so glad I did! It's Daniel Willingham talking about background knowledge—how important background knowledge is and how comprehension strategy instruction is being over-done. Now that you have a bit more time—assuming you've already begun your well-deserved summer break—take your laptop on your deck, grab a cool drink, and listen... Bet it will start you thinking about next year.

Juggling Time for Reading and Response

In a May 30^th comment box Mary raised the issue of there being a fine line between asking kids to respond in a thoughtful manner to texts they read and one that doesn’t take too much time away from their independent reading. She writes that her children often get caught up filling in their response sheets when perhaps time would be better spent reading.

I understand her dilemma and I have experienced it often myself. And admittedly if I went back to classroom teaching tomorrow I’d have to seriously reconsider the amount and type of response I ask students to make. Especially in light of the Carnegie Corporation’s 2010 Writing to Read Report that recommends, based on a meta-analysis of reading and writing research, that teachers have students write about texts they read to improve to improve their reading. The report states on page 5 that “students’ comprehension of science, social studies, and language arts is improved when they write about what they read, specifically when they:

•  respond to a text in writing (writing personal reactions, analyzing and interpreting the text)

•  write summaries of text

•  write notes about a text

•  answer questions about a text in writing, or create or answer written questions about a text.

So you see, not only would I need to consider how much kids should respond during the reading workshop but also how to get them to write more throughout the content-area times of day. How often and the types of responses I might ask them to make would, of course, depend on children's age and stage of reading development, but would certainly include more…more drawing, more writing, more quick writes, more writing about what they are learning. If studies cited in the Carnegie Report link writing to children's reading development then I’d be remise not to consider how this might play out in my own classroom. And unfortunately I’d still be left with the dilemma of how increase the amount of responding children to without taking precious time away from their reading. No quick fix here…just the challenge of figuring out a personal solution to this ever-so-important juggling dilemma. (Thanks Mary, for raising the issue.)

Branching Out—Our Nonfiction Collection Needs to Address More Than “Animals”

My interest in informational texts and the importance of bringing them into classrooms and children’s hands has made me rethink a whole lot of things. In fact when I went into my basement to check out the nonfiction books I own, I was alarmed to find that so many are about animals. And when you consider all there is about the world for children to learn, it would seem that the books in our private and classroom collection should include titles for a wide variety of nonfiction subtopics—weather, transportation, astronomy, biology, history, etc.—you get the picture.

I’m happy to say that I’ve recently added three new titles to my nonfiction collection:

 

The Digestive System: What Makes Me Burp? by Sue Barraclough is an fine example of an expository text written with primary-grade students in mind. Each chapter title is written as a question, which prompts kids to find the answer as they read. In addition, it’s jam packed with gorgeous photographs and text features to held kids access and recall information, e.g. table of contents, labels, captions, close-ups, index, glossary. There are other books in this “Body Systems” series: The Circulatory System, The Respiratory System, The Sensory System, and The Skeletal and Muscular Systems.

A Is for Astronaut: Exploring Space from A to Z by Traci N. Todd and Sara Gillingham is, you guessed it, an alphabet book about space. Instead of lengthy paragraphs for each letter, there are several key words for each letter and a simple phrase to describe each word. For example, the word “cockpit” on the “C” page says that it is “the part of a spacecraft where the pilot sits.” The illustrations (a combination of gorgeous photos and vintage illustrations) are sure to pique children’s interest and the information is easily assessable to primary-grade readers.

 

The Watcher: Jane Goodall’s Life with the Chimps by Jeannette Winter a beautifully written biography about this world-renowned animal researcher and activist. In addition to learning about Jane Goodall’s life-long passion for learning about these primates (which seemed to begin with a toy chimpanzee given to her by her father), children also learn how important it is to “observe” what’s around them and follow their passion.

I’m excited about these books. What’s more…these three titles span three distinct nonfiction subgenres: expository text (digestive system), sequential texts (space from A to Z), and biography (Jane Goodall). We need to branch out on so many levels.

A Noteworthy Informational Text Strategy Book

Let me tell you about a really cool book I found when preparing for some content area professional development I’ll be doing next week. It’s Barbara Moss and Virginia S. Loh’s 35 Strategies for Guiding Readers though Informational Texts. It’s a newly revised and expanded edition of Moss’s 25 Strategies for Guiding Readers…

I love the way the book’s organized. Lessons are chunked together under the following categories: Getting Started Strategies, Building Background Strategies, Vocabulary Strategies, Comprehension Strategies, and Writing Strategies—although I must say that to me they’re ALL about comprehension. The strategies in this K-12 resource are accessible and applicable to children in kindergarten through grade 5. 

Yet Another Nod to Background Knowledge

I just returned from the International Reading Association Conference in Orlando, FL where I presented a session on "Re-Envisioning the Five Pillars of Reading." One pillar that I include in my re-envisioned paradigm is background knowledge since it's most essential in helping children comprehend what they read.

After the session, a teacher shared the title of this YouTube video that I'm now sharing with you. It's by cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham and it's called Teaching Content Is Teaching Reading. I highly recommend it. It's only ten minutes long and although the music is a tad annoying, the message—that kids need prior knowledge to comprehend text—is dead on. I hope you enjoy it, share your thoughts, and then, of course, pass it on.

Book Selection for Independent Reading: Reading Conferences "Yes"—Book Shopping Days "No"

Let me state right off that while I’m a huge fan of shopping—for clothes, shoes, cosmetics, etc.—I’m not a fan of book shopping days where young children go off to select books for independent reading from a basket of leveled texts. Quite often the results don’t match our expectations. Even though the books are “at their level,” children often have trouble reading them “cold” with the recommended 98 to 99 percent word accuracy. And the teacher misses the opportunity to guide students’ selections and help them work out some of the books’ more challenging aspects. Words, organization, or design, for example. This absence of teacher guidance and feedback is unfortunate.

That’s why I build book return and selection into our reading conferences. If children are emergent and early readers I either go with them to the leveled pots or bring several baskets to the conference table. Then I direct the child to select a couple she might like to try, and I also select a few I think might be a good match. From these pre-selected titles, the child selects three of four she’d like to have in her bag. Then she might have a go at reading several pages of one of them. This gives me an idea of how challenging or supportive the text in fact is. When children are transitional or fluent readers, they anticipate that they’ll be exchanging books that day and come to the conference with several titles in hand.

During the reading conference, we also discuss nonfiction topics the child is interested in learning more about, or I refer to the book preference notes I’ve already recorded in her reading notebook or to the reading inventory which accompany the child to the conference via the reading folder. Children can select “look” books that, while too difficult to read word-for-word, can provide interesting information through pictures and other text features.

The ability to independently choose books that are a good match to ability, interest, etc., is a skill that develops over time with teacher guidance and feedback. I have more input into children’s selection when they’re just starting off and gradually hand over more of the responsibility to them. (Please recall from my post on April 26 that during the first independent reading time of day children can read any book they want, regardless of level.) In addition, I teach students how to select books throughout the year during mini-lessons, and I excite them about the possibilities through the book talks I provide.