Pathways to Success for All Learners

Western Suffolk BOCES

September 30, 2014

Kate Gerson

David Abel

Guiding Resources

Liben and Liben’s “‘Both and’ Literacy Instruction K-5 : A Proposed Paradigm Shift for the Common Core State Standards ELA Classroom” (to guide curriculum choices for grades K-5 to meet demands of CCSS for all learners)

NYSED’s “CCSS for ELA/Literacy: Application for all struggling learners.”(to guide systemic and instructional changes to address struggling students in grades 3-12)

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“Both and” Literacy Instruction K-5

Five Essential Studies• Hernandez 2011 “Double Jeopardy” • Lesnick et al 2010 “Reading on Grade Level in

Third Grade: How Is it Related to High School Performance and College Enrollment?”

• Fletcher and Lyon 1998 74 percent of third graders who read poorly still struggling in 9th grade

• Snow et al 1998 “A person who is not at least a modestly skilled reader by the end of third grade is quite unlikely to graduate from high school”

• Juel 1988 First grade reading scores “reliable predictor of later reading scores”

Why?• How is it that tests so early can predict results

so many years later?

• What are we doing in schools that might be perpetuating these trends?

• What are we not doing in schools that might be perpetuating these trends?

What are not the causes?

• Lack of critical thinking

• Failure to know or use comprehension strategies

• Failure to master the standards

What are the causes?

• Vocabulary: Failure to grow sufficient vocabulary

• Knowledge: Failure to develop wide background knowledge

• Fluency: Failure to become a fluent reader

Importance of Vocabulary

• Nearly a century of research (Whipple 1925, NAEP 2012)

• Feature of complex text that likely causes greatest difficulty (Nelson et al 2012)

• Having to determine the meaning of too many words slows readers up; a far greater problem with complex text

• Not knowing words on the page is debilitating• “30 Million Word Gap”• After much research…

Academic Vocabulary on passages of NYS 2013 3rd

Grade Test• mimic• “special bond”• struts• scampers• plunge• flop• surface• “shooting out” • flap• scowled • shifted

• defense• fierce• darted• wiggle• gear• clanked• swelling• distant as an adjective in the

“distant truck”• observe• restless• cast v.• strikes v.

Academic Vocabulary on Just One Passage of NYS 2013 6th

Grade Test• imposing• harness• finesse• surge• glanced• “comfort washed over me”• process• straddled• draperies• magnificent• transformed• breathtaking

• cascaded• contrasted• imposing• ascent • ascend• descend• exhilarating• labored• constricted• exclamation• rasping• speck• glanced

Importance of Knowledge

• Similar history of research (Kintsch 1998, Most of John Guthrie's work, Adams 2009…)

• Recht and Leslie, 1988 – baseball study

• Makes sense as knowledge of words and knowledge of the world go together

• Take a look at recent tests aligning with the Common Core

Topics and References in Third Grade Passages

• Leaves in the fall, playing with leaves, suburban setting• Ecology frogs—habitats, ponds, species in trouble,

food chain, life cycle• GW Carver—African American History, agriculture,

sense of time, 20th century, 1900’s, professor• Benny west- Quaker/religious groups,

schoolmaster/old schools, small town rural life, Italy/England/Europe

• Snow Walker—northern rural life, snowshoes, dogsleds, Alaska

• The Nautilus—submarines, diesel, maps, Hawaii, North Pole, nuclear power, the arctic

Topics and References in Sixth Grade Passages

• Caving: Rappelling, caves structure, “life flashing before your eyes”, limestone, minerals

• Stargazing in the South Pole: Astronomy and astronomers, constellations, National Science Foundation, military transport planes, road construction, kilometers, continents, “high peaks” the size of France, crevasses

• Girl who wants to be a food scientist: masters degree, microbiology, “biological standpoint”, sensory science, internships, West Africa, “a science and an art”, varieties of wheat

Importance of Fluency

• What is fluency?

Definition: Instruction in the ability to read text accurately and quickly, either silently or orally.

• Rasinski (2005) 61% of 9th grade students in bottom quartile of fluency with pre-Common Core 8th grade texts

• Fluency ≠ Comprehension, but lack of fluency will certainly hinder comprehension

Importance of Fluency

• If your kids are entering third grade and they're not decoding multi- syllabic words and reading fluently, there will be a problem

• This problem needs to be addressed in Kindergarten.

• Research has shown: phonics-based programs gets kids reading fluently in K-1

What about Guided Reading?

Tim Shanahan :

Current model of conferencing: shared reading with more complex texts, guided reading with levelled texts.

This should be reversed, because complex texts need more support.This will be different; we're used to conferencing students with 'just right' texts.

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What about Guided Reading?

If Guided Reading stays as it is—as it has been—this is a HUGE block of time that does not move kids.

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What about Levelled Readers?

Don’t ditch ‘em ! But don’t force kids to only read their levels. (I’m a “K”)

Rather than bins of books by level, create bins of books by TOPIC (with varying levels)—create a text set.

Kids should be encouraged to read beyond their reading level, based on interest….

Can use used for independent reading, along with Core Knowledge Language Arts

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What about Levelled Readers?

Fountas and Pinnell

Reading A to Z--for text sets (almost free)

Readworks

Ebsco database (millions of texts, searchable by lexile)

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“Both/And”• the following elements need to be available in a

way that provides a coherent experience for K-5 students:

solid grounding in the foundational reading skills, development of academic language (vocabulary and syntax)

the steady growth of knowledge experiences that lead to the judicious use of

comprehension strategies the ability to express thoughts and learning clearly

through speaking and writing capacity and motivation to sustain a volume of

engaged reading.

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CCSS for ELA/Literacy: Application for all

struggling learners.

Struggling Learners: who are we talking about

• Students in grades 3-12 who are reading two or more grade levels below their current grade level, including, but not limited to:

Students with disabilities Students with compounded skill deficits Students living in poverty English Language Learner students struggling

with literacy (not language acquisition)

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The cumulative impact of not reading on grade

levelThe student falls behind in one grade only to fall further behind in the next grade because the student isn't given opportunities to acquire content knowledge at the same rate as other students. This gap widens as the student proceeds through his or her school experience, and becomes almost untenable in middle and high school…

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What must be done

• The adoption of the CCSS provide an opportunity to hold all students to the same rigorous standards, while allowing for flexibility in terms of how these standards are met and reinforced.

• Meeting the needs of struggling learners in ELA/Literacy may require both systemic and instructional changes

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Systemic Recommendations

1. A district-wide, research-based reading program.

2. A strong, tiered system for Response to Intervention (RtI).

3. Alignment of core reading instruction with those offered in intervention programs.

4. Leveraging Staff Resources to Meet Student Needs.  

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Systemic Recommendations

A district-wide, research-based reading program.• For students who move between schools,

there will be consistency and coherence.• Opportunities to leverage professional

development, teacher teams, collaboration, etc.

• Teaching staff on the same page/peer coaching and mentoring

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Systemic Recommendations

A strong, tiered system for Response to Intervention (RtI) and

Alignment of core reading instruction with those offered in intervention programs. • Aligned intervention is an essential

complement to reading program for struggling learners

• A strong, tiered system for RtI is especially important for students at risk

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Systemic Recommendations

Leveraging Staff Resources to Meet Student Needs.  • Reading teachers, ESL teachers, coaches,

etc. • Focused PD around meeting students’

needs/building staff capacity

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Instructional Recommendations

1. Accountable Independent Reading

2. Direct comprehension instruction using complex texts, and direct fluency, syntactic, and comprehension support using complex texts

3. CCSS-Aligned ELA/Literacy Curriculum, adapted as needed.

4. Frequent opportunities for formative assessment.

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Instructional Recommendations

Accountable Independent Reading• Volume, volume, volume!• Text sets, reading whatever text type, genre,

format the student is interested in as long as they READ

• For ELLs with strong literacy in their home language, they should allowed to read in their home language if they want to.

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Instructional Recommendations

Direct comprehension instruction using complex texts, and direct fluency, syntactic, and comprehension support using complex texts. • See guided reading recommendations from K-

5• Reinforcement/additional practice using

complex texts that are in a students' "stretch" text complexity band.

• Can use text sets w/ the more complex texts in set

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Instructional Recommendations

CCSS-Aligned ELA/Literacy Curriculum, adapted as needed.• All students engaging in the grade-level complex

text(s).• Change the “how”, not the “what” when adapting• ELL students can leverage home language literacy

and benefit from bilingual instruction on critical thinking, inference making, and strategic implementation of strategies to assist comprehension. Many skills learned in the native/home language transfer to a second language.

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Instructional Recommendations

Frequent opportunities for formative assessment. • Progress monitoring aka formative assessment to

see if the instruction is working• Data-driven instruction• For ELLs, include progress monitoring in the

students' home languages in bilingual programs.• Use texts of various complexities to determine if the

issue is meeting the standards or comprehension.

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In middle and high schools…

IF

Every content area (ELA, Science, Social Studies, Art, Phys Ed/Health, etc.) committed to doing close reading activities 2-3 days a month

THEN

Students would end up experiencing close reading lessons (across a wide variety of topics and content areas) once a day

AND

This would produce GROWTH.

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The challenge and a shared goal

• This is not easy, and it takes time and a supportive environment and culture

• it is crucial to keep as a shared goal of a class, school and district to be constantly working to close the gap, where it exists, between where students are and where they should be to be on track for college and careers.

• The intent and purpose of the CCSS for ELA/Literacy is to begin expose ALL kids to rich texts and activities, ideally across all subjects.

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THANK YOU

David Abel

dabel@mail.nysed.gov

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