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Guiding Questions for Comprehension (6) (1)

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English Learners and Reading Comprehension Instruction (2)

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Effective Practices for Developing Reading Comprehension  (4)

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Over the 20 years I have been a kindergarten teacher, assessment has changed dramatically. When I first began teaching, educators' observations and self-made assessments were honored as appropriate ways to document young children's growth and mastery. My colleagues and I used our own assessments and observations to plan instruction based on what our students needed. We had the flexibility to evaluate children in areas that were appropriate for them. For example, we could delay assessing reading skills if a child did not yet show an understanding of the difference between letters, words, and numbers.

Assessment in today's kindergarten classrooms, unfortunately, looks at times like what we would expect in upper-grade classrooms, with proctors and secure testing materials. Teachers are often not allowed to assess their own students (in order to protect the integrity of the results), and the results are sometimes used to measure teacher performance (whether or not the assessments have been designed and validated for use in high-stakes decisions).

Timed assessments and scripted directions, which must be read word for word, provide valuable information but offer no flexibility for our young learners. Even when children are just beginning to learn English, I am required to assess them in English-according to the script, not to their needs. I have sat with many frustrated children, some near tears, as I asked them to read sight words during their second week of kindergarten. I will never forget the defeat on one child's face as she looked up at me with a quivering chin and said, "But I can't read." Despite how positive and nonchalant I tried to be during that assessment, assuring her that I did not expect her to read the words, the formal assessment experience affected this child's confidence and her excitement for learning.

It would be easy to have a sweeping negative view of assessments in the current climate. Like many teachers, I have felt dread when someone mentioned assessments. But I know that long before this age of high-stakes accountability, intentional teachers were developing and using assessments as powerful tools in their toolboxes.

Intentional teachers gather data that are needed to guide instruction, ensuring that all children grow and learn at the right pace. We use assessments to find our students' strengths and to figure out which areas we need to target for early intervention. We use varying methods of observation and assessment to find out what young learners are able to do, so that we can help them progress. These varied strategies are important for all young children, and especially so for dual language learners (DLLs).

Intentional assessments prevent unintentional errors

I teach kindergarten in a rural, high-poverty school in North Carolina that has a diverse student population, including children who speak a language other than English at home and whose parents (and often other family members) are migrant workers, often coming from Mexico. Most of my DLL students live in homes where Spanish is the primary language; some children are learning both Spanish and a dialect of Mixtec at home, but these students communicate in Spanish (and in their emergent English) in the classroom. Many of our migrant families return to the area year after year during spring and early summer. These families travel up and down the East Coast, as well as to areas such as Michigan, to work in agriculture.

I serve as a North Carolina Kindergarten Demonstration classroom teacher, which means my role extends beyond the classroom. The NC Pre-K/K Demonstration Program's guiding mission is to "lead by modeling, sharing, promoting, and articulating effective learning environments, curricula, and instructional practices to ensure optimal learning and development for all children" (Public Schools of North Carolina, n.d.). My classroom is open to teachers and other educators for professional development in the form of full-day guided observations. These guided observations allow visitors to see best practices in action. I provide visitors with ongoing support as we all continue to grow and change in our own practice. I also work with other Demonstration teachers to present at local and state conferences.

Intentional teachers gather data that are needed to guide instruction, ensuring that all children grow and learn.

I often begin the school year with children who speak little to no English. These students struggle on our required early literacy assessment-the previously mentioned assessments that I am required to administer in English, word for word, in September-and are automatically labeled at risk. My colleagues and I are able to use the data from these assessments to help identify students who need more support and interventions in literacy skills. The danger with relying solely on scripted, inflexible assessments is the labeling and grouping of children with a broad stroke. We might target skills based on these test results without fully realizing what our children need. It would be easy for me to group all of these "at risk" children together in the same skill-based intervention group because they all had the same score on the reading assessment that focused on book and print concepts. But for me, the mandated assessment is just the beginning. I dig deeper to find out what I need to know in order to provide opportunities for growth for all of my students. I have learned valuable information by using my own observations and assessments to find the knowledge and skills the children do have. With book and print concept inventories from the works of literacy researcher Marie Clay (1993), along with my own very limited Spanish skills, I try to assess my Spanish-speaking students in their native language as much as possible.

Our school has been fortunate to have an English as a second language (ESL) teacher who speaks Spanish. She serves all of the emergent bilingual children at our school, K-5. I try to assess what I can using my limited Spanish skills and then use the ESL teacher as a resource to dig deeper, when needed.

What I find most useful is systematically observing children throughout the day in the natural learning environment.

Administering my own additional assessments confirmed that a number of these children did not, in fact, know any print concepts. They were unfamiliar with holding a book, turning the pages, and using pictures to enhance meaning. It was evident they'd had very limited early literacy experiences, even in their home language. But I also found out that some of these "at risk" students were familiar with book and print concepts. My assessments showed that they understood the difference between the front and back of a book, knew the difference between print and pictures, tracked left to right when looking at the text, and looked closely at the pictures on each page. Some even knew that a period at the end of the sentence signifies a stop. Their at-risk scores on the required assessment were not representative of poor early literacy knowledge and skills, but rather, were indicative of their nascent English language skills. They clearly had engaged in many literacy experiences with their families before entering kindergarten.

While all of these students had the same results on the mandated assessment, my more nuanced assessments provided valuable information that enabled me to target the children's very different needs.

To ensure that I have all necessary information, I begin each school year with informal checklists assessing children's alphabet and numeral recognition, knowledge of colors and shapes, and rote and object counting abilities. I have found that this is important for all of the children, not just the DLLs. For example, I often have students who speak only English who are not able to count past five or to identify basic colors and shapes. I observe and assess these children frequently in the first weeks and months of kindergarten to see if and to what extent they are making progress. That helps me determine whether their limited knowledge is due to lack of exposure to these concepts-a problem I can address-or whether there are other issues, such as cognitive or developmental delays, that would require additional assessments and supports by specialists.

One pitfall I have learned to watch out for is not giving to my students who are just starting to learn English the same focus and opportunities that I give to children whose home language is English. I once again gain valuable information by evaluating which DLLs can identify numbers, shapes, and colors in their first language and which children cannot. That way, I can provide these students with the same opportunities for individualized early interventions as their English-only peers and not let them slip through the cracks simply because of their limited English.

The ESL teacher, Ms. Worley,and I regularly share observations with each other. Her fluent Spanish skills allow her to find out more about our Spanish-speaking students' strengths and needs in their native language. While she focuses in Spanish and English on building the conceptual knowledge of the DLLs with the most challenges (and on determining whether additional supports are called for), I target English vocabulary with the students who already know basic shapes and colors in their first language.

Intentional assessments throughout the day

Doing my own flexible assessments enables me to collect information about students that goes beyond the scripted, mandated assessments. I do observations and keep running records that allow me to look at each student as a whole child, including a child's approaches to learning, language development and communication, cognitive development, emotional and social development, and health and physical development.

What I find most useful is systematically observing children throughout the day in the natural learning environment. This practice, which all intentional teachers use, doesn't interrupt instruction. The challenge comes from recording or documenting what I learn from watching the children so that I can reflect on the information and use it to guide and differentiate instruction. Current technology aids in information gathering. Photos and videos are quick and easy ways to document student learning. Some free software platforms (such as Seesaw, available at https://web.seesaw.me/) even empower children to use technology to document their learning.

Assessing children during engaging play

I have found that my classroom schedule and environment play a large role in my ability to collect data throughout the day. Large blocks of uninterrupted time, when children can play and make choices, set the stage for gathering meaningful information about each of my young learners. When children are able to choose where they are going to play, they tend to pick areas where they feel safe and experience some confidence. This is a great opportunity to observe their skills and strengths. North Carolina Guide for the Early Years states that "preschool and kindergarten children are more likely to perform at their best when engaged in interesting and meaningful classroom projects they choose themselves-such as real reading and writing activities rather than only skills testing" (Public Schools of North Carolina 2009, 79). Anecdotal notes, photos, and videos are useful for documenting children's abilities. They provide additional evidence, especially when children are not able to use oral language to fully showcase their learning (which may arise among both DLLs and English-only children, such as children with autism).

I have had several DLLs who were not able to retell a story in English. This was a concern because they would need to retell a simple story on the state reading assessment. One particular student, Alonso, stands out in my mind. Ms. Worley and I had been observing him closely for possible developmental delays that might be hidden by his limited English proficiency. Alonso could not orally retell familiar stories that we had read together over and over. It would have been easy to believe that he lacked an understanding of sense of story and that his receptive and productive language skills were lacking-possibly in both Spanish and English. Observing him during play provided me with valuable information that debunked these assumptions.

Alonso loved the block center and was able to engage with peers despite his limited English. He had confidence when playing in this center and felt comfortable taking risks. One time when he was in the block center, he built three small structures. When I asked him about the structures, he said they were the pig houses. I realized he was retelling The Three Little Pigs, a book we had been reading. I sat and observed Alonso as he used small wolf and pig figurines to act out the story, completely in order, including the beginning, middle, and ending.

Alonso used simple, key phrases from the story and showed an understanding of character and setting. I knew then that his receptive language skills were stronger than I had thought and that, while he was not able to successfully retell a story orally with many details in English, he did in fact understand the story we'd read together and had a concept of story sequence. I updated Alonso's learning target to "building vocabulary in order to retell simple stories," replacing the assumed learning goal of sequencing stories. Because of my careful observations and record keeping of Alonso's engagement in play that was meaningful to him, I was better able to address his needs.

By focusing on flexible, ongoing, intentional assessments, teachers are better able to fully address their students' needs.

Another example of choice and play creating great opportunities for information gathering is when students play with their peers. When my DLLs play with peers who are bilingual, they show more confidence and I am then better able to observe their strengths. I recently observed a non-English-speaking student playing a counting game with a bilingual peer; both were counting and conversing in Spanish. I listened to and saw their oral and object counting skills while they played. The student who was just beginning to learn English performed much better in this setting than he would have if I had called him over to a table and asked him to count. In the midst of play, he was not as self-aware or worried that he did not yet know how to count in English as he would have been if he were trying to answer my questions.

Asking probing questions

Early childhood educators are skilled at asking questions in different ways to find out what young learners know and understand. In many instances I've had to reframe questions asked by another staff member or an administrator so that my 5-year-old students comprehend what is being asked. Often the adult laughs and responds, "See, that's why you're the kindergarten teacher and I'm not!" We must use this same skill when observing our students.

We must intentionally reframe questions to elicit the information we are looking for. There are times when I can simply ask questions and use the children's oral responses as evidence of learning, but there are often other times, especially with my DLLs, when I must break the question apart or say "show me." As I listen to my students explain what they are showing me, I gain valuable insights.

Two wonderful, free resources that have helped me plan and set up environments that promote opportunities for assessing and questioning throughout the day are the North Carolina Guide for the Early Years (Public Schools of North Carolina 2009) and the North Carolina Kindergarten Center Posters and Planning Guides (Public Schools of North Carolina 2019). The Guide for the Early Years ( www.dpi.state.nc.us/earlylearning/resources/) is an extensive document that promotes best practices in early childhood classrooms. It combines research and teacher-tested strategies, and it has examples of questions teachers can ask that extend children's thinking. Each chapter is dedicated to a different learning center and lists associated questions.

For teachers who are struggling with how to uncover their students' thinking and understanding, this is a great place to start. I have used these lists of questions to make small charts that detail ways to check for understanding and place them in each center in my classroom. They serve as reminders not just to me, but to my teacher assistant, interns, and volunteers as well. For example, questions to promote children's thinking in the math center include "What other ways can we show that?," "How can we do this differently?," "Tell me how you did that," "Why do you think that?," and "Tell me how you figured that out." Over the years, this shift in thinking has allowed both my teacher assistant and myself to focus on the process of learning-not just on our students' finished products. In the art center, for example, the teacher assistant and I both make comments like, "You worked really hard on that. How did you come up with that idea?," instead of something more general, like, "That's a beautiful painting."

The North Carolina Kindergarten Center Posters and Planning Guides ( https://bit.ly/2DfitTz) is a collection of resources for planning center-based classrooms, including information on art, block, books and listening, dramatic play, math, science, and writing centers. The planning guides explicitly describe how children may engage in each center and how intentional teachers can support their learning. They serve as a starting place for teachers to think about what types of skills are addressed and what types of data they could gather at different centers. The posters include standards for all development and learning domains that might be addressed when children are working in the centers. A quick glance at these standards serves as a reminder of how we teachers can use centers as assessment tools. The posters also include several questions to ask, once again prompting teachers to use questioning as a way to gather information and promote learning.

Conclusion

By focusing on flexible, ongoing, intentional assessments, teachers are better able to fully address their students' needs. My colleagues and I are ensuring that all of our young learners have the same opportunities to grow and succeed. My assessments allow me to focus on the children's strengths and to dig deeper into their individual needs. This is true with all of my students and is especially true with my dual language learners.

I hope that by sharing my experiences, I have motivated my fellow teachers to feel empowered to continue using assessments as a powerful tool in their toolboxes. Step back when you feel overwhelmed by mandated assessments, particularly those that interrupt instructional time, and take inventory of the countless other ways you dig deeper to identify the strengths of your young students. They deserve nothing less.

References

Clay, M.M. 1993. An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Public Schools of North Carolina. 2009. North Carolina Guide for the Early Years. 2nd ed. Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. www.dpi.state.nc.us/earlylearning/resources/.

Public Schools of North Carolina. 2017. North Carolina Construct Progressions and Situations: NC K-3 Formative Assessment Process. 2nd ed. Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Office of Early Learning. www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/earlylearning/kea/construct-progression-book.pdf.

Public Schools of North Carolina. 2019. Kindergarten Center Posters and Planning Guides. Raleigh: Public Schools of North Carolina. https://bit.ly/2DfitTz.

Public Schools of North Carolina. N.d. "Pre-K/K Demonstration Program." Raleigh: State Board of Education, Department of Public Instruction. http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/earlylearning/demo/.

Creative Arts

Questions to Promote Children's Thinking

How are these alike or different?

Is there a pattern in this?

What do you think should happen next?

What would happen if . . . ?

Which is . . . (e.g., larger or smaller, louder or softer, brighter or darker)?

How would you move if you were this animal?

What can you tell me about your work?

How did you feel when you heard/saw that?

How is this . . . (e.g., shape, sound, movement, phrase) different from the other one?

Mathematics

Questions to Promote Children's Thinking

Can you see if you can find another way to make those blocks stand up?

What other block shape might work there?

How will the firefighters get into your building?

It looks like you are all out of the long blocks. What else could you use to fill up the same space?

Can you find two blocks that you could put together to be the same size as this one block?

How will people know what building this is?

How will people know which way to drive their cars on the road?

Which animals will live in each part of your zoo?

Tell me about your building.

How did you decide to put all those blocks together?

Questions to Promote Children's Thinking

What do you suppose would happen if . . . ?

What will you do next?

I wonder . . . ?

Why do you think that?

How did you figure that out?

Do you have any ideas about how we might begin?

How does it move?

What changes do you see?

Which have changed the most?

How do you know?

Which one is . . . (e.g., heavier, taller)? How could you find out? Why do you think so?

What can you add to the class definition of . . . (e.g., animals, weather)?

What characteristics do the . . .

(e.g., flower, caterpillar) have that make it a . . . (e.g., plant, insect)?

What do you think will happen?

Why do you think the . . . (e.g., ice melted, clouds disappeared)?

Can you draw a picture of your findings? Can you add some words?

Which holds more: the tall, thin jar or the short, fat one?

These questions to promote children's thinking are from the North Carolina Guide for the Early Years (Public Schools of North Carolina 2009). The creative arts, mathermatics, and science questions can be found above.

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Assessment in Kindergarten: Meeting Children Where They Are

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Over the 20 years I have been a kindergarten teacher, assessment has changed dramatically. When I first began teaching, educators' observations and self-made assessments were honored as appropriate ways to document young children's growth and mastery. My colleagues and I used our own assessments and observations to plan instruction based on what our students needed.

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A portion of this article by Lorna Collier appears in the September 2019 Council Chronicle.
Reinvigorating the Reader Response Notebook: "A Paradigm Shift"
For decades, English teachers have used reader response notebooks to help ensure their students are reading-and understanding-the books or other texts they've assigned. The "responses" they assign are typically structured, expository writing tasks, such as creating summary paragraphs or answering text-related questions. Teachers often are the only audience for this writing.

However, some educators say there are other, more effective ways to use reader response notebooks-ways that can help engage and excite students, potentially creating lifelong readers.

"We approached it with way more playfulness, and were always willing to be surprised-pleasantly surprised-by what the children were doing," says Ted Kesler, associate professor of elementary and early childhood education at Queens College in New York and a former New York public elementary school teacher.

Kesler worked with teachers and students in second- through fifth-grade classrooms at the PS 144 elementary school in Queens to explore new strategies for reader response notebooks, a longtime interest of his. He shared his approaches in a recent book, The Reader Response Notebook: Teaching toward Agency, Autonomy, and Accountability, (NCTE 2018), which he says builds on processes developed by other educators.

In examining the use of notebooks around the country, Kesler discovered many are being used "in very pedestrian and boring ways."

To support richer learning, he argues that restrictions on how students respond in their notebooks should be eased. He suggests allowing students to not just write responses, but also include drawings, comic strips, diagrams, charts, and other graphic elements.

He also advises letting students choose nontraditional writing formats, such as text messages (for instance, students might imagine a text conversation between characters), song lyrics, scripts, or pseudo news interviews.

With these approaches, students still perform literacy tasks-delving into the meaning of texts, analyzing facts, exploring character relationships, and so forth -but are given much more freedom in how they do so.

Kesler recommends using three key practices to help revitalize reader response notebooks:

Encourage creativity by letting students use a variety of tools to express their thoughts, including markers, crayons, pastels, colored pencils, and pens.

Expand the definition of text, so that students can explore the pop-culture texts relevant in their outside-school lives: TV shows, movies, songs, video games, text messages, and more.

Share the notebook with peers, so that other students-not just the teacher-see the responses, which motivates students to improve what they write, and also helps them be part of a classroom's "community of practice."

Each student Kesler worked with was given a bound notebook to use and was free to decorate the cover in any creative way they chose. (Kesler prefers print because it's universally available, but says other teachers may prefer to use digital texts.) Students initially used notebooks in class, then as they took on more responsibility, began completing lessons at home. Each response was to take no more than 15 minutes, and students were expected to do two to three per week.

Students also were encouraged to share what they wrote with their peers. One favorite way to do this was dubbed "Speed Dating." Students would mark several of their top responses with sticky notes, line up their seats in rows facing each other, then take turns (for 3 minutes) sharing these with a partner.

During the next 20 minutes or so, they would turn their seats to face new partners, sharing responses with about seven other students. This helped them learn techniques they could incorporate in their own books going forward.

Group discussions-in small groups or classroom-wide-sometimes involved sharing and talking about responses. Exercises like "Pass the Notebook," in which students looked through each other's books for several minutes, also gave students inspiration, through the neatness, variety, or thoroughness of others' responses. (Notebooks also were graded on these criteria.)

The new approach to reader response notebooks led to students being "excited about writing about their reading," wrote fifth-grade teacher Lesley Doff-a contrast from past years, when she'd tell them: " 'Write a three-sentence summary,' or something they didn't want to write, and I didn't want to read." Now, she says, students "have great things to say."

Victor, a third grader, explained that the notebook helped him organize his thinking and pay closer attention to characters, as well as facts and details "that I might otherwise have disregarded."

Fifth grader Phillip said his notebook helped him express his creativity, adding: "I don't think of our writing as a big boring essay anymore."

Third grader Sean noted the process of getting his ideas on paper had helped him discover not only that "I'm smarter than I think" but also that he has "a liking for books."

Kesler hopes to see more elementary and perhaps middle schools adopt the way he uses reader response notebooks so the practice can become ingrained. He'd like to research how the approach impacts student achievement and reading habits.

He believes his strategies are especially well suited for struggling or reluctant readers, who may find traditional response writing discouraging and dispiriting.

The teachers Kesler worked with enjoyed being surprised by their students' creativity and looked for the intelligence displayed in their reading responses, as opposed to policing how well they followed rigid expository writing rules.

"That's a paradigm shift away from the way notebooks were used before," says Kesler.

Lorna Collier's articles about education and technology have appeared in US News & World Report, the Chicago Tribune, and MSN.com. Reach her at lorna@lornacollier.com.
Ted Kesler describes 28 different reader response strategies in his book. To learn more about these and about new ways to use reader response notebooks, follow his blog. Read a sample chapter or order Ted Kesler's book The Reader Response Notebook in the NCTE Store.

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Three Key Practices to Revitalize Reader Response Notebooks

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A portion of this article by Lorna Collier appears in the September 2019 Council Chronicle. Reinvigorating the Reader Response Notebook: "A Paradigm Shift" For decades, English teachers have used reader response notebooks to help ensure their students are reading-and understanding-the books or other texts they've assigned.

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Giving Students Opportunities with the Reader Response Notebook

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Give your students expanded opportunities for literacy development with the reader response notebook.

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Using Mentor Texts to Motivate and Support Student Writers

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Providing students with examples of good writing is vital. Here are tips for using mentor texts in the classroom and ideas on where you can find it.

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The ability to analyze an author's work is the heart and soul of the being an active, strategic reader. On state tests, simply being able to summarize and answer basic retelling questions is a thing of the past. Proficient readers use the author's craft to understand the message and make connections to their lives and the world. Students need teachers to show them how to think about the author's use of literary elements, text structures, point-of-view, and word choice.

Here are a few areas to focus on when teaching author's craft.
Teach How Authors Organize Texts
Analyzing the organization structure of a text can help the reader better "read between the lines" to comprehend the message. Did the author use a simple beginning, middle, end organizational structure? Does the author explain the subject by organizing main ideas into paragraphs that are linked to the central idea? Identifying text structure is a powerful tool for making connections between ideas presented in the text. Students will start to recognize organizational structures and start choosing the best ones for their personal writing.
Teach Writing Techniques Authors Use
Writing techniques can have powerful effects on the texts meaning. Language, text features, and facts used purposely help convey the author's message. Techniques add meaning and entertainment to an author's writing. Students should be able to identify and infer why the author has chosen the technique for this specific piece of writing.
Make Inferences About Why Authors Use Specific Craft Tools
Students need to be able to evaluate the author's use of a specific craft tool and provide evidence to support the evaluation. For example, why did the author use a metaphor in paragraph ___?

Critical thinking is key! Start the conversation with your students by asking questions such as:

What does the text say?

What does the text NOT say?

Did the author leave out any information?

Why would an author choose to leave out information?

What writing techniques does the author get their point across?

What the anchor charts for author's craft? Click here to download.

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Teaching Students to Analyze Author's Craft

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The ability to analyze an author's work is the heart and soul of the being an active, strategic reader. On state tests, simply being able to summarize and answer basic retelling questions is a thing of the past. Proficient readers use the author's craft to understand the message and make connections to their lives and the world.

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Picture books are quick reads, lots of fun, and often gems of characterization, mood, and dialogue. They are also perfect for teaching the young writer how to organize plot logically.

Many writers start new works by capturing tidbits of ideas on scraps of paper. But how do we make sense of those ramblings? This question leads to a classic step in teaching writing often called prewriting. It also points to what I consider one of the most important early steps in story making - creating organization through plot structure.

In prewriting, many teachers use a variety of story-mapping techniques to help children see relationships between ideas, including clustering, webbing, and listing items and actions that belong to the beginning, middle, or end of a story. All of these techniques are helpful, but do they go far enough? How does a student know which items listed in the "middle" section of a story map should go first, second, third? Sometimes it is the sequencing of the action in a story that can cause the student to falter. This step can be mastered through the use of visual and textual examples of standard plot structures.

When I introduce the idea of structuring a story, I talk about how our skeletons hold us up - otherwise we'd be... "puddles!" (The kids shout it out.) Stories have internal structures that hold them up, too. Knowing what the skeleton of a story looks like early in the process makes knowing what to write next in the drafting and revising steps a lot easier.

Below is a list of some basic plot structures, along with picture books that use those structures. Sharing these picture books will help students better understand how to shape their own story making.

Please note that the grade levels below indicate the suggested grade level of the writer or prewriter (storyteller). These grade ranges reflect the difficulty of the plot structure being taught, not the reading or listening age. The open-ended grade levels highlight the fact that many fine picture books can be used as examples for writers of all ages, even adults.

Cumulative or Toppling Stories

Like the traditional tale "The House That Jack Built," the stories below add repeating plot elements and characters in the text as the story progresses, until the whole structure topples from its own weight - usually with humorous results.

Decreasing Stories

Traditional tales based on a decreasing story structure include "The Tailor" and "Ten Little Monkeys."

"Increasing" Stories

While cumulative stories use textual repetition that piles up until the whole story collapses (often under the weight of pure silliness), stories with an "increasing" plot structure proceed logically to arrive in a planned way at a satisfactory conclusion. Traditional tales based on an increasing story structure include "The Little Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly."

Simultaneous Increasing and Decreasing Stories

Parallel Stories

Stories within Stories

With more advanced writers, explore the plot structure of the framing story and compare it with the structure of the inner story. For example, in The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash the inner story closely resembles a cumulative plot that heaps one silly event on top of another, while the framing story is told in a linear fashion.

Stories with Linear Time Lines

Stories with "Around the Clock" or Full-Circle Time Lines

Stories with Rising Action

The stories below are marked by rising action leading to a climax and a final denouement.

Teaching Strategies

If your students are using clustering techniques during prewriting, have them cut out their ideas and glue them to a visual diagram of one of the plot structures. This will give visual learners a template for the drafting step.

Cut up a story into sentences and distribute them. Have the students line up in the order they think the story should be told. If it is a story with rising action, are they in line from least to most tense action? If it is a story with a decreasing or in creasing plot line, are they lined up correctly? (Hint: To make this even more visual, have the kids sit on the floor and use cushions, chairs, and stools so that their heights range progressively up or down.)

Professional Resources

Web Connections

The websites below about teaching writing with picture books may be found on the Book Links website. Click on "Web Connections," then "May 2006" to access the list.

About the author

Shutta Crum was the recipient of the Michigan Library Association's Children's Services Division 2002 Award of Merit as Youth Librarian of the Year. She is also the author of Click!, listed above. For more information, see her website.

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Story Skeletons: Teaching Plot Structure with Picture Books

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Picture books are quick reads, lots of fun, and often gems of characterization, mood, and dialogue. They are also perfect for teaching the young writer how to organize plot logically. Many writers start new works by capturing tidbits of ideas on scraps of paper. But how do we make sense of those ramblings?

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More resources: Roots of Reading (PBS Launching Young Readers series) Looking at Reading Interventions: Letter Names Print Awareness: self-paced course Print awareness is a child’s earliest introduction to literacy. Children with print awareness understand that print has different functions dependin…

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Language Arts

This site gives teachers some ideas for using shared reading with younger students and less skilled readers. See example ›

Science

This site offers several examples of how activities related to learning about science topics can be centered around the shared reading strategy. Downloads of several different poems are provided. See example ›

Social Studies

This site provides five examples of shared reading lessons based upon the book Map It! by Elspeth Leacock. See example ›

Shared Reading Booklists

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Shared Reading is an interactive reading experience that occurs when students join in or share the reading of a book or other text while guided and supported by a teacher. The teacher explicitly models the skills of proficient readers, including reading with fluency and expression.

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Did you know that typically, only 5% to 10% of instructional time is devoted to vocabulary instruction, yet students, especially struggling students and English learners (ELs), need between 12 and 14 exposures to words and their meanings to fully learn them (Durkin, 1978/79; Roser & Juel, 1982; Scott, Jamieson, Noel, & Asslin, 2003)? Teaching the meanings of important words before learning new content activates students' background knowledge and prepares them for learning and comprehending. In other words, teaching vocabulary provides the "Velcro" for new information to "stick to."

What Research Says About Effective Vocabulary Instruction

Vocabulary instruction must be explicit. Explicit vocabulary instruction includes an easy-to-understand definition presented directly to students along with multiple examples and nonexamples of the target word, brief discussion opportunities, and checks for understanding.

Vocabulary instruction must include multiple practice opportunities for using words within and across subjects. That is, instruction must be extended over time with opportunities for students to hear, speak, read, and write words in various contexts. This builds students' breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge.

Vocabulary should be taught schoolwide and across all subject areas. Each subject has a unique set of vocabulary terms, and students need to know their meanings and how to use them in various contexts.

Word Selection

Instructional time is precious, and teachers are not able to address every unknown word students might encounter, so careful word selection is key. When deciding which words to target for explicit instruction, consider words that are

essential to understanding the main idea of the text or unit,

used repeatedly or frequently encountered across domains, and

not part of students' prior knowledge.

ELs may require even more careful word selection and extensive vocabulary instruction because they may be learning conversational language and academic language at the same time. Colorín Colorado provides additional information about selecting vocabulary words to teach ELs.

Some of Our Favorite Vocabulary Instructional Activities for ALL Content Areas

The five activities described below are effective ways to teach vocabulary for all students, but especially for struggling students, students with learning disabilities, and ELs.

1. Essential Words Routine

Teachers use a simple graphic organizer to preteach the meanings of important words in about 5 minutes per word. During this routine, teachers introduce target words with definitions, visual cues, and examples. Students engage in immediate practice using the words through collaborative student turn-and-talk activities.

Resources

2. Frayer Model

One way to have students extend their knowledge of important words is through a Frayer model. This graphic organizer builds vocabulary and conceptual knowledge across content areas. The strategy requires students (not the teacher) to define a vocabulary word and then list its characteristics, examples, and nonexamples. Frayer models can be completed in collaborative groups using textbooks and other subject-matter materials while the teacher circulates around the classroom and assists students.

Resource

Online module, examples, and templates from the IRIS Center

3. Semantic Mapping

Semantic maps visually display and connect a word or phrase and a set of related words or concepts. Implementing semantic map activities in your classroom will help students, especially struggling students and students with learning disabilities, recall the meanings of words and understand how multiple words or concepts "fit together." Teachers will find that using a semantic map, combined with explicit instruction and practice opportunities, is an effective way of expanding students' vocabulary and supporting their content knowledge.

Resources

4. Vocabulary Review Activities

Multiple opportunities to practice using new words is an important part of vocabulary instruction. In previous TCLD research studies, brief review activities were built into novel unit lesson plans to help students practice (and remember) the meanings of important words. Each of these activities takes 5 to 10 minutes and is easy to prepare.

Partner Review Routine: Partners work together to quickly review words learned the previous day.

Sentence Review Routine: Partners create sentences using words assigned by the teacher.

Examples and Nonexamples: The teacher tells students scenarios or shows pictures and students respond chorally to each scenario, indicating whether it is an example or nonexample.

What Word Fits? The teacher asks a question and student partners hold up an index card with the word that fits or answers the question.

Resource

Each activity is described in more detail beginning on page 33 of the TCLD booklet Reading Instruction for Middle School Students: Developing Lessons for Improving Comprehension

5. Morphemic Analysis Routine

Explicit instruction of words is important, but it is impossible to teach all the unfamiliar words students will encounter. One way to help students develop strategies for approaching unfamiliar vocabulary is to teach morphemes (prefixes, roots, and suffixes). Students can be taught the following morphemic analysis routine to help them engage in independent word study.

Resource

Learn more about the morphemic analysis routine by reviewing this online learning module from the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academies.
Have questions? Feel free to drop us a line!

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Texas Center for Learning Disabilities: Five Research-Based Ways to Teach Vocabulary

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The Texas Center for Learning Disabilities (TCLD) website disseminates resources on learning disabilities to parents, teachers, and researchers.

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3 Types of Reading Comprehension Questioning 

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3 Types of Reading Comprehension Questioning 

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Reading Comprehension can be broken up into three main categories:
Literal Reading
Inferential/Interpretive Reading
Critical/Evaluative Reading

Read the lines: recall information stated directly and explicitly in the text.

factual--can be answered definitely with facts

Recall Character, Setting, or Time Details, action, event, list sequence

address key elements of the text

answers found directly in the text or by information readily available in outside sources

have one correct answer

require reading of the work, but require little thought or understanding

good answers lead to an accurate and complete summary of the text

Inferential/Interpretive Reading
Read between the lines: interpret information implied in the text

inferential--answers to these questions may be implied rather than stated directly in the reading

address motive of author or a character

reader must make inferences based on specific information they can cite to back up their conclusions

found by following patterns and seeing relationships among parts of the text

call for longer answers and more thinking

require reading of the work AND consideration of what has been read

good answers lead to an identification of the significant patterns

interpret theme, main idea

Critical/Evaluative Reading (Global)
Read behind and beyond the lines: evaluate information based on personal knowledge and experiences.

connecting--answers to these questions emphasize the "So what?" of the text

link text to prior knowledge, other texts, or human experiences in life

found by testing the ideas of a text against readers' schema

require the reader to think more abstractly and relate the text to real life

good answers lead to an appreciation of the text and further discussion

Giving an opinion about character, events, realistic

Author's decision, Point of View

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Reading Comprehension (Three Main Categories)

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Reading Comprehension can be broken up into three main categories: Literal Reading Inferential/Interpretive Reading Critical/Evaluative Reading Read the lines: recall information stated directly and explicitly in the text.

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Independent reading leads to an increased volume of reading. The more one reads, the better one reads. The more one reads, the more knowledge of words and language one acquires. The more one reads, the more fluent one becomes as a reader. The more one reads, the easier it becomes to sustain the mental effort necessary to comprehend complex texts. The more one reads, the more one learns about the people and happenings of our world.

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reflective learning and academic writing: 2 what is reflective thinking?

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This free course, Succeeding in postgraduate study, will help you to become familiar with the requirements and demands of postgraduate study and to develop the skills and confidence to pursue your...

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Laura Varlas

English language arts teacher Pernille Ripp, who grew up in Denmark, doesn't remember many rich classroom-reading experiences. "We spent a lot of time with basal readers," she recalls. What she does remember are the bonds created when her mother read to her at home. "Those experiences made me a reader," she says. When she became a teacher, she knew that "read aloud would be how we built community."

Literacy expert Regie Routman agrees. In Literacy Essentials: Engagement, Excellence, and Equity for All Learners, she calls reading aloud an "indispensable first step in reaching and teaching [students]."

"It slows us down, relaxes us, reminds us of the joy and inspiration of a well-crafted story. Being read to puts us in the frame of mind for learning and increases literacy achievement," she writes.

Yet, as students age, they are less likely to be read to at school and at home. Ripp, who teaches 7th grade in Oregon, Wisconsin, explains, "One of the biggest misconceptions is that once kids pass 10 years old, they don't need to be read to-that there's no value in it. That's definitely not true." This misconception is embedded in a narrow understanding of the types of texts that can be read aloud and how reading aloud changes students.

The Swiss Army Knife of Literacy

Unlike shared reading-where students have text copies in hand and the reading is frequently interrupted for instruction or skill practice-a classroom read aloud involves one person (often a teacher) reading and pausing minimally to clarify a tricky term, make a connection, or ask questions related to a big idea. Most people have experienced a read aloud through a picture book or a novel, but any interesting text can be read aloud for a variety of objectives.

Teachers can use read alouds to create a class bond; promote a love of reading; preview information, themes, or text structures; model effective reading; show how texts connect with one another (intertextuality); or provide an exemplar for a genre of writing. The read aloud is like the Swiss Army knife of literacy; it has multiple uses at every age and in every content area.

Read alouds also create a bridge to more complex texts. A 1984 study by Thomas Sticht showed that a child's reading level doesn't catch up to their listening level until around 8th grade. That makes the read aloud a perfect opportunity to expose students to texts they can't yet decode for themselves. "While I'm reading aloud to my students, I'm doing the heavy lifting with vocabulary and decoding so that they can experience the joy of the text," explains Valentina Gonzalez, a professional development specialist for elementary English language learners (ELLs) in the Katy Independent School District in Texas. Hearing stories provides an oral language foundation and can improve acquisition of academic vocabulary, especially for ELLs.

Read alouds provide a scaffold to the reading and writing that students do on their own, adds Barbara Moss, a literacy expert and education professor at San Diego State University. And data show that children of any age who regularly have books read to them score higher on state and national literacy tests.

Don't Wreck the Read Aloud

Moss believes the strategic use of read alouds can help students achieve many of the goals of the standards, but she cautions: "Don't wreck the read aloud with too many instructional interruptions." Keep it simple and fun.

For example, don't have kids doing a lot of tasks during the reading. "I used to Post-it my students to death," recalls Ripp. "Write down or draw every thought that you have!" Then she realized she was losing students who were distracted by all the tasks. Now, she might have a couple of cues for students, but ultimately, her goal is to get to "where we're just so deeply immersed in the story that they beg for another page."

"Don't worry about kids understanding every word," says Routman. "Just find a great story. They will get it." Preread the text on your own, and then pull out all the stops as you read it in class. And remember, you're never too old to get something out of a great picture book, she adds. (See " Regie Routman's Top Read Alouds" for a list of picture books to read aloud to learners of any age.)

Consider, too, how images, illustrative gestures, or a slower rate of speech can help ELLs overcome language barriers, says Gonzalez. Are there terms to preteach so that ELLs can access the text? How will all students, but ELLs especially, process the text during or after the reading?

Don't be afraid to scrap a book if kids just aren't into it. Moss recalls an excellent student teacher who made the fatal flaw of reading aloud a long, complicated passage on the water cycle. "It went on for a half an hour and the kids were dying."

That doesn't mean informational texts are read-aloud kryptonite. Moss remembers a 1st grader who told her, "I don't want to read stories about bears with clothes on. I want to read about real stuff." From coverage of current events to discoveries in STEM, short, engaging articles abound and make great sources for read alouds. An inspiring New York Times article on Chef José Andrés feeding thousands in Puerto Rico could initiate a discussion of what makes a hero, suggests Routman.

Priority, Purpose, Process

Amanda Zieba, who teaches middle school English language arts and reading in La Crosse, Wisconsin, has been reading aloud to her students for a decade. Although she has refined her methods and expanded her bookshelf to include everything from picture books to obituaries, her guiding principle has remained constant: "I want my students to like reading."

She's found that starting class with a read aloud, followed by 10 minutes to write in journals, provides a predictable structure that helps kids settle into the day's lesson. Having a set process also prevents the read aloud from getting scrapped because of time constraints.

To make the case for read alouds as a worthy use of class time, Routman encourages teachers to be knowledgeable about the research-based rationale and then "invite your principal into your classroom during a read aloud so [that] they can listen to the level of conversation that takes place and see how engaged kids are."

Your Best Book Club

Successful read alouds have a clear purpose that you plan toward, says Tanya Friedman, an educator and coach with the ATAPE Group in New York City. Last year, she worked with a team of 2nd grade teachers at Young Leaders Elementary (P.S. 369) in the South Bronx to help them make read alouds more rigorous and culturally relevant.

Teachers at P.S. 369 wanted to give their students, a large portion of whom are ELLs, more tools to discuss the high-level ideas within the texts they were reading. The questions and cues teachers had been using during the read aloud, however, focused students on literal comprehension, which, in turn, reinforced low expectations for student thinking. It also drained the life out of the read aloud. "What's the conversation in a good book club? Rarely is it recounting what happened in the book," says Friedman.

By videotaping student discussions, teachers at P.S. 369 could see that students didn't have the skills to have dynamic conversations. Working backward from this goal, they developed a read-aloud planning guide that incorporated Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge to fine-tune the types of questions teachers ask.

"If we stop and say, 'Who remembers where the mother is going?', that's what we're prepping them to talk about," explains Friedman. "But if we stop and say, 'Why do we think the mother had that look on her face? What other experiences might she have had that made her not trust this person?', then we are prepping students to have a different type of conversation."

That doesn't mean literal comprehension gets tossed. If teachers notice student comprehension is shaky, they can recap events or make that a focus of small-group work. "We have to teach literal comprehension, but to me, that's not what [a] read aloud is for," says Friedman. Kids need to practice comprehension in small groups, at their level. But higher-order thinking? "All kids can do that, so that's what should be happening during a read aloud."

Relevant and Rigorous

Making lively, academic conversations the goal of a read aloud also changed how teachers at P.S. 369 select books to read. Friedman says the new approach considers what's on students' minds, their experiences, and what they're talking about. (Get tips on text selection in " How to Pick a Good Read-Aloud Text".)

For example, they read Mama's Nightingale by Edwidge Danticat, a book about deportation that would've previously been considered too heavy for 2nd graders. With the new lens of rigor and relevance, however, Friedman says, "we could see that it would lead to really amazing conversations." Teachers were surprised by how much their students already knew about detention centers and fear of immigration police.

"Read aloud is a way to honor students' culture and interests, as well as build background and vocabulary," notes Routman. A culturally relevant read aloud creates a self-propelling cycle of engagement where students not only want to learn more, but also want to do something with their new knowledge. "They're like, 'Let's write letters. What else is unfair? What can we do about it?'," says Friedman. "That's what we want school to be-connected to kids' real lives."

We Speak Books

A few years into her teaching career, Ripp decided to take her experiments with read aloud to a world stage. She created the Global Read Aloud, a monthlong event that brings classrooms around the world together over books. What started with 300 students and one book ( The Little Prince), has grown in its 8th year to include more than 2.2 million students in 80 different countries, four books, and an author study. Like her classroom read alouds, Global Read Aloud "brings us together and makes us speak books," says Ripp. It's a lot like learning a new language together, she continues.

That's because read alouds sensitize students to the language and structures of texts-not just stories, but informational texts, too, says Moss. It creates a shared signpost in students' minds, pointing out the connection between what they heard and the learning that follows. For example, in 7th grade, Zieba reads aloud The Boy in the Striped Pajamas as a bridge to a historical unit on the Holocaust. "It's not complex in terms of the level of text, but it is helping my students understand a complex topic."

"Stories lean on other stories," Moss quotes author Jane Yolen. As students begin to notice elements of plot, style, and language, they start to draw comparisons between what they hear in the read aloud to what they read on their own. "These connections, or intertextualities, fuel not only comprehension but also a vibrant community around reading."

A New Relationship to Reading

Since the shifts at P.S. 369, students are eager for read alouds and engaged in discussion. When asked about books, students are more likely to talk about big meanings, rather than small details. In general, their disposition to reading has changed. "They want to read more; they want to find more books like that one," notes Friedman.

"Many of my kids come in as proudly resistant readers," says Ripp. "When we say, 'OK, listen to this,' all of a sudden, they start to wonder, 'Maybe that book is not a fluke? Maybe there are others like it?'"

Kids have a lot of choices for how they spend their time, notes Moss. "We want reading to be one of the things they choose." Reading aloud can motivate that choice, and that alone makes it a valuable use of class time. It can also add life to lessons: "Read aloud is a reset, a way to bring the joy back to teaching," says Routman.

Ripp says she hasn't found anything that binds her classes together like read alouds. "Read alouds become part of who we are; [they] become part of our memories."

Laura Varlas is the managing editor of ASCD Express and a contributor to Education Update.

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Laura Varlas English language arts teacher Pernille Ripp, who grew up in Denmark, doesn't remember many rich classroom-reading experiences. "We spent a lot of time with basal readers," she recalls. What she does remember are the bonds created when her mother read to her at home. "Those experiences made me a reader," she says.

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We create practical, timely, affordable professional learning to help educators and instructional leaders provide students with a modern, equitable, and quality education.

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Interactive Readalouds: Learning from books together

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A Teaching Routine for Academic Vocabulary in Grades PreK-1

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English Learners and Reading Comprehension Instruction (1)

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10-7.9 Asking and Answering Questions  (1)

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Opinion- If you don't mind sour milk, then Sour Patch cereal is for you

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Plot Structure Graphic (English & Spanish)

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Engagement with Literary Genres (English & Spanish)

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10_5_7 Tiered Vocabulary -- Community Ranger

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10_5_6 Tiered Vocabulary -- Marine Ecologist

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Steps for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

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Planning Explicit Instructions for Vocabulary

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Monitor, Clarify, and Adjust Comprehension (English & Spanish)

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Background Knowledge Think Sheet Spanish-English

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Comprehension Thinking Stems (English & Spanish)

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Student Log for Self-generated Questions

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Comprehension Strategies in the Content Areas

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Making Connections to Background Knowledge (1)

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English Learners and Reading Comprehension Instruction