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A school-wide instrument for kids to compile their work (essays,artwork, presentations, photos, poetry))-portfolio.

Emily Musch

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Using Tutorial and Grade Analysis guides to help students make the best use of their time and energy to actually benefit from tutorials.
-Lauren Burchfiel

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Developing a culture of academic risk taking for all students.   -- June

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Developing a culture of academic risk taking for all students.   -- June

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I learned about a leadership style of a WARM DEMANDER. John Hunter

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Believe in the impossible, Build Trust, Teach Self-Discipline, Embrace Failure

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We are responsible for making sure our students have what they need (equity), not just everyone having the same thing. Can't just let our students flounder and fail because 'we gave them all the same resources'.
-Kiersten Aldrich

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Desert Island Story ACRT CG  Pg. 284-286 (1)

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Cultivate a culture of success. Celebrate all the moments!

Hillary Mehlhoff

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Looking at using paper versus digital notebooks. How to implement both of them successfully and smoothly.
-Alicia

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Fun ways to organize the students work.

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Three column note strategy: Says, Means, Matters.

Says= Direct quote or paraphrase of the text.

Means= What does the author/ text mean when they say that (purpose)?

Matters= Why is what the text mean important/ what is the potential impact of the information or ideas? aka Why does it matter?

This isn't any more work to set up than a KWL chart, but encourages a greater level of inquiry and understanding.

- Linsey Lombardi

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Students need to be a part of the commitment creation process for the classroom. If they help create the cultural norms/rules for the classroom they will feel more comfortable and be more likely to share thinking.

-Mikaila Quintanilla

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Writing in the classroom is smaller assignments too. Notes are one of the biggest ways our students write daily, not just long essays. What writing looks like is dependent on the class/subject but still is writing.

-Katrina Morley

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Secondary Site Team Guiding Questions by Domain

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Secondary Site Team Guiding Questions by Domain

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/179hNXX-i7OqwehoVnxCmZy3nifZdqX4V/view?usp=sharing

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2022-2023 Secondary Site Team Guiding Questions by Domain (1).pdf

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Creating an eBinder specifically for their tutorials. It includes helpful handouts and all of the TRFs. This helps them with the TAGs that they will use to help drive their TRFs.
-Stephanie Cox

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Encourage teachers of all subjects to see themselves as reading teachers and come to an agreement that "text"  means anything that conveys meaning. Help students see themselves as literate across all contents.
-Anna Crociata

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Implementing a visual vocabulary system will create deeper understanding and development of academic vocabulary.

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As a building, and eventually as a district, it is imperative that staff agree to implement with fidelity AVID strategies and protocols. Staff following through on student use of planners is a great place to start.

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The classroom contains college banners and references to academic continuation that promote achievement at the next level.

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I would like to utilize 11th & 12th grade AVID students to come to TR and help with tutorials in exchange for volunteer hours. Since our AVID classes are also at the same time, I am hoping to periodically make groups with different grade levels.
-Stephanie Cox

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Accessing multiple sources of digital information to incorporate into each class. (Solve-Me Puzzles, GIMKIT, XMath, etc.)

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If you step back for a. moment, what is a different way of seeing this student's behavior?
What might be getting in the way?
What makes this situation different or unique?
Knowing we are all prone to implicit bias, what unconscious biases might you hold about this student?
When have you successfully navigated a challenging situation and what might we learn from that? - Tina Gearhart

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Relationships should function as currency in schools.
Trust is the foundation of any warm demander. - Tina Gearhart

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Using my own notes from this conference to model and talk through the way that we take notes and why!

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Openmiddle.com - Great resource for math specific problems.

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Openmiddle.com - Great resource for math specific problems.

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Focus on inclusivity in our classrooms.

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Diversity vs Inclusivity: Understanding the Difference

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A look at the difference between diversity and inclusivity and why that difference matters.

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Students generate a list, then turn each bullet point into a short article or sentence. Commonly found in journalism. Low Risk writing activity.

- Katrina Morley

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Instructional Practice- Listicles, AWDL pp (2)

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hhPjhzHN6QvXtr3tE-G2mD7k2cmKU4bM/view?usp=sharing

Great graphic organizer.

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What does culture look like, sound like, feel like?  Complete this sentence: "Culture is not _____."  Share an example of something that represents your culture.

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What does culture look like, sound like, feel like?  Complete this sentence: "Culture is not _____."  Share an example of something that represents your culture.

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many schools are transitioning out of naviance to xello

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Students may find timed writing as stressful, but they need to practice this. Students may draw or repeat a word until an idea comes to them about the topic, but they must be engaged during the entire timed session (3 minute response, for example).
- Jacqueline Kahler

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Put content-area artifacts in a bag, have students pick them at random. Students then come up with (collaborate on) coming up with a Level 2 and Level 3 question about that artifact and discuss what level of question they're asking and what makes it that level.
-Eric Podrabsky

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Every teacher is a writing teacher! -- June

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Every teacher is a writing teacher! -- June

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Systems we are working on for improved school CULTURE.

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Systems we are working on for improved school CULTURE.

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Angie and the South Albany Team.

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Growth and learning is about taking risks.  We can not create a culture of taking risks and growth without establishing trust and respect.

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Growth and learning is about taking risks.  We can not create a culture of taking risks and growth without establishing trust and respect.

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-Bryce Bennett

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Bryce, Angela, and myself (John Hunter) looked at systems at SAHS and categorized which are uncoupled, loosely, aligned, and integrated systems. Integrated is the ultimate goal for systems. We also did a wonderful chart paper diagram. See Angela's post. Also, participated today in a Socratic Seminar about leadership. Very enlightening discussion. ---John Hunter

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Creating an equity based culture is about acknowledging our own biases and removing the mindset that some students can not be successful.

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Creating an equity based culture is about acknowledging our own biases and removing the mindset that some students can not be successful.

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-Bryce Bennett

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Here is the PDF

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This free resource has amazing tools like: sound level monitoring, dice, random name generator, timer, text boxes to insert essential questions.

Emily

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Relevant Article of the Week.

Emily

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All things Kelly Gallagher, including my books, my schedule, teacher resources and what's going on in my life as a teacher.

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(Focusing on SPED Systems) How do we align our mission/vision so we can build systems that support it? Right now we have systems but most are "loosely coupled" systems because our mission/vision are not well defined and there has also been lots of turnover. We will use the "Stop/Start/Continue" model to evaluate our systems and move forward.

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Mini Whiteboards- students will write their TQ (POC?) on a small whiteboard before their tutorial to give them a chance to further refine their question and to practice writing.
Board Buddy (Wingperson, Hype-person) students that are reluctant to participate in tutorials for fear of social anxiety (whatever reason) can choose their Board Buddy to write on the board for them during tutorials

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PztH6-P8X9T0ThnLOC6tTIbW-iWuYnoQ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101908904534838208939&rtpof=true&sd=true

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First read: big picture/gist of the problem
Second read: provide quantities/contextualize the problem
Third read: give the question and have students solve

Allowing students to read through a word problem without the values the first time and without a question the second time takes away some of the pressure of immediately trying to solve the problem.

-Mikaila Quintanilla

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Created this for use with opinion based articles leading into Phil chairs, or just to use in general within a unit.

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A system of connecting and organizing ideas that can be adapted to any content, can be used cooperatively or individualy, and encourages critical thinking with low stakes presentation that's easily accessible to srudents at every level.
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/hexagonal-thinking/
Linsey Lombardi

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Sponsored by Teaching Channel and UL Xplorlabs

While hexagonal thinking is not new in the world of business and innovation, it's just making its way into the classroom. It's a method for considering the connections between ideas and finding the nuances in those connections. If you're looking for a fresh framework for discussion and critical thinking, this may be just the thing.

How it Works

When you place an idea on a hexagon, it has six sides where connections could be made to other ideas. When you place many ideas on many hexagons, the discussion about where to connect what will be different every time.

Hexagons for the Vietnam-War era
(click all images for a close-up view)

If you gave the same seven idea cards to seven people, do you think you'd get the same seven webs of interconnected hexagons? Would the people explain the connections in the same way?

Nope.

And really, that's the beauty of hexagonal thinking. It provides a springboard for a totally creative discussion. When you give a small group of students a deck of hexagons and ask them to connect them however they choose, every group will come up with a different web for different reasons. Along the way they'll hopefully question each other and dig deep into the concepts on the cards, arguing about which idea connects more to an important concept and which example deserves one of those precious six sides.

The Step-by-Step

Let's imagine you've got your students in small groups, and each group is staring at a beautiful deck of hexagons.

Now what?

I recommend you kick off this activity for the first time by giving directions something like this:
Once you have your set of hexagons, it's time for your group to begin making connections between them. Your conversations now will be about showing how and why you think the different ideas and options connect. Everyone will see things differently, and that's OK. Just keep talking until you find the connections that stick. As you discuss your ideas, use the text to find supporting evidence for why you think your connections are strong ones. Each hexagon can connect to up to six others. Arrange and rearrange until you feel you have the strongest hexagon web in place that you can. Then begin explaining your connections with connection arrows, writing in why you have created intersections between key hexagons. Everyone in the group will contribute differently, and that's OK. You need to have people listening and moving pieces to create the web, people debating, people asking questions. By the end of your discussion, you should have an interconnected web of concepts along with clearly explained connections. If you're working with paper hexagons, tape or glue them down to another sheet of paper to secure them, or take a photo of your finished web. If you're working digitally, submit your two slides: the finished hexagon web, followed by the slide with your explanations.
There's a lot of room here for students to participate in their own unique ways. For me, part of the point of the activity is for students to see that everyone can take on different roles that matter.

Two Examples

Let's take a look at what this might look like in your classroom. In this case, I'll share digital examples created in Google Slides, since you may well be leading your discussions and small group activities via online channels this year. But paper hexagons are equally wonderful when you can use them.

Example 1: English Language Arts

First let's take a look at a hexagonal thinking discussion for an English class, wrapping up a unit on 1984.

Here's the set-up, with the terms listed in individual (moveable) text boxes.

Now students can discuss the placement of their terms/hexagons. In this case, rather than shifting paper hexagons around, they will go into the Google Slide, then drag and drop their terms across the slide and into the web of hexagons as they decide where to place them.

Now that the students have made their connections as they wish, they need to explain their choices. This can take place in many ways:

Students could record arguments for one or two connections on a tool like Flipgrid,

Students could write down their analysis.

Groups could collaborate to write explanations for several of their connections or present them back to the class.

Take a peek at what the written explanations look like for the web pictured above. In this case, students are sharing five explanations, but you could adjust that to suit your needs. Some connections are always going to be more interesting than others - the ones that generate the most debate, the surprising ones, the ones where three key sections link in one place. Have students write or present about the key connections, rather than about every single one.

Example 2: Science

Now let's take a look at how this might look in a science class. Imagine you're looking back over a unit on global warming, and helping students review the big ideas.

Here's the set-up: For this version, students can move the hexagons as well as the terms, creating any number of different webs. Then they use the connection arrows to point to the intersections they are going to explain in detail.

Student groups discuss the possibilities, dragging the hexagons and terms into place as they go. The final product could look one hundred different ways.

Once they have their web created, they make their explanations.

Creating Your Hexagonal Thinking Decks

You can create decks of hexagons with the terms already inside (let your students help you cut them out!) or print blank hexagon sheets and invite student groups to brainstorm the concepts to put inside before their discussion.

No matter how you create them, you want the hexagon decks to be filled with the key ideas of your recent class work, as well as interesting ties across disciplines and to the modern world. Hexagonal thinking makes it easy to cross disciplines and bring relevant modern connections into the discussion.

Let's say you're creating a hexagon deck for Jason Reynolds' book, Long Way Down. You'll fill it with characters, themes and style elements, but also with figures from the news, current political movements, similar books, and background information about the author.

Now imagine you're creating a deck for a unit covering an artistic period. You can put in key terms and artists, but also important authors and political figures of the period, and artists and movements of today that connect back.

As for making the shapes themselves, there are lots of time-saving options, whether you want to use digital hexagons or paper ones.

Digital Hexagons

Get access to your free copy of the digital hexagonal thinking toolkit featured above right here.

Create your own digital hexagons with PowerPoint or Google Slides by following these instructions:

Paper Hexagons

Use this online hexagon generator, created by Pam Hook.

Print and laminate these free rainbow hexagons, then add concepts with dry erase markers for quick discussions.

Print blank sheets of hexagons (you can easily create these in any size using the shapes tool in PowerPoint) to give out to small groups of students, then ask them to generate key terms, ideas, connections to other disciplines, connections to the modern world, etc. on their hexagons and cut them out. Then have groups switch decks so they are discussing a fresh list of ideas.

Create your own hexagon templates with terms you can change up whenever you want to do a hexagonal thinking discussion. Cut them out while watching New Girl on Netflix, or make the first step of the discussion in class to cut out the hexagons while beginning to discuss how they will connect.

A fun addition to any paper deck is a set of connection arrows. Print a few bubble arrows (again, the PowerPoint shapes tool makes it easy) on paper for students to put in at key intersections. Have students fill them in with their explanation of the connection. Sticky notes will also work well.

Wondering how to grade this?

There are a few ways you could grade hexagonal thinking. You could have everyone write a short reflection at the end about their contributions, and grade that. You could use it as a springboard into a writing assignment, asking students to explain and argue for key connections from the discussion, then grade that. You could have students present about a key connection on Flipgrid. Easy.

But I want to suggest a slightly more complex option too. Recently I interviewed Sarah Fine, co-author of In Search of Deeper Learning. One of her findings, after years of study across American high schools, was that we rarely ask students to truly collaborate in our core subjects, so we don't really create a culture of interdependence among them. They don't get to use their individual gifts to contribute to a final product created by the team, although that is often what real-world projects look like. Instead, we favor what she calls "lockstep learning." Everyone must do the same thing, separately.

So maybe for hexagonal thinking, you grade the final group web. And you ask the kids to share about how their different strengths allowed them to contribute to the final product.

Maybe some kids are super brainstormers, coming up with lots of great terms and ideas for what to put on the hexagons. Maybe one or two students in the group are great at lettering and drawing. They could create beautiful visual representations of the terms and ideas. Maybe some students shine at leading discussion. Maybe some are natural at making spatial and visual connections, and can help move the hexagons around as they listen to the group. Maybe some are excellent listeners, and can be taking notes about the connections based on what they hear from others. Maybe some are good mediators, who can help find common ground and calm down heated debates when discussion gets intense.

If you go this route, I really think it's worth discussing in advance what project teams are like in the workplace, and how people contribute in different ways. Then, at the end, you might let kids write a short paragraph about how they contributed based on their own strengths and skills, and whether they were happy with the way the group dynamics turned out.

Variations and Additions

Individuals or Partners

This would certainly work as an individual assignment or a prompt for partners as well. But with a small group, you'll get more perspectives on where to place what, which can be nice. You might consider giving students the option to work alone, with a partner, or in a group.

Adding Visuals

If you and your students are fans of sketchnotes or one-pagers, you can always add a visual layer to your hexagons. Invite students to illustrate their concepts with representative imagery and add quotations from their texts to bring more meaning for each idea into the conversation.

This is certainly not necessary, but adds dimension to the discussion and the eventual display of the concept web.

Hexagonal One-Pagers for Long Way Down

Gallery Walking

Once your students have completed their webs, you can do a gallery walk to see each other's concept webs and check out the connections their peers have made (this can be done online through a collaborative Google slides presentation), or have each group in turn present briefly back to the class about some of their most interesting connection points. The hexagons that caused the most debate will probably be the most fun to share back, and everyone will get to see how others mixed and matched the same hexagons in unique ways.

When you bring hexagonal thinking into your classroom -whether that's online or in person-you bring a fresh spark of energy to discussion. Your students will see things in new ways as they seek to connect wide-ranging ideas. If you're finding it difficult to get kids talking this year as they transition into new scenarios, you're definitely not alone. Hexagonal thinking just might be the tool you're looking for to help your classes over this transition and back into their critical thinking zones.

Come back for more.
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Hexagonal Thinking: A Colorful Tool for Discussion

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If you've been looking for a fresh way to get students thinking outside the box, this may be just what you need.

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h-fs_A2RCPV2KFlQGvn382b8Kozpxo4v/view

How to use each of the phases of the critical reading process to work your way up to an activity like philosophical chairs. Also example and templates for adding variation to the classic philosophical chairs. A part of the critical reading process is the Says, means, and matters which I liked as it is flexible for every level of students while also looking for that higher order thinking.

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We have been brainstorming ways to do quicker "mini chairs" so we can incorporate the discussion piece into our curriculum more often.

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In a group discussion, we came up with an idea to begin teaching TRFs/tutorials similarly to AVID Excel Scholar Groups - using a common text to work through critical reading strategies and filling out a TRF. THEN, transition to using math examples. Not only would they learn the process, but it would get them more comfortable doing their TRFs on ELA/Soc. Studies/Science content before getting them stuck on math questions because they're "easier".
- Lauren Burchfiel

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Great timer, interactive dice, etc
~ Kelli Backer

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Mirrors, Windows, Sliding Glass Doors, and Background Knowledge 

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Mirrors, Windows, Sliding Glass Doors, and Background Knowledge 

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One of my big take-aways from today's COP is the mirror-window-sliding glass door metaphors in relation to texts.
The other is the importance of building background knowledge (schema) for our kiddos before heading into a text.

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Despite billions of dollars and massive efforts on the part of thousands of highly dedicated and intelligent people over the past 25 years, the size of the test-score gap between the wealthiest and the poorest students hasn't changed. ¹ Our mediocre standing on international literacy rankings is largely a reflection of how low our lowest scores are. ² Teachers in high-poverty schools in Washington, D.C., have told me they've had students at all levels of ability, including the highest, but some of their stories were deeply disturbing.

Their high school students often lack a sense of chronology, they said. Students may confuse the Civil War and the civil rights movement. They may think Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. were contemporaries. In a world history class studying the segregation faced by black soldiers returning to the United States after World War I, some students were under the impression that slavery still existed in 1918. In a course on the United States after the Civil War, the teacher couldn't assume that students knew what happened before that war, even though they had already taken a class that covered it. "You have to start with: there was a War of Independence," she said, "and this is who we won our independence from." ³

Others told me their students don't understand the difference between a country and a continent, or between a city and a state. One kid in an SAT prep class-one of the better students, according to his teacher, who cited the fact that "he could place the United States on a world map"-was surprised by the term South America when he saw it on a map, apparently for the first time: How could it be called America if it wasn't in America? ⁴

Another high school teacher said she's even had a few students who don't know the name of the country they live in. "They think Washington, D.C., is their country," she said. ⁵

Urban school systems have been faced with the impossible task of turning ninth-graders who arrive with gaps like these into "college- and career-ready" graduates in four years-and threatened with consequences under federal law if graduation rates dip below 67 percent. For a while, the threats appeared to be working: in 2016, the national graduation rate reached an all-time high of more than 84 percent. ⁶ But within months, it became clear that some urban school systems had turned to subterfuges. ⁷ These included having students pass courses by taking far less rigorous online versions and changing attendance records. In Washington, D.C.-a city that many reformers have pointed to as a model, and where the graduation rate rose 20 points in six years-an investigation revealed that a full third of the 2017 graduates hadn't met requirements. ⁸

These problems don't end at high school. Studies suggest that students with low test scores are less likely to pursue higher education, obtain and keep jobs, provide for their families, exercise their civic rights and responsibilities, and lead fulfilling lives. ⁹ Education is supposed to enable everyone to do those things. It represents our best hope for breaking the cycle of multigenerational poverty. Really, it's our only hope.

And it's not working. Socioeconomic inequality in the United States is on the rise. ¹⁰ Many students proudly enroll in college-the surest route to success-only to discover they're so ill-prepared they need to take remedial reading and math. The vast majority of lower-income students never manage to get that coveted degree. ¹¹

Knowledge Makes a Difference

In 1987, two researchers in Wisconsin, Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie, conducted an experiment that shed some light on the roots of many of the problems that afflict our education system-and especially the gap in test scores between students at the top and bottom of the socioeconomic scale. They constructed a miniature baseball field, ¹² installed it in an empty classroom in a junior high school, and peopled it with four-inch wooden baseball players arranged to simulate the beginning of a game. Then they brought in 64 seventh- and eighth-grade students who had been tested both for their general reading ability and for their knowledge of baseball.

The goal was to determine to what extent a child's ability to understand a text depended on her prior knowledge of the topic. Recht and Leslie chose baseball because they figured lots of kids in junior high school who weren't great readers nevertheless knew a fair amount about the subject. Each student was asked to read a text describing half an inning of a fictional baseball game and move the wooden figures around the board to reenact the action described.

Churniak swings and hits a slow bouncing ball toward the shortstop, the passage began. Haley comes in, fields it, and throws to first, but too late. Churniak is on first with a single, Johnson stayed on third. The next batter is Whitcomb, the Cougars' left-fielder.

It turned out that prior knowledge of baseball made a huge difference in students' ability to understand the text-more of a difference than their supposed reading level. ¹³ The kids who knew little about baseball, including the "good" readers, all did poorly. And among those who knew a lot about baseball, the "good" readers and the "bad" readers all did well. In fact, the bad readers who knew a lot about baseball outperformed the good readers who didn't.

In another study, researchers read preschoolers from mixed socioeconomic backgrounds a book about birds, a subject they had determined the higher-income kids already knew more about. When they tested comprehension, the wealthier children did significantly better. But then they read a story about a subject neither group knew anything about: made-up animals called wugs. When prior knowledge was equalized, comprehension was essentially the same. ¹⁴ In other words, the gap in comprehension wasn't a gap in skills. It was a gap in knowledge.

The implication is clear: abstract "reading ability" is largely a mirage constructed by reading tests. A student's ability to comprehend a text will vary depending on many factors, prime among them being his familiarity with the topic. While instruction in the early grades has focused on "learning to read" rather than "reading to learn," many educators have overlooked the fact that part of learning to read is acquiring knowledge.

Research has established that one aspect of reading does need to be taught and practiced as a set of skills, much like math: decoding, the part that involves matching sounds to letters. (For more on decoding, see the article on page 4.) The problem is that the other aspect of reading-comprehension-is also being taught that way. The prevailing approach is to focus on skills and strategies such as "finding the main idea" and "making inferences," with students practicing the skills on books on random topics that have been determined to match their individual reading levels. While there's plenty of evidence that some instruction in some comprehension strategies can be helpful for some children, there's no reason to believe it can turn struggling readers into accomplished ones.

That's particularly true when it comes to nonfiction, which generally assumes more specialized background knowledge. To acquire the knowledge and vocabulary that will help them understand nonfiction, children need to do more than read a single book on a topic before skipping to another one while practicing how to identify text features or determine text structure. They need to stick with a topic for days or weeks, encountering the same vocabulary and concepts repeatedly so they will stick. ¹⁵

It's not so much that particular bits of information are vital in and of themselves-although some certainly are. It's more that people need to have enough facts in their heads to have what one commentator has called "a knowledge party" ¹⁶ -a bunch of accumulated associations that will enable them to absorb, retain, and analyze new information. Education certainly shouldn't end with facts. But if it doesn't begin there, many students will never acquire the knowledge and analytical abilities they need to thrive both in school and in life.

Vocabulary Is Essential, but Not Enough

It's not that educators are unaware of the importance of knowledge and vocabulary. One frequently taught reading comprehension strategy is "activating prior knowledge." If the story is about a trip on an airplane, for example, the teacher might ask kids if they've ever taken one. And if a text assumes knowledge many students don't have, he might quickly supply it. But that kind of on-the-spot injection of information is unlikely to stick without reinforcement. ¹⁷

Teachers are more likely to be aware of the need to build students' vocabulary rather than their knowledge; those gaps are more obvious, and more research has been done on the importance of vocabulary to comprehension. To be sure, it's important to focus on words that are used frequently in academic writing but are unlikely to be acquired through spoken language-words like merchant, fortunate, and benevolent. ¹⁸ But it's impossible to equip children with all the vocabulary they need by teaching it to them directly. During the first several years of schooling, children add eight words a day to their vocabularies, on average; ¹⁹ the only way to expand vocabulary that quickly is to expand knowledge. A single word is often just the tip of an iceberg of concepts and meanings, inseparable from the knowledge in which it is embedded. If you understand the word oar, for example, you're probably also familiar with the concepts of rowboats and paddling.

But building knowledge is trickier than teaching vocabulary. Teachers sometimes overestimate what children already know: I watched a class of second-graders struggle for half an hour through a text about slavery before their teacher realized they didn't understand the word slavery. Kindergartners in one low-income community had an average score in the fifth percentile on a vocabulary test, ²⁰ which reflected their inability to identify pictures showing the meanings of words like penguin, sewing, or parachute, and educators have told me of students who don't know simple words like behind and bead.

At the same time, teachers can underestimate students' capabilities. In addition to limiting children to books at their supposed levels, they may explain an entire text in simple language before reading it aloud, thus depriving students of the chance to wrest meaning from complex language themselves. (For more on misconceptions about reading levels, see the article here.)

"I believe what everybody believes," said one fifth-grade teacher at a high-poverty school in Nevada. "I don't mean to believe it, but it gets into you-this idea that certain learners are less capable of engaging with certain content. And I think that we've been making a lot of mistakes based in compassion for our students.... We make this great effort to smooth the road for them."

After experimenting with a text she was sure would be too challenging for her students-and being surprised by how well they did-she came to realize that she'd been doing them a disservice. "Unless they learn to navigate the bumps," she said, "we're not teaching them to be thinkers or readers." ²¹

Knowledge Is Like Velcro

There are multiple reasons that children from less-educated families arrive at school with less knowledge and vocabulary than their peers from highly educated ones-many having to do with wealth and income, which are highly correlated with levels of education. Children who live in poverty are far more likely to suffer the consequences of traumatic events that can interfere with their ability to learn. ²² Wealthier parents are better able to invest in their children; ²³ that can mean anything from buying more books to paying for tutoring or extracurricular activities.

In recent years, the difference between what lower- and higher-income parents spend on their children has increased dramatically. In 1972, the wealthiest Americans were spending five times as much per child as the lowest-income families. By 2007, parents at all economic levels were spending more on their children, but the highest-income families were spending nine times as much. ²⁴ As "human capital"-skills and education-has become increasingly vital to success, families in the top 20 percent have invested more heavily in ensuring their children can compete. It's become increasingly difficult for the bottom 80 percent to keep up.

Poor and working-class families are also more likely to practice "natural growth" parenting, according to sociologist Annette Lareau, allowing their children lots of unstructured time and tending to give directions rather than soliciting opinions. Middle-class and affluent families, on the other hand, generally practice "concerted cultivation": driving their kids to soccer practice and band recitals, engaging in family debates at dinnertime, and encouraging independent thinking. Each parenting style has its advantages, but the concerted cultivation kids are better equipped to do well in school. ²⁵

And then there's language. Children whose parents read to them frequently become familiar with the sophisticated vocabulary and syntax that appears in written rather than spoken language. ²⁶ Talking is important too. One much-publicized study published in the 1990s estimated that high-income children hear 30 million more words than low-income children by age 4. ²⁷ Recent research has called that estimate into question and focused instead on the number of "conversational turns," or back-and-forth verbal interactions, between parents and children; the more conversational turns, the better a child's language skills. ²⁸ And-although the ubiquity of cell phones and other screens has interfered with conversational turns across the spectrum-on average, higher-income families engage in more of them. ²⁹

Less-educated parents are also less likely to use complex vocabulary in conversation, and teachers may not be exposing students to it either. One study found that children living in high-poverty neighborhoods get "a double dose of disadvantage" as compared to their higher-income peers: the language they hear is less sophisticated both at home and at school. While these children "may have unique linguistic strengths that serve them well in their immediate settings," they were less likely to have the language skills that would enable them to do well academically. ³⁰

Whatever the causes, it's clear that children with certain risk factors begin school with skills that may be almost a year behind those of their peers. ³¹ And the gap only widens over time. ³² The more knowledge a child starts with, the more likely she is to acquire yet more knowledge. She'll read more and understand and retain information better, because knowledge, like Velcro, sticks best to other related knowledge.

This phenomenon of snowballing knowledge accumulation by kids who start out with more-while those who start out with less acquire less-has been dubbed "the Matthew effect." ³³ That's a reference to a line in the Gospel according to Matthew-"For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath": or, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." And the longer the Matthew effect is allowed to continue, the harder it is to reverse. That's why it's crucial to envelop students from less-educated families in a knowledge-building environment as early as possible.

Rather than being restricted to the simple material they can read on their own, young children need to listen to their teachers read more complex books aloud and engage in discussions about what they've heard-and, depending on their age, write about it. ³⁴ Even many middle schoolers can take in far more sophisticated content, and the vocabulary that goes with it, through listening and speaking than through their own reading. ³⁵ If teachers organize their read-alouds by topic instead of the skill-of-the-week, children have the chance to hear the same concepts and vocabulary repeatedly. Once they have a general familiarity with a topic, they can read more difficult text about it independently.

The Role of Working Memory

When we try to make sense of what we read, we rely on what cognitive scientists refer to as working memory, something psychology professor Daniel T. Willingham has called the staging ground for thought. Another definition might be consciousness. It's the process whereby we take in new information and combine it with the facts and procedures stored in our long-term memory. The key thing about working memory is that it has a limited capacity. And information in working memory is lost if it isn't quickly "rehearsed"-perhaps articulated or written about. By one estimate, the limit is just 15 to 30 seconds. ³⁶

So time is of the essence when trying to assimilate new information. If we can relate it to something we already know, it speeds up the process considerably. If we need to stop and look up every other word, or puzzle them out from context, we're far less likely to be able to understand and retain what we're reading.

Background knowledge, Willingham explains, also enables a reader to engage in something called chunking. Let's say the text in the 1987 baseball experiment said that the shortstop threw the ball to the second baseman, who threw the ball to the first baseman, resulting in two runners being out. The students who knew a lot about baseball could "chunk" those actions by recognizing them as a double play. But those who knew little about baseball would have to try to remember each step in the series of actions described, which occupies more space in working memory.

Scientists also use the word schema to describe this process. A schema is a mental framework constructed from accumulated information and experience and stored in long-term memory. When people already have a schema for a topic, new information on that topic has something it can stick to. If knowledge about baseball helps readers understand a text about baseball, it follows that knowledge about the world in general equips readers to do well on a test that covers a variety of subjects. And that's exactly what experiments have shown. ³⁷

There's no one right way to provide a high-quality education, and this country is too big and varied for one-size-fits-all prescriptions. But if we're equipped with a basic scientific understanding about which methods are most effective-and most likely to provide an engaging experience for kids-we should all be able to distinguish between approaches that are likely to produce the outcomes we want and those that will only lead to a heartbreaking waste of precious time. The best first step is for a school or district to adopt one of the new content-focused elementary literacy curricula that have appeared on the market-and in some cases online, for free-over the past several years.

We'll need to simultaneously pursue many other reform efforts, of course, including improving teacher training, ensuring that students living in poverty get the mental health and support services they need, and engaging families in their children's learning. But if we don't also give students access to knowledge of the world during elementary school, we'll never achieve the result we want: a system that equips all students to lead productive and fulfilling lives and carry out their responsibilities as members of a democratic society.

Natalie Wexler is an education journalist and coauthor with Judith C. Hochman of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking through Writing in All Subjects and Grades. This article is an excerpt from her book The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System-and How to Fix It (Avery). Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Copyright 2019 by Wexler.

Endnotes

1. E. Hanushek et al., "The Achievement Gap Fails to Close," Education Next 19, no. 3 (Summer 2019).
2. S. D. Sparks, "Global Reading Scores Are Rising, but Not for U.S. Students," Education Week, December 5, 2017.
3. Kerry Sylvia, former teacher at Cardozo Education Campus, Washington, D.C., conversation with author, July 12, 2016.
4. David Tansey, former teacher at Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C., conversation with author, April 30, 2016.
5. Kim Stalnaker, teacher at Eastern Senior High School, Washington, D.C., conversation with author, June 16, 2016.
6. M. Balingit, "U.S. High School Graduation Rates Rise to New High," Washington Post, December 4, 2017.
7. M. Dynarski, "Is the High School Graduation Rate Really Going Up?," Brookings (blog), May 3, 2018.
8. K. McGee, "In D.C., 34 Percent of Graduates Received a Diploma against District Policy," NPR, January 29, 2018.
9. R. Chetty, J. N. Friedman, and J. Rockoff, "Great Teaching," Education Next 12, no. 3 (Summer 2012); and E. A. Hanushek et al., "Education and Economic Growth," Education Next 8, no. 2 (Spring 2008).
10. K. G. Bates, "Report Updates Landmark 1968 Racism Study, Finds More Poverty and Segregation," NPR, February 27, 2018; D. DeSilver, "U.S. Income Inequality, on Rise for Decades, Is Now Highest since 1928," Fact Tank (blog), Pew Research Center, December 5, 2013; and R. V. Reeves, Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2017).
11. D. L. Kirp, "Ending the Curse of Remedial Math," New York Times, June 10, 2017. More than two-thirds of community college students need to take remedial math or English classes, which cost them money but don't earn them any credit. Only 15 percent of these students get their degrees on time.
12. L. Holt, "The Baseball Experiment: How Two Wisconsin Researchers Discovered That the Comprehension Gap Is a Knowledge Gap," Amplify Blog, accessed July 28, 2018.
13. D. R. Recht and L. Leslie, "Effect of Prior Knowledge on Good and Poor Readers' Memory of Text," Journal of Educational Psychology 80, no. 1 (March 1988): 16-20.
14. T. Kaefer, S. B. Neuman, and A. M. Pinkham, "Pre-Existing Background Knowledge Influences Socioeconomic Differences in Preschoolers' Word Learning and Comprehension," Reading Psychology 36, no. 3 (2015): 203-231.
15. G. N. Cervetti, T. S. Wright, and H. Hwang, "Conceptual Coherence, Comprehension, and Vocabulary Acquisition: A Knowledge Effect?," Reading and Writing 29, no. 4 (April 2016): 761-779.
16. M. Fordham, "The Knowledge Party in My Head," Clio et cetera (blog), November 21, 2016, www.clioetcetera.com/2016/11/21/the-knowledge-party-in-my-head.
17. D. T. Willingham, The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017), 89.
18. I. Beck, M. McKeown, and L. Kucan, "Choosing Words to Teach," in Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (New York: Guilford Press, 2002), 15-30.
19. M. Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight and Sound: How We Read, Why So Many Can't, and What Can Be Done about It (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 111-113; and Cervetti, Wright, and Hwang, "Conceptual Coherence."
20. L. C. Moats, "Overcoming the Language Gap," American Educator 25, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 8-9.
21. Linnea Wolters, quoted in E. Hanford, "Common Core Reading: 'The New Colossus,' " NPR, November 11, 2014.
22. N. B. Harris, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018); and M. Kirk, "What Kids' Trauma Looks Like across the U.S.," The Atlantic, February 27, 2018.
23. E. Caucutt, "Why Do Poor Children Perform More Poorly Than Rich Ones?," The Conversation, April 23, 2015, www.theconversation.com/why-do-poor-children-perform-more-poorly-than-r....
24. S. Tavernise, "Education Gap Grows between Rich and Poor, Studies Say," New York Times, February 10, 2012.
25. A. Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
26. M. Wolf, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 85-90.
27. B. Hart and T. R. Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children (Baltimore: Brookes Publishing, 1995).
28. A. Trafton, "Back-and-Forth Exchanges Boost Children's Brain Response to Language," MIT News, February 13, 2018.
29. E. Christakis, "The Dangers of Distracted Parenting," The Atlantic, July/August 2018.
30. S. B. Neuman, T. Kaefer, and A. M. Pinkham, "A Double Dose of Disadvantage: Language Experiences for Low-Income Children in Home and School," Journal of Educational Psychology 110, no. 1 (January 2018): 102-118.
31. S. Bernstein et al., "Kindergartners' Skills at School Entry: An Analysis of the ECLS-K," Mathematica Policy Research, July 15, 2014, 3.
32. J. S. Chall and V. A. Jacobs, "The Classic Study on Poor Children's Fourth-Grade Slump," American Educator 27, no. 1 (Spring 2003). On nationwide reading tests, the gaps don't appear to increase much if you look only at standard deviations, which is the way the results are reported. But it takes far more work to make up one standard deviation at upper grade levels than at lower grade levels. In the early grades, a student might need to make up only one grade level to move up a standard deviation. By eighth grade, it would take three grade levels to move up one standard deviation-and far more at the high school level. David Grissmer, research professor, Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, conversation with author, April 27, 2016.
33. K. Stanovich, "Matthew Effects in Reading: Some Consequences of Individual Differences in the Acquisition of Literacy," Reading Research Quarterly 21, no. 4 (Fall 1986): 360-407.
34. M. J. Adams, "Advancing Our Students' Language and Literacy: The Challenge of Complex Texts," American Educator 34, no. 4 (Winter 2010-2011): 5; and S. L. Hall and L. C. Moats, "Why Reading to Children Is Important," American Educator 24, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 26-33. While class discussion is also important, teachers need to read aloud to children because virtually all written language uses more complex vocabulary and syntax than spoken language, with the only exception being expert witness testimony.
35. D. Fisher and N. Frey, "Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning," The Reading Teacher 68, no. 1 (September 2014): 64-69.
36. R. C. Atkinson and R. M. Shiffrin, "Human Memory: A Proposed System and Its Control Processes," in The Psychology of Learning and Motivation: Advances in Theory and Research, vol. 2, ed. K. W. Spence and J. T. Spence (New York: Academic Press, 1968), 89-195.
37. D. T. Willingham, "School Time, Knowledge, and Reading Comprehension," Science and Education (blog), March 7, 2012.

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Despite billions of dollars and massive efforts on the part of thousands of highly dedicated and intelligent people over the past 25 years, the size of the test-score gap between the wealthiest and the poorest students hasn't changed. 1 Our mediocre standing on international literacy rankings is largely a reflection of how low our lowest scores are.

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Strengthening critical thinking skills and academic language during tutorials by utilizing student created scripts during the process.

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Today we looked inward at our own culture tree (our surface culture, shallow culture, and deep culture) to better understand our own self. Then we reflected on how we could think about our culture tree in connection with our students' culture trees and how we can be aware, inclusive, and empowering of all of our students. Powerful stuff!
-Kiersten

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We learned the “Whoosh” celebration clap.

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We focused on INBs and mathematical writing. 

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We focused on INBs and mathematical writing. 

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A take on the strategy of Give One, Get One, but this can be used with a discussion board or Padlet.

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A partnering strategy where students pair by like shoes.

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This is a take on the Gallery Walk - where students walk around to poster paper on tables or walls. The Gallery Tour takes place via Slides, PowerPoint, etc...

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Student success is assisted by teacher agency, which also includes the success of your colleagues!

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AVID students should recruit! This could look a few different ways, but maybe high school AVIDers visit the middle school and hype the program? Kids like hearing from kids better than hearing from old people. :-)
Kate Boase

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Costars levels of thinking and a great math problem to being into class to support students learning.
And inquiry driven poster ideas.

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Lunch (or other scheduled time) once/twice per month inviting professionals from the community into the building to share about career fields/experiences.  "Pizza with Professionals" "Conversation Cafe", etc.
Kate Boase

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Three Reads strategy to math Word problems

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Three Reads strategy to math Word problems

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-David

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Inquiry Cube. Awesome activity. Was demonstrated with math, but can be used as an icebreaker activity or anything really. Mix Costa's Q's for max effectiveness.

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Inquiry Cube. Awesome activity. Was demonstrated with math, but can be used as an icebreaker activity or anything really. Mix Costa's Q's for max effectiveness.

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-David

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I would like to print out academic language posters that are subject specific for our Core teachers. If an AVID student is filling out a TRF in that subject class, the sentence starters are there for them to use.
-Stephanie Cox

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Showing the staff and students that almost anything can be focused notes and while it takes time at the beginning to go through all the steps, it will go quicker as the year goes on and the students get comfortable with it.

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We discused how even when there are teachers that don't buy in on the whole AVID thing, we remind them that good teachers do a lot of these things regularly anyway. It's about having consistent language school-wide. This is so great for kids because they get more comfortable and confident.

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Analyzing Images for...
What the image is saying, what it means, and why it matters. - Noah Weldon

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This is an example timeline of what your site can use to outline a PD plan that can help increase the number of trained staff using the APLMs.

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Student achievement benefits from strategies to keep them engaged.

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AVID Energizers / State Changers / Brain Breaks

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In tutorials: if there are students that don't have authentic TRF questions, we can have them present on something that they're confident or an "expert" on to make sure students are participating in and learning from the tutorial process regardless.

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Listicle works well as a pre-test to assess what students know about a topic. It also works well as a finished product, since it allows students to research and go through the five stages of the writing process to develop their lists.  -- June

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Listicle works well as a pre-test to assess what students know about a topic. It also works well as a finished product, since it allows students to research and go through the five stages of the writing process to develop their lists.  -- June

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How are we supporting our students who are codeswitching every day and honoring the crazy knowledge that they have and skills they have to codeswitch? What is the balance of academic language and honoring student voice/culture/language register?
Kiersten

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Culturally Relevant Teaching - p. 139-140 w paragraph numbers

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I want to incorporate new strategies like gallery walks with breaking down problems, math bowling, and a new way to use INB

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Blended Learning Model - Has some great potential, but would take some change in mindset and might take some money and creative scheduling.  This approach looks great for some of the differentiated learning and closing the opportunity gap for our students.

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Blended Learning Model - Has some great potential, but would take some change in mindset and might take some money and creative scheduling.  This approach looks great for some of the differentiated learning and closing the opportunity gap for our students.

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We are currently exploring Tallo! It's a pseudo-social media sort of like LinkedIn that students can use starting at age 13 to build a CCR-ready profile, seek out opportunities, and gather information.

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I thought this was a great phrase to use in the classroom during quiet writing time, when writing summaries or filling out a post-tutorial summary and reflection.

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Summary is the WHAT you learned (summarize academic learning).

Reflection is the HOW (how did you learn, what was the process, etc.).

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I like the idea of asking teachers what are

What are 3–4 literacy skills students need to access your content?

What are 3–4 literacy skills students need to apply their learning of your content to their world?

This felt productive b/c it made teachers think about those basic core skills students need to get to our content and how they can apply their learning.

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Answer garden is a fun way to improve vocab or generate a full group discussion about a topic.   

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Answer garden is a fun way to improve vocab or generate a full group discussion about a topic.   

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AnswerGarden is a new minimalistic brainstorm tool for online brainstorming, real time audience participation and classroom feedback.

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Angie and John

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Angie and John

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1. Interacting with notes - have the students make sure they all have an EQ, adding 1 level 2 question to 2 sets of notes, double check your summaries, add any ah ha moments, etc

2. Take quotes from the book "365 Days of Wonder - Mr. Brown's book of precepts" for students to journal on

3. Have students meet up with a WICOR partner for an SEL partner and have prearranged questions to ask.

Any other ideas?

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Today we did an in depth analysis of the book Motion Leadership by Michael Fullan. Hearing groups talk in depth about the chapter they deeply analyzed was rich in learning. It is an easy read (short too) but powerful and rich in application. Becoming change savvy is critical in our leadership roles. John Hunter

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Rock paper scissors, but if you lose you become the winners biggest fan. Then they battle the next person and the fanbase gets larger and larger. noisy, but fun

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Rock paper scissors, but if you lose you become the winners biggest fan. Then they battle the next person and the fanbase gets larger and larger. noisy, but fun

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-David

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Counselors collaborating with teachers to integrate Social Emotional Lessons within curriculum content. Counselors collaborating with AVID teachers to be in classrooms and doing "Speed Dating" to review 4yr plan and adjust courses. Students keep a copy of their own tracking.

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What if EVERY TEACHER was a reading teacher? Literacy goes beyond literature, it is gaining meaning through infographics, graphs, charts, math problems, art, etc. Literacy framework across all content areas?

Emily

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Digital resource for collaborative work.
Site has tutorials by subject too.
Useful for Marking the Text - WICOR :)

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Have a balance to not just having a “fun’’ activity for students. Stay true to the mission of AVID by incorporating activities such as having students create a game that they would then present to their classmates who would take focus-notes.

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When would be a good time for a break during a WAG lesson?

Depending on the age of the students that would be the time to take a quick mental break. That can be done by asking students to partner up and share an important idea, or by getting up for a quick activity. A change in the state of mindset helps student remain engaged in learning.

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Short rube Goldberg assignment. Easy and good group work builder. 

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Short rube Goldberg assignment. Easy and good group work builder. 