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To help students build their oral language skills, I pass around an  wireless microphone during each of our morning meetings. This encourages students not only to speak clearly, but introduces them to basic conversational skills such as turn taking, asking questions, and public speaking. We also use this tool during the share time portion of writer's workshop.

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Even though my kiddos are 8 and 9 years old, I include mirrors in my literacy items so that students have an opportunity to see the way their lips, tongue, cheeks, etc move while they speak. In earlier years, this helps them with phonics related skills, but as they get older they can also examine the nuances of facial expressions. Because communication is more than just the words we select, it is important for kiddos to note how their face looks as well as their tone of voice as they talk.

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I utilize "awkward silence" and long pauses in my classroom daily. It's important for students to have time to fully formulate their thinking before they are called on. This also holds me accountable as a teacher to make sure each child can have their moment in the spotlight, whether or not they were the first to raise their hand. I find that giving students more wait time increases the depth and detail in their thinking too.

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Giving students several seconds to think after asking a question—and up to two minutes for some questions—improves their learning.

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These hold students accountable for their language skills and can help struggling speakers find an entry point by taking the burden off of word formation or syntax.

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In my classroom, we learn one Greek or Latin root each week. This fills the time that younger classes would use for calendar time. The kids are fascinated by the etymology, and then feel so excited when they become word collectors and find related words in their independent reading books. This builds their vocabulary and decoding tools. To tweak this, I like the idea of using a bulletin board where I'd normally have a word wall to display all the roots we've learned throughout the year.

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When I think about language tools, the first place my mind goes is our classroom library. One specific goal I have is to create a responsive classroom in which ALL students can access books that match their identity (as it relates to language and otherwise). To do this, I must stock my shelves with increased intentionality. This book diversity audit is an activity I performed with my class this year, after reading about it on the blog below.  I also think about ways to incorporate multiple modalities into reading so that every child has an entry point into comprehension.

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First up is how things went when I did a diversity check of my classroom library. If you listened to the last episode (#27 with librarian Sarah Threlkeld) you heard us chatting about this activity she did with her students to reflect on the diversity found in their school library. And I think even way back to Episode 18, I mentioned reading this fantastic blog post over at Lee & Low Books that shared how one teacher helped her class analyze the books in their room to find out how different genders and races are represented. I'll include a link to that article and the main framework of what I did is pulled directly from there. So I want to be clear - this is not my idea, but I'm sharing how it went for me with the idea that you might want to try it, too. First I'll run through the process and then discuss my major takeaways, and how I'll do it differently next year.

First, I showed my 5th graders two infographics. Both have been shared widely on social media and you've probably seen them, but I'll post them on the website so you can find them easily. The first one was a black and white image called "The Diversity Gap in Children's Books" and it shows a bar graph of the percent of kid's books in the past 21 years that contain multicultural content. And shows that sadly steady around 10% from 1994 to 2014. 2014 was a slight tick up to 14% but well below where it should be. This picture, which is put together by Lee & Low Books also includes pie charts that show the percent of the US population that are people of color and a projection that the U.S. population will be 57% minority in 2060, which really brings into focus the disparity.

The second infographic I showed them is from ReadingSpark and called "Diversity in Children's Books 2015" and is in color with illustrations showing the percents of various groups featured as characters in kid's books - 73.3% White and 12.5% Animals/Trucks, 7.6% African/African American, 3.3% Asian Pacific/Asian Pacific Americans, 2.4% Latina/o, and then 0.9% American Indian.

So, we gathered on the rug and huddled around the Promethean board where I had the images displayed. And I simply asked my students to look carefully at them both and to chat with a partner about what they noticed. I explained terms where necessary, but otherwise I just let them have a look and asked them to make some observations.

And from there, I pivoted the conversation to enlist their help in analyzing our own classroom library so that their information could help me when I ordered new books. And - I was truly moved by their eagerness. These ten and eleven year olds were ready to roll up their sleeves and dig in to see how our books stacked up. And we started by thinking about this, "What questions do you have about the diversity in our classroom library?" And they said things like:
How many books do we have by and about Native Americans? How many books have an African American main character? What genre has the most diversity? Are there more books about people of color than BY people of color? Do we have more books featuring boys or girls?
I'll be honest with you - their questions went beyond the scope of what I had planned. They went pretty deep and the data we pulled really only started to answer the questions they had.

So once they had some questions in mind, I had them pair up and grab one bin of books from our classroom library to start sorting through. Our bins are sorted by genre. I used a Google Sheet to record the genre of that bin and some other information. First, they separated out all the books with people on the cover and analyzed just those. Then they counted how many covers included a person of color and jotted that number down. And then they counted how many covers featured at least one girl. And from there, generated percentages using a calculator - which they enjoyed, but then I quickly learned that we needed a refresher on how to figure out percents.

As each pair worked, they added their data to a shared Google Doc so we could see the information come to life in real time. It was exciting and the kids were so engaged! I think that when they feel like they are doing real work, important work, and are helping you out in a genuine way, they are all in. And some recognized the injustice in the situation and were eager to start to set things (not right) but on a better path.

So - what did we discover? First up, I'll give you some examples of the data (flawed as it is). Starting with gender. One thing that stood out was that 81% of the biographies were about men. Not good! That's changing immediately. Also, realistic fiction seemed to have a better balance of girls and boys with most of those bins featuring kids of different genders. And Fantasy, which I thought was going to be worse, actually only between 9% and 50% only with boys on the cover. That was better than I was anticipating because sometimes that genre is known for a lack of gals. (And a quick side note about that. Now that I'm moving away from thinking about gender as a simple binary of boy or girl, I'm also wondering about better methods for categorizing and doing this type of analysis. So - if you have thoughts on that, please do let me know. There is a whole group of folks out there that want to be doing better and if you have an idea about how to make that happen, I'm absolutely listening.)

Okay - on to the data pulled about race and ethnicity. The percentage of books with no people of color at all on the cover was pretty high. The best category seemed to be realistic fiction which had percentages like 21%, 43%, 63% and one bin at 93%. Some of the least diverse categories were Fantasy with 79% , 80% and 100% of the books in those bins featuring only white people, and graphic novels with 85%. So, now it's pretty clear where are some particularly troublesome areas and when I go to purchase books, those genres will be my focus.

So, what did the kids say? Well, I think I'll give you a sampling of some of their comments:

In the words of one of my girls, "We have a lot of books about white boys in this room!" Yes, we do! And most of them are fantastic, but adding other voices is only going to help so that every kid can see themselves and see the wide range of experiences in our country and in our world.

"A lot of books have shadow people on the cover." They were referring to silhouettes, and this observation lead to some great discussion about what the publishers might intend with that. They were questioning how to categorize those types of covers and if we needed another category.

Another big topic that came up was that some forms of diversity weren't being accounted for in this exercise. And that all stemmed from the debate about what gender pile to put the book George in. Do we go by the clues on the cover which might suggest a boy? Or do we account for what we know of the story (which is about a transgender girl) and my students said, "We need another category, Mrs. Allen." Many students mentioned that religion or disability wasn't included in what we were looking for. Also, because we only used the visual of the cover, that is really limiting. A cover that includes a girl or a person of color does not mean that character plays a big part or that they are portrayed in a great way. Were they just the sidekick?

1. Do this earlier in the year. (We jumped in during the second to last week of school. I want this to be on kids' minds much earlier.)

2. Connect with another class doing the same thing and share results. I think that could be powerful.

3. Include more categories (maybe religion, disability, LGBTQ)

4. Do some analysis in other places (This could be a great teacher/librarian collaboration in the school library. Also examine the public library, a local bookstore, Scholastic flyers, or online stores.)

5. Take this to that next step and have kids research and recommend titles to fill out the gaps in our library. So that they are playing a part in creating a more diverse selection of books that they will love.

Mainly, I was just acutely aware of how limited this exercise was. And yet - I am so glad we did it! The data we gleaned is not going into some peer-reviewed journal, but it gave these kids (and me!) a taste of that data analysis. And, the best part, it lead to even more questions - and now they know that it's a question they should ask about the books surrounding them! And our shared spreadsheet is messy - some percents aren't accurate and some kids categorized a little differently. But, my hope, is that when they find themselves in a library or bookstore and pick up a book, they'll remember this and maybe carry those questions and discoveries forward with them and start to (seek out - no! That's too weak) start to demand more books that reflect our cultures and our communities.

And for us, let's not shy away from this work, as uncomfortable and complicated as it sometimes can be.

And as always, I really want to hear your ideas about this topic. You can tag me on Twitter or Instagram - our handle is @books_between or email me at booksbetween@gmail.com and I'd love to hear and share your ideas.

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Diversity Audit & A Conversation with Madelyn Rosenberg & Wendy Shang: Books Between, Episode 28

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First up is how things went when I did a diversity check of my classroom library. If you listened to the last episode (#27 with librarian Sarah Threlkeld) you heard us chatting about this activity she did with her students to reflect on the diversity found in their school library.

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Graphic novels can be described as "novels using images, as well as words, to tell a story." This genre includes so much more than the comic books it is usually associated with, and the popularity of graphic novels is on the rise with readers of all ages. But why should you read-or allow your child to read-graphic novels?

Graphic novels can be beneficial to readers because they:

Keep a fast pace -The exciting plots and action keep the attention of readers who are very energetic and/or reluctant to read.

Build vocabulary -Fewer words does not always mean simple words. Since there is not space for many words on the pages of a graphic novel, the words that are on the page are chosen for maximum impact.

Force text interaction -Throughout the book, the reader constantly needs to figure out the relationship between the text and the images.

Develop reading skills -Graphic novels develop and reinforce reading skills like inferencing, demonstrate punctuation and grammar rules, and explain figurative language.

Aid those with learning differences -Readers with autism can learn about emotions by observing the images on the page as they read the story. Those with dyslexia can read a page or even a book without feeling too overwhelmed by the number of words on the page.

Reinforce harder to read texts -Moby Dick, Treasure Island, and the plays of Shakespeare are examples of some classic texts that are available as graphic novels. When the classic text is read alongside the graphic novel, readers can gain a greater understanding of the story.

The best part-there are graphic novels available for all reading levels and almost any interest!

Popular choices include:
- written by Sarah D., Programming Assistant, Children's Services
Image credit: Wikimedia

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The Benefits of Reading Graphic Novels - Bucks County Free Library

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Graphic novels can be described as "novels using images, as well as words, to tell a story." This genre includes so much more than the comic books it is usually associated with, and the popularity of graphic novels is on the rise with readers of all ages.

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Pairing books with CD's

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Audiobooks, playaways, and digital literacy resources to check out at the Stl County Library

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Digital magazines and audiobooks are available on demand with no wait list from RBDigital! All you need is a St. Louis County Library card to get started. Learn more.

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I use Heggerty's primary curriculum to supplement our reading units of study. This pairs movement and hand motions with skills such as segmenting and blending, and can be incorporated into the classroom routine in fewer than 15 minutes.

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"The Yellow Book," as it's often called, provides 24-weeks of daily systematic phonological and phonemic awareness lessons for use in 1st and 2nd-grade classrooms. These lessons are short and engaging, designed to be the perfect supplement to an existing literacy curriculum.

The lessons in the revised 2022 edition of the English Primary Curriculum are quick and fast-paced, using a reduced number of words for each skill, in order to provide students with opportunities to build awareness and proficiency. The revised curriculum has 24-weeks of Tier 1 instruction, and 6 additional weeks of lessons for intervention instruction that can take place in whole group or small group settings. The lessons now include opportunities to make phoneme-grapheme connections, matching the sounds we hear to letters in print. QR codes provide easy access to hand motion videos and a weekly lesson demonstration video.

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Primary (Grades 1-2) Phonemic Awareness Curriculum | Heggerty

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Heggerty's Primary phonemic awareness lessons supplement existing literacy curriculum and are easily integrated into half-day or full-day Primary programs.

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One language standard that third graders are expected to master is reading aloud with greater fluency; this means that most students enter the classroom with "robot reading" and learn throughout the year how to speak with expression, intonation, and prosody. Reader's Theater has been my saving grace to help students achieve this goal. It naturally lends itself to all kinds of learners: kinesthetic learners who use their bodies to act out gestures, ELLs who gain repeated exposure to new language through each rehearsal, and visual learners who utilize the script in hand as they perform. Poetry fulfills a similar need by giving kids bite-size exposure to rhythm and language patterns without overwhelming struggling readers. The line breaks also give children the freedom to read in a variety of silly ways.

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Cinderella Bigfoot Reader's Theater Script

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Cinderella Bigfoot Reader's Theater Script

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By Jack Prelutsky

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by Jack Prelutsky

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Here is a sample Heggerty lesson for younger learners