New Thinking New Literacies

Accelerating Reading Comprehension for Diverse 21 st Century Learners International Reading Association April 26 2010

Today’s Session

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Introductions

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Comprehension, “State of the Nations”

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Reading Next – Research to Classroom

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Improving Comprehension in Diverse Classrooms Through Explicit Instruction That Blends Technology and Shared Reading:

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Miramar South School case study

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Reflections

Introductions

Introducing : Neale Pitches

ONZM, BA, MEd Admin (Hons), Dip Tchg

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Forty years in education:

 English and history teacher  Library teacher, English head,

vice principal

 High school principal 

Founding Chief Executive of Learning Media,

the New Zealand government education organization 

Co-Founder and CEO, South Pacific Press, and Lift Education, New Zealand

Comprehension – the state of our nations

State of the nations - Comprehension

1. From your knowledge of the research evidence how’s the progress of US students in comprehension?

2. From your perspective as educators – what challenges do you face or see regarding the progress students are making in comprehension?

State of the nation - Comprehension NAEP Scores Show Little Change:

Fourth-grade reading scores were flat and eighth-grade scores showed a slight gain, according to recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data. (IRA On-line Newsletter, 13 April, 2010)

Reading Next

Reading Next

This report described a “literacy crisis” at middle and high schools evidenced by the alarming high school student dropout rate and a number of reported statistics about low literacy rates in the USA above grade three.

(Reading Next: Biancarosa and Snow, 2006)

Reading Next

Identified several issues for middle and high schools:

        Direct, explicit comprehension instruction Effective instructional principles embedded in content Motivation and self-directed learning Text-based collaborative learning Diverse texts A technology component Ongoing formative assessment of students Extended time for literacy (Reading Next: Biancarosa and Snow, 2006)

Add Further Evidence…

“Comprehension is critically important to the development of children’s reading skills… Indeed, reading comprehension has come to be the ‘essence of reading’.” “...readers derive meaning from text when they engage in intentional, problem solving thinking processes” “...explicit or formal instruction in the application of comprehension strategies has been shown to be highly effective...” Report of the National Reading Panel, 2000

…

Evidence strongly points to significant benefits to students when teachers provide specific instruction before, during, and after students read… The process helps students link new ideas to what they learned previously, remember what was read, and think critically. Sturtevant, 2003

…

“Overall, content educators in a wide variety of disciplines and secondary literacy educators recommend that teachers develop the types of learning environments in which students are expected to use reading, writing, and discussion to solve problems, conduct research, experiment, and learn in a particular content area.” Alvermann, Boyd, Brozo, Hinchman, Moore, and Sturtevant, 2002

…!

Johnston and Allington (1991),found that students with reading difficulties were likely to get instruction that focused mainly on print accuracy rather than on meaning and comprehension.

and…

Ivey (1999), in Block and Pressley Eds (2002), “teachers…may wrongly assume that struggling readers who have limited ability to read the words are incapable of thinking abut text in complex ways .

Improving comprehension in diverse classrooms – Technology and literacy

An Evidence-based Model for Accelerating Literacy Achievement Engage active literacy using short, diverse digital texts Scaffold model, think-aloud, deliberately teach, provide feedback Practice audio support, co-operative learning, writing Apply and Assess Including self-assess

A Rich Learning Model

Known concepts Classroom experiences (Nuthall, 1007, p.71) Selecting Sorting

Working memory

Integrating Elaborating Evaluating Knowledge structure

Long term memory

New concepts

We set out to build a three-step model based on the research evidence:

(Myself, Toni Hollingsworth of Lead to Learn, Meryl Lynn Pluck [NZ] supported by Jim Connelly of Pacific Learning and the South Pacific Press publishing team) Whole-Group Instruction Cooperative learning Independent Application Metacognition – gradual release model

Accelerating Literacy Achievement Seven comprehension strategies: 1.Making connections 3. Visualizing 2. Asking questions 4. Drawing inferences 5. Determining important ideas 6. Synthesizing info 7. Monitoring comprehension and repairing understanding Five text collections: (Content Literacy) 1. Fiction 3. Science 5. Social studies 2. Non-fiction (general) 4. Maths

English Language Learners and Struggling Readers: A new approach to ‘differentiation’.

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On-grade level texts

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Multiple scaffolds:

 Audio for all 40 student cooperative texts at each grade level  Collaborative (peer) learning built into whole class lessons and student cooperative activities  Digital whole group texts especially engaging  Bespoke graphic organizers  Student Reflection Journal

… in summary - eight evidence-based principles for effective Instruction

 Teach comprehension strategies singly and in combination  Use short, engaging, diverse texts  Use metacognitive stategies before, during, after reading  Involve students in interactive learning communities  Gradually release responsibility  Include self/peer/teacher assessment  Offer several opportunities to learn new concepts (3-4+) over a short space of time, therefore… 

Assume all students can learn (Learning community)

Whole-Group Instruction – Digital Interactive Shared Reading

Each lesson:

 Teacher reads aloud  Teacher models (Think-aloud)  Explicit teaching by the teacher 

Interaction – active learning

 Digital tools / scaffolds, especially academic and general vocabulary and video

Cooperative Learning

Students provided with

:   A new text for use with the same strategy as students learnt in the whole group lesson A bespoke graphic organizer – made for the text and strategy  Cooperative activities that follow the same before-, during-, and after reading approach  Marker pens and transparencies (for annotating text)  An audio text for struggling readers or ELLs

New Thinking Digital Shared Reading – New Literacies

 Diverse, on grade-level texts – to give students broad experience – not all are “suited” to them  Digital scaffolds  Interaction – learning community

New Thinking New Literacies

Cooperative learning: A challenge to our thinking about ‘leveled text, leveled kids’

 Diverse, grade-level texts – to give students broad experience – not all are “suited” to them  Scaffolding via peers, audio, learning community  Audio texts  Graphic organizers – “bespoke” - developed for that text and that strategy

New Thinking New Literacies Summing up

 We can overcome the concern that leveling has morphed into a deficit model  We can serve ‘digital natives’ with digital texts  The developmental model I have described is shown to have major benefits for comprehension achievement  We can use multiple scaffolds to ‘differentiate’

It’s all about Metacognition…for all The purpose of teaching comprehension is to teach strategies as tools to expand and deepen understanding. We best do this by … teaching kids a repertoire of strategies they can use flexibly in many circumstances and with many texts.

Harvey and Goudvis

Comprehension strategies are specific, learned procedures that foster active, competent, self regulated and intentional reading.

Trabasso and Bouchard, 2002

A Rich Learning Model in Action What would you say if I told you a class in New Zealand had moved, over a period of less than a year, from having no students in the top quartile of achievement in comprehension to having 35% of the students in the top quartile?

Wow?

Miramar South School Case Study

Miramar South School School background Low SES Mixed ethnicity - Pasifika 54% Maori 23% Somali 16% European/other 7% Classroom background Grade 7 Students decoding effectively Comprehension strategies a high priority Seeking a successful program model

Miramar South School Pre- and Post-Test Data 2008 and 2009 The students seem to have made a staggering leap in their reading ability unlike any other year I've known!”

Kyran Smith, Deputy Principal, Miramar South School

2008 AsTTle Results (Graph)

2008 Points to Note

 Post test, approximately half of the students are reading at or above national norms, compared with only 12.5% pre test.

 Post test, all Maori students are reading at above or national norms.

 Post test, 60% of “Other” students are reading at or above national norms, compared with 0% pre test.

Miramar South half-yearly progress (2009)

2009 AsTTle Results (Graph)

Increase of Students Reading at or above the National Norm

% of students 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Feb Nov Feb Nov

2009 Points to Note

 Post test, 56% of the students are reading at or above national norms, compared with only 19% pre test.

 Post test, 63% of Maori students and 62% of Pacifica students are reading at or above the national norms.

 Post test, 17% of “Other” students are reading at or above national norms, compared with 0% pre test.

 Boys are reading at similar levels to girls, post-test.

2008 and 2009 Combined Results

AsTTle Reading Results 2008-2009

100

% of students

60 50 40 30 20 90 80 70 10 0 All Pasifica Maori Other Feb-08 Nov-08 Feb-09 Nov-09

Hagley High School

Hi … One of our English teachers has trialled the kit with her Yr 10 English class and has had stunning results. The pre and post PAT results showed amazing shifts.

We have done a presentation of the results of the trial (including filmed excerpts) to the Social Sciences and Science depts. There is considerable interest… we would like to have a look at the Level 7 English texts, as our Learning Support/ Literacy teachers felt that the level of the Level 8 texts may be too high for our year 9 cohort.

Is there any possibility that we could have a look at those texts please.

Many thanks Marie Stribling HOD English Hagley Community College Christchurch

There is lots of support and reinforcement at: www.csi-literacy.com

New Thinking New Literacies

Accelerating Reading Comprehension for Diverse 21 st Century Learners Video