Reading Logs

As the first weeks of school are under way, I find many teachers are talking about reading logs for students.  A reading log can help students to keep track of what they read and other useful information.  I’ve had students keep reading logs for a variety of reasons.  This year, I am going to have my students keep two reading logs: one at home and one at school.

At Home Reading Log

As part of students’ nightly homework, I want them to get into the routine of reading for 15+ minutes.  My fourth grade team of teachers and I designed a reading log where students can keep simple track of what and how much they read at home.  The columns which need to be completed each night are seen on the table.  We included the weekend along with the four homework nights and required that students read 90+ minutes each week.  That way, if a student can’t get to reading one night because of other commitments (let’s face it, it happens!), they can make up the time another night.  The completed log is due on Friday morning.

 Sidenote: We also have included a math log on the same take-home sheet, where students log how many minutes they practice their math facts each night and what type of activity they do.  Parents need to initial this as well.

In-School Reading Log

The in-school reading log will be much more involved as we will be monitoring our students and using this reading log as a formative assessment.  We are starting our school year with a focus on comprehension strategies and so we are customizing the log so that students can focus their attention to what they are thinking as they read.  As we progress through the year, our hope is to modify the reading log to our needs and the students’ studies.  For example, when we start learning about story elements, there may be more specific reflection on that.

Reading Log Variations

There are SO many ready-made reading logs out there.  Certainly you can find something that will do the trick, but I like the idea of creating my own.   By simply creating and manipulating a table in a Word or Google Document, you can customize a reading log that can fit your students’ needs.  Here are some other ideas for categories or columns you may add:

• Notate whether a book is too easy, too difficult or just right.
• Tell if you enjoyed the book and briefly state if you would recommend it to a friend.
• State whether you read the book, if the book was read to you or if you partner read it.
• Write a short summary of what your read.
• Write a quick prediction of what’s to come.

The purpose of a reading log is for students to become aware of what they are reading, how much they are reading, keep track of their thinking and see how their reading and thinking has improved over the course of time.  I used to think it was enough to just write in the daily planners for students to read at home or enough to give students sustained silent reading time in class, but now I think differently.  By keeping students accountable for these things in writing, they become more responsible for their own learning.  And that can only help them grow as readers!

What other ideas do you have for reading logs?  Please share!

~EMP

Underdog Triumphs in ‘Pippo the Fool’

It’s human nature for people to love a good story about an underdog. Small guy beats big guy. It’s a classic theme – one that kids just eat up!

Tonight, Butler University, a small school in Indianapolis, will battle it out in the Final 4 of the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament against huge schools with much bigger sports programs. Back in the Depression, a small thoroughbred horse named Seabiscuit went from long shot to miracle worker when he soundly upset War Admiral – the 1938 Triple Crown Winner – in the “Match of the Century.” And of course, Americans love to retell how their ragtag army of patriots upset the British Empire more than two centuries ago.

The children’s picture book “Pippo the Fool” fits snugly in this genre. It’s a tale of an underdog, who initially gets little respect, but triumphs in the end. Children going through such a social dilemma will relate, especially kids who are a little quirky or are talented but fly under the radar.

What makes this book published by Charlesbridge an even better story is that the tale is true! Author Tracey E. Fern brings history to life as she retells the unusual circumstances surrounding the finishing of the dome on Florence’s Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Italy more than 600 years ago. It features a contest, a braggart, an underdog and justice – all tied up in pretty packaging, thanks to the charming illustrations by Pau Estrada.

“Pippo the Fool” also teaches moral lessons. It encourages readers to reach for the stars. It teaches the value of perseverance and the pursuit of happiness, whether faced with ridicule from the town bully, health challenges or unfair circumstances. Perhaps best of all is the belief that justice is worth hoping for!

Big Universe offers this book online, including a reading comprehension quiz. (Reading Level: F&P N, DRA 34) Dozens of additional books on the website provide quizzes for learning assessment.

Alternative Assessments and Teacher Burnout

I didn’t go into to teaching for the money. No one goes into teaching for the money. I love children. Ask any teacher that stays with teaching why they do it and they’ll tell you it’s because they want to make a difference in children’s lives.

Way, way, way……..back when I first wanted to be a teacher, when I was in high school, we were being told the market was going to be over run with teachers so it wasn’t a good choice. That was all I truly ever wanted to be so that threw me into a sort of inner turmoil. I started college going towards a medical degree, changed that to English and finally left after two years when I was 20 giving up a full scholarship.

Fast forward to a husband and three beautiful children all in their teens now… when the youngest went into first grade, the first year of all day school, I returned to college to get my degrees. First my bachelors, then my masters, with a double major in elementary and special education.

I always knew that I couldn’t just teach in a regular classroom. I love all children but I have always hated to see the “special” child taunted and teased and left behind. As a teacher I hate to teach to the masses and leave that small percent behind. I wanted to be the one to teach the small percentage.

So here I am today living my dream. I wanted you to have the history so you can see that I did not just choose teaching and go into it straight out of college without giving it any thought. I knew what I was doing. I even substitute taught while my little ones were in school when I didn’t have classes. The graduate program I took was a hands-on program where I spent a full day co-teaching and then took my classes at night. I knew what I was getting into. I knew. But, the lack of respect by my leaders is something I wasn’t expecting.

The Council on Exceptional Children has identified the top 10 Critical Issues Facing Special Education. The number one issue they’ve identified is the “National Special Education Policy.” Included in this is No Child Left Behind. Under NCLB all children are expected to show their achievement at grade level. While there are some alternative assessments those assessments are still missing the point. In order to show progress we as special educators need to be given a format to show that our students have shown progress commensurate to where they began, not that they are making grade level progress. When I can do this I will be doing my students justice.

Currently I am working with the Virginia Grade Level Alternative Assessment. That means I need to show that my student who is reading on a first grade level (thus the term “special education”) is able to read and comprehend on a fourth grade level. I also need to be able to show that this student who has poor short term memory is able to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. Does anyone else besides me see the problem here? The alternative to the alternative assessment is they can take the Standards of Learning exam at the end of the year and most probably fail.

So why did I give you the history of my journey to teaching? Because when you here about the high turn over rate of teachers you may think these are all young new teachers. But, they aren’t. There are many seasoned teachers being pushed to the brink and beyond.

I know everyone is facing poor economics these days. I’m looking at the total package. As a teacher there’s a feeling that as a whole the profession is treated poorly. Next year again, in my county at least, there will be no pay raises and no cost of living increases. As teachers in the county, more than the lack of money, we see this as a lack of respect. At the same time there is no money, the work load is increasing. This year alone my duties at work have increased and the paperwork has grown tremendously in special education. There are beneficial training classes being offered to help with the alternative assessments, after school.

I’m not whining. But sometimes I do want to cry. I get thirty minutes of planning time a day. That’s barely enough time to print out what I need to use that day. I go to work two hours early every day. I stay late. I work at home constantly. I have mandatory parent meetings with each of my student’s parents annually and now that’s just been increased by an extra meeting triennially. I now have an extra extensive assessment that I need to give my students. The alternative assessment is an extremely time intensive portfolio for each subject and I’m doing 10 portfolios this year. Doing these assessments with students who really don’t get the material is so… hard because the teaching is excruciating. The kids may get it for a minute. I can assess it for a minute…. . But is this learning? Is this teaching?

Luckily while I’m building the wheel everyday to teach my students there are a few websites that are helping me with my students. Big Universe is one of them. The majority of their books now have assessments that go with them. This is a great way for me to judge my children’s knowledge. For example, I have to do a biography with my students. I’m going to use Martin Luther King Jr.’s biography which has an assessment on Big Universe. I’ll show it on my Smart Board, read it aloud and have my students take turns coming up to answer the quiz questions. Along with anecdotal notes and some other work this will become part of my portfolios.

Teaching can be painful. The constant search for resources is very time consuming. If it wasn’t for the occasional gem like Big Universe, teaching would be even more difficult.

They don’t belong

“They don’t belong,” are words I can’t tolerate. I’m a special education teacher and I believe everyone belongs everywhere.  It may take some children longer to acclimate to a situation than others, but with a team effort that includes the school and home, I believe it can be done. Unfortunately when a child has problems that include behavior and the child looks different, the feeling that “they don’t belong” seems to escalate.

 One thing that works in my class when a student becomes overwhelmed with too much academics is reading books together as a class, that are projected onto the Smart Board. I’m fortunate to have my own classroom and a small group of boys and they all benefit from lots of read aloud so a book break is always beneficial. Seeing and hearing words and even being able to touch them on the Smart Board are very productive for these children with Learning  Differences.

Sometimes I have to make really quick decisions about the book but the one site I always go to is biguniverse.com. They have a beautiful selection of top quality picture books and I’ve never gone wrong in any of my selections. I’ve started saving my favorites to my virtual bookshelf on the site so I can easily bring them up when I go to the site.

This week my special student and I are going to write a social story together using the create portion of Big Universe. We’ll write about what we can do when we feel really angry or confused. The site has 7,000 cliparts and I can even import my own pictures.

The three words “they don’t belong” should never be spoken together. It’s our job as a society to do all that we can to ensure that they aren’t. As teachers we are the first line of defense in helping our special children develop strategies to cope with situations that exist in the real world. I’m just glad there are sites like Big Universe that make my job easier.

Alternative Assessments VGLA

The school year has begun and so have the thoughts of teaching in order to pass tests and meet standards. Did your school meet AYP? That’s Annual Yearly Progress. It’s determined by the tests given at the end of the year. In Virginia they’re called the SOL – Standards of Learning. AYP is determined by looking at many things including the progress of many sub groups of students such as those with learning disabilities, minority students, economically disadvantaged and English Speakers of Other Language students, etc. Each year America’s teachers are held to stricter and stricter standards and each year the tests change and new tests are added.

There’s also NCLB. No Child Left Behind. That means that all children will be held to the same standards regardless of disability, economic status, language spoken, etc. As a special education teacher I can tell you that there are numerous flaws to this but I’m not going to go into that now.Each state has been allowed to come up with an alternative assessment(s) for those children with disabilities who cannot show progress by taking the standard assessment. In Virginia this alternative for students with learning disabilities and other disabilities that are not considered profoundly disabling is called the VGLA or Virginia Grade Level Assessment.

The VGLA is a portfolio assessment that can be used in place of the SOL for each subject area being tested. One of the questions that must be answered as part of the qualification criterion is, “does the student demonstrate his/her individual achievement of the Standards of Learning content by means other than multiple-choice test format?” Typically this has been interpreted as, “the student can’t take multiple choice tests.”

Here’s the problem. That’s not the major difficulty with these children and the SOL. The major difficulty in judging these children via the SOL is in expecting them to remember an entire year’s worth of learning and then regurgitate it on one day in one test through 50 or so questions! Multiple choice questions aren’t necessarily the problem! Many of these kids can take short multiple choice tests after learning material, just not 6 months after learning the material – many have memory issues! However, because of the interpretation on the multiple choice question issue, the portfolio assessment only allows minimal multiple choice type questions, and as a teacher I can tell you that finding material that is not in multiple choice format is extremely difficult!

The VGLA or Virginia Grade Level Assessment is basically a notebook binder for each subject area that a student is going to be assessed on in place of a standardized test. Then within that subject area there needs to be at least one piece of “evidence” to support the fact that the student has properly demonstrated their knowledge of this standard. The job for the teacher is to try to make it as interesting as possible for the child. In my next blog I’ll give you a few worksheets and book links that will get you started with your students. If you haven’t decided whether or not a VGLA is right for your student(s), keep reading I’ll give you more insight next week.

A Novel’s Final Test Part I (Grades 5-12)

Giving students a final exam about a novel unit sometimes becomes a test of: matching, mulitiple choice, true false, and short essay.  Aside from the essay portion, none of these exam parts truly shows student mastery and digestion of what was studied during a given novel unit.  Therefore, I suggest something completely different for any novel study.

Have your students plan their own novel, while reading a curriculum based novel.  Students can use journals to do this.

 Day 1: Fears

The first three days are spent developing a conflict for their novel. On Day 1, I have students describe something they are afraid of.  You can draw two columns on the board, explaining that fears can be physical (illness, disease, disfigurement, snakes, thunder) or mental (loneliness, embarrassment, failure, insanity.)

 Day 2: Principle

Preface this piece of writing by quoting on the board Martin Luther King, Jr.:” Every man should have something he’d be willing to die for. A man who isn’t willing to die for something isn’t fit to live.”  Then ask the students, “What are you willing to die for?” “What is so important to you that you just cannot back down on it?”

 Day 3: Conflict

To introduce conflict, first explain its Latin meaning: “to collide with.”   Tell the students, “To create a really good conflict for your main character, make your fear collide with your principles.”   Think of a movie or novel that most students are familiar with and present conflict using that material for an example of fears colliding with principles.  Then, make up spontaneous examples with the class:  a man afraid of flying must fly an airplane when the pilot has a heart attack.   A woman afraid of roller coasters must leap on one that is out of control to save her son.  The goal is to get students to express their conflict in a single sentence, while applying the “fear colliding with principle” formula.

 Day 4: Characterization

The students may use the following checklist to create their main character.

• Name the character
• Create a physical description: gender, age, appearance
• Create a dominant character trait: perseverance, courage, shyness
• Create a personal background:  childhood, education, relationships, profession
• Create goals and obstacles that interfere with those goals
• Show how goals are reached and the way the character changes in the process

 Day 5: Setting

This need not take long; students simply should describe where the novel takes place.  For example:  The story is set in a large city, in Illinois.  The time is 1875.  Most of the people in this city are middle-class.  The character’s house sits near Lake Michigan, about two blocks from a university town.  The novel begins on an October evening, a Saturday.

Repeated Reading of a Good Book

The repeated reading of a book is very effective in helping children learn how to read and learn how to learn from their reading. I continued using Our Earth from the website Big Universe for the second week with my students. Working with students with learning disabilities is always eye opening because you can teach them something one day and the next day they have little to no recall of what you taught. On the other hand if you find something that a child really likes and has the back ground knowledge to build on to, it’s amazing how good their memory is. Using Our Earth has really kept my students interested and connected to their learning. The book is bright, colorful and easy to read. The great thing is that each time they read it, they learn something new and they are building their own background knowledge. 

Targeted Testing 

After reading the book Our Earth  as a class using the Smart Board, each of my students went to the book on their own laptops. They were given an 8 question practice SOLQuestions1 (click here) style test. They did well though many missed the questions that require any searching of page numbers. As a teacher, that’s frustrating. The book is clearly laid out with beautiful pictures and illustrations and the information couldn’t be any clearer. I made a second assessment to make sure my students would have plenty of  practice searching for answers! 

I gave the second Targeted Questions (click here) quiz, which is limited to questions related to finding information on specific pages and looking to specific pages for information. This gives the students strategies in answering questions, formulating questions, and using text features. I am not a fan of standardized testing, but Big Universe is giving me some beautiful material to work with that will make my teaching and testing a lot more enjoyable.