Class 6: For the Love of Reading

"What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how."

                                           - William Wordsworth



When people ask me what I love most about being a teacher, my first answer is always: I get to work with children every day. The second
thing I love most is teaching children to read. Never am I happier in my day than when I have a cluster of students gathered around the Guided Reading table and we are exploring the wonders of learning to read.

                                                                                                                                                  

After watching Todd Rose's Ted Talk "The Myth of Average" on Wednesday night, we were asked to identify the "adjustable seat" in our classrooms.  Guided Reading is the adjustable seat in my room. It is continually differentiated and individualized based on the reading behaviours of whoever is sitting with me. Book choice is also an important component of this adjustable seat. I need to choose "just-right books" that will provide appropriate scaffolding - what Vygotsky called the "Zone of Proximal Development."

Groupings are fluid and flexible, based on careful observation of each child's needs. Sometimes students are grouped according to reading level; other times they are grouped according to strategies they need to work on. My role is to think about what each child needs, each day.

As we examined our own reading processes with the "Dracula" excerpt, I was reminded of how complex the reading process is. Sometimes, when children learn to read, it almost seems magical. When children struggle with reading, it can be a mystery. Of course, we educators know learning to read is a great deal of work, which involves orchestrating a variety of components: concepts about print and book handling, sound and symbol correspondence, good oral language, vocabulary and syntax, the ability to make meaning, flexible use of strategies, attention to the task and motivation, fluency and expression. All these components work in concert to produce what we call "reading."

The PBS video, The Secret Life of the Brain: The Child's Brain confirmed how complex the reading process is. Why is it that children who have so many strengths stumble when they come up against reading? Do their talents become their liabilities? How do we use their talents to help them unlock the reading process?

Marie Clay had six principals that underlie reading instruction:

1.  Literacy learning is a complex process.
2. Individuals actively construct their own learning.
3. Language plays a crucial role in literacy learning.
4. Reading and writing are reciprocal processes.
5. Fast processing is important.
6. Teachers must attend to change over time in children's behaviours.

How that happens is up to us. That is where Universal Design for Learning, or Differentiation, comes into play.

• Multiple means of representation to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge,
• Multiple means of expression to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know, and
• Multiple means of engagement to tap into learners' interests, challenge them appropriately, and motivate them to learn.

Richard Allington, in his article,"Every Child, Every Day" (Educational Leadership, March, 2012), lists six elements children should experience every day:

1. Every child reads something he or she chooses.

2. Every child reads accurately.

3. Every child reads something he or she understands.

4. Every child writes about something personally meaningful.

5. Every child talks with peers about reading and writing.

6. Every child listens to a fluent adult read aloud.

The passport to effective reading instruction for all students is in the hands of teachers.  (Pat Johnson and Katie Keier, Catching Readers Before They Fall.)