January 14, 2019

 

KARCHER STAFF BLOG

2018-2019 Karcher Calendar

Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/KarcherMiddleSchool/

BASD Staff Blog:  https://basdstaffnews.blogspot.com/

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Kudos

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• Kudos to Jon Nelson for his assisting this past week, especially since Steve Berezowitz and myself were back and forth with kids home with the flu!  Jon did a great job filling the counselor and admin role while we were out... thank you for being a team player!
• Kudos to Cynthia Orzula, Bobbi Smith and Chyrstal McVey for your flexibility and assistance this past week when we were short staff!  We truly appreciate your willingness to support any and all of our students!!!  

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Article this week...

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This article relates to our SQIDVPAC strategies, Essential Skills and the GRR Model.  

Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Powerful Strategies and Lessons for Improving Reading Comprehension, 3rd Edition

by Lori Oczkus

Chapter 1. The Fab Four: Reciprocal Teaching Strategies

Article continued from last week...

Essential Lesson Foundations and Gradual Release

Simply running through the mechanics of the four reciprocal teaching strategies is not enough to yield maximum growth in reading comprehension. In order to ensure that students internalize the Fab Four and use the strategies on their own, a strong gradual release model is essential (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983). Gradual release of responsibility is a research-based proven process that begins with teacher modeling and think-alouds, is followed by guided cooperative practice with feedback from the teacher and peers, and ends with independent practice and reflection (Fisher & Frey, 2007). The goal is to provide just the right dose of teacher support and know when to let up gradually so students become metacognitive and eventually able to employ the strategies on their own.

Regie Routman (2008) calls the gradual release model "I do. We do. You do. " We might increase our modeling with more challenging texts and include two "I dos" or increase the guided practice with a few more "we dos." Reciprocal teaching offers opportunities for providing students with plenty of meaningful feedback in every part of the lesson (Hattie, 2008). While modeling, students should talk to partners briefly and discuss their responses. During the guided practice and independent steps, the teacher and other students talk about the text and give one another feedback on ideas and strategy use. The landmark work of famous psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1934/1978) also supports reciprocal teaching discussions. His ideas focus on the importance of learning and social interaction. His well-known quote reinforces what we know about gradual release: "What a child can do in cooperation today, he can do alone tomorrow."

Gradual release applies to anything you're learning. For example, I attend yoga and carefully observe the teacher as she demonstrates various pretzel-like positions. Then, while I try to copy her models, she talks the class through each move. She circulates during guided practice and gives pointers or pushes a participant's limb further down or up as part of her coaching moves. Finally, we try practicing on our own while she continues circulating to provide feedback or corrections. After each sequence, I reflect on how well—or poorly, which is more often the case—I executed the poses. After a while, I notice that my joint pain is relieved if I attend twice a week. Think of reciprocal teaching like you would any sport or activity. You'll see more improvement the more you practice, especially when someone is giving you meaningful feedback and guidance! Gradual release applies to any learning situation where we watch, receive coaching, and practice on our own.

To provide teachers with concrete tools for building gradual release with reciprocal teaching, we incorporate the following four instructional foundations (Figure 1.6):

• Scaffolding
• Think-alouds
• Metacognition
• Cooperative learning

Figure 1.6. Overview of the Essential Lesson Foundations

Scaffolding	Did the students experience teacher modeling before guided practice? Is there supported guided practice with peers? Are grade level-appropriate visuals and supports (e.g., posters, charts, bookmarks, gestures, strategy starters, prompts) available to cue students to use the strategies? Does the teacher observe students using the reciprocal teaching strategies and give specific feedback to individuals and the group? Does the teacher adjust and plan instruction based on students’ needs? Is the text appropriate for the instruction? Is another needed?
Think-alouds	Did the teacher conduct one or more think-alouds and read aloud from the text? Did the teacher give a specific example(s) of one or more of the strategies and demonstrate his or her thinking? Did the teacher truly model and not just assign the strategies? Were students engaged during the think-aloud? Did they follow along in their copy of the text? Did they talk to partners about the example or annotate the text?
Metacognition	Did the lesson open with a quick review of the reciprocal teaching strategies and their definitions? Did the lesson end with a discussion of how the strategies helped students comprehend the text that day? Did students reflect on their strategy use? During reading, did the teacher and students discuss the "how to" steps for each of the strategies?
Cooperative learning	Did students work in pairs or groups to discuss the Fab Four? Were students required to participate and record their individual responses for accountability, or did they respond as partners or in teams? Did students follow the protocol for discussions, including making eye contact, taking turns, and adding on to one another’s comments?

In my project schools, we study these four foundations to improve our coaching sessions after classroom demonstrations or observations. When we strengthen the foundations, our lessons go from good to great and student growth soars. Sometimes, just a small adjustment to the lesson delivery makes an enormous difference. Here are some examples of situations where I worked with teachers to improve their lessons using the four foundations.

One 4th grade teacher did a great job scaffolding her lessons during guided reading groups by providing teacher modeling and giving time to reflect. She posted the strategies and stems for students to see during the lesson. However, she rarely if ever provided opportunities for students to speak to one another. When we discussed her lesson, she realized she was missing the cooperative learning piece and was just calling on individuals. In a later lesson, I observed her asking students to turn and talk to one another to find examples of the strategies in the text. She also taught basic group discussion rules such as making eye contact, taking turns, and piggybacking. Her 4th graders' reading scores shot up, with most jumping two grade levels in just five months! Discussion really does promote comprehension (Lapp, Flood, Ranck-Buhr, Van Dyke, & Spacek, 1997).

An 8th grade science teacher put students into teams to read articles and textbook chapters together while taking on the roles of predictor, questioner, clarifier, and summarizer. She had complained that students were "stuck" and seemed bored with the process. After observing, I suggested that she model for three to five minutes at the beginning of class using a challenging example and applying one of strategies. Then I told her to check in after the groups met to discuss student examples of the same strategy. Besides making group posters and presentations, each student filled in a four door chart for the chapter or article and used the Fab Four bookmarks to guide their responses and discussions. By providing more explicit teacher modeling while tightening scaffolding and accountability, students participated with more enthusiasm and urgency.

Keep these building blocks in mind when introducing and extending reciprocal teaching lessons in any setting—from whole-class groupings to literature circles. The four foundations work together in the following ways to make lessons successful:

• The teacher models using constant think-alouds.
• Students work in cooperative pairs or teams to practice on their own.
• The teacher provides the right amount of scaffolding, which might include a language frame or prompt (e.g., "I didn't get … so I …").
• The lesson includes a sufficient amount of metacognition so students and the teacher can discuss the steps involved in each strategy and identify which one was most helpful.

When I demonstrate and coach lessons, I ask teachers to watch carefully for each of the foundations that support students as they employ reciprocal teaching strategies. Please note that for each of the four foundations, I've included a classroom example to show how it enhances the reciprocal teaching lessons and—ultimately—comprehension.

Scaffolding Is the Art of Teaching

Scaffolding is often considered the skilled "art" of teaching. Before any instruction takes place, we must consider students' strengths and needs. Then we study the required text and standards and consider how to scaffold the lesson to create multiple ways for students to access the material. Scaffolding reading instruction is similar to teaching a child how to ride a bicycle. He or she begins by watching other people ride bicycles to get the idea and motivation. Then a parent or other adult holds on to the bicycle's seat and guides the child for a time. Eventually, the adult lets go of the seat but remains nearby (possibly even running next to the bicycle) in case support is needed. Finally, the child pedals away on his or her own.

During reciprocal teaching, instruction is clearly scaffolded, or supported. Students see models of the four strategies, experience some "seat holding" as they try out reciprocal teaching in a supported environment, and finally work independently as they read and use reciprocal teaching strategies to help them comprehend the text. Every time students are engaged in reciprocal teaching, they have the opportunity to participate in scaffolded instruction. Modeling, support, and feedback are integral steps of the reciprocal teaching model. Therefore, students are propelled to the next reading level as the support they receive guides them through more difficult texts and reading tasks.

Concrete scaffolds support students as they try out the strategies. Optional supports, such as characters, props, or hand motions, represent each strategy. Visual scaffolds include icons, bookmarks, and posters with relevant language clearly displayed so students can refer to it as they use the strategies with peers and on their own. These tools also provide you with ways to prompt students as they practice the reciprocal teaching strategies in a variety of texts.

Classroom Example. Mrs. Valentino reads aloud from a 2nd grade basal text and stops to model her predictions after reading the first page. She uses the strategy frame "I think … because …" and bases her prediction on the events that just occurred in the text. She explains the rationale or evidence for her prediction by rereading a portion of the text and then asks students to turn to a partner and use the frame to discuss predictions and text evidence. She continues modeling, using the strategy frames for clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. When partners work together to practice the strategies, they use their bookmarks and a classroom poster with icons and strategy frames to guide their discussions. (These materials will be discussed in Chapter 2.)

Scaffolding the Reciprocal Teaching Discussion During Guided Reading (Animal Architects [2012] by Timothy Bradley used with permission from Teacher Created Materials.)

Think-Alouds Make Comprehension Visible

Reciprocal teaching was designed as a discussion technique in which think-alouds play an integral part. Think-alouds are a research-based method of improving comprehension (Baumann, Jones, & Seifert-Kessell, 1993; Wilhelm, 2001). Think-alouds show students what a good reader is thinking while reading, which again provides scaffolding toward developing good reading comprehension. In reciprocal teaching lessons, both students and the teacher participate in thinking aloud.

The steps to reading comprehension are less tangible than, say, the steps to solve a math problem, so this type of instruction may be new to teachers and students alike. Successful reciprocal teaching gives students ongoing opportunities to witness and conduct think-alouds using the four strategies. Teacher modeling in the form of think-alouds should occur every time students engage in reciprocal teaching lessons and should be conducted by the teacher and students, who can take turns verbalizing the use of the strategies. This method allows students to see more clearly the steps to create understanding while reading. Figure 1.7 shows the steps to good think-alouds (Oczkus, 2009).

Figure 1.7. Think-Aloud Steps

1. Introduce the strategy.	Ask students what they know about the strategy and how it helps them. Define the strategy (e.g., "Questioning is when …") and its importance. Use a prop, such as a toy microphone, for questioning.
2. Model each strategy with an interactive think-aloud.	Think aloud using a specific example from the reading material (e.g., "When I read this, I [predict, question, clarify, summarize]" or "Watch me as I summarize the chapter so far."). Use strategy prompts.
3. Provide support and guided practice.	Guide students to work together on an example of the strategy in the text. Have pairs or teams of students turn and talk and find examples. Circulate to assist and lead a class discussion to share.
4. Provide independent practice.	Have students look for examples to share later with their pairs or groups.
5. Wrap up.	Ask students what they learned about the reading and which strategy helped them the most as they read, predicted, questioned, summarized, and clarified.

Classroom Example. Mr. Clark's 5th graders pull out their weekly news magazines and prepare to read about earthquakes. Mr. Clark reads aloud the first column of the page-long article and pauses to model his thinking. After asking his students what they know about summarizing, he rereads the text, tells how he selects the important key points, summarizes, and asks students to turn and share a summary with their partner. Mr. Clark continues alternating between modeling aloud and allowing partners to turn and chat about the remaining three strategies: predict, question, and clarify. The students read the rest of the article independently and share questions, words, or sentences to clarify with their partners. To end the lesson, Mr. Clark asks his students to reflect on which strategy helped them the most in understanding earthquakes.

Build a Metacognitive Sandwich

Metacognition is the awareness of one's own thinking processes (Brown, 1980). The think-aloud process goes hand in hand with metacognition, as students talk about their thinking and how they use predictions, questions, clarifications, and summaries. As the teacher, you can lead your students by sharing how the strategies have helped you comprehend a given text. Think of comprehension lessons as "metacognitive sandwiches," because you begin the lesson with an objective—such as a minilesson on predicting—and end with a student-led review of how the strategy helped them.

I find that most students can name the strategy that helped them most during the lesson but find it difficult to describe how or why. When you first ask students to explain how a particular strategy helped them, you will need to provide explanations and assistance. For example, when a student replies that predicting helped him most but can't explain why, you might add, "Predicting helps us stay interested in the text so we keep on reading to see what happens next." Eventually, students will begin to explain their strategy use without as much prompting.

Another technique I really like to use, especially with elementary-aged students, is to ask, "Which strategy did you like using the most today?" Students tend to answer this one with zeal. For example, one 1st grader told me she liked questioning because we used the toy microphone, it was fun, and it made her feel smart. What could be better than that?

A discussion rich with metacognitive thinking will include student comments such as these:

• Prediction helped me the most today because it got me interested in the reading.
• Clarifying helped me figure out the word citizen. I thought of the word city, and I reread the sentence to see what made sense.
• Summarizing helped me remember all of the important events in the story.
• I had to reread the book to get the main idea so I could ask a question.

Metacognition is an integral component in reciprocal teaching, because students learn to consciously think about and reflect on their strategy use. Ultimately, all students are trained to employ the same strategies good readers use when monitoring their reading comprehension.

Classroom Example. The students in Mrs. Carr's 4th grade class finish reading a social studies lesson on the California Gold Rush. She asks students to reflect on how the Fab Four helped them understand the text. Sammy says that summarizing several times throughout the reading helped him remember the main points. Kadeem felt that clarifying using the frame "I didn't get the sentence, so I …" helped him reread to make sure he understood the hardest concepts. Questioning was fun for Sara as she stumped her group members, who were forced to reread and infer to answer her question. Kendra enjoyed scanning the text and studying the pictures and captions before reading to make predictions.

Cooperative Learning: Discussion Is the Key

Because reciprocal teaching is intended to be a discussion technique, cooperative learning is an essential part of what makes the technique work. When students engage in purposeful talk with one another, they expand their thinking about a text (Fisher & Frey, 2008), and cooperative learning serves as a way for students to deepen their reading comprehension, especially in content-area texts (Armbruster et al., 2001). Cooperative learning also provides opportunities for struggling readers and ELLs to participate in discussions, even when the text may be above their reading level. This instructional foundation may include "turn and talk" opportunities with partners, triads, and table groups. Although in this book I show how to make quick-write tools, such as sticky notes or a four door foldable (which students use to record their ideas for each of the strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing), keep in mind that the positive research results were achieved with reciprocal teaching as an oral discussion technique—not with lengthy writing assignments. If you wish to achieve positive growth in your students' comprehension, it's imperative to provide time for cooperative discussions using reciprocal teaching. Keep the writing to a minimum with the purpose of prompting discussions.

The cooperative nature of reciprocal teaching is an important part of the scaffolded instruction, think-alouds, and metacognition inherent to the approach. Even when I teach whole-class lessons, I incorporate quick activities that require students to turn to a partner and engage in more cooperative learning practices, which occurs when students and teachers think aloud and give voice to their metacognition. According to Kagan (1989), cooperative learning needs to encompass positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation, and simultaneous interaction. When students participate in reciprocal teaching lessons, they are held accountable for their role and have ample opportunities to participate.

If the class is reading a social studies text, I may model a summary of a portion of it and ask partners to work together to create a summary for the next section. When reading a novel as a class, groups of students may be assigned a strategy to report on to the class. Even during guided reading group sessions, I might have pairs ask each other their questions after reading. Cooperative learning is, of course, already in place during literature circles when students work together to construct a recording sheet that includes their group members' collaborative efforts for predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing.

Classroom Example. After each two-page spread of the 6th grade science text, Mrs. Fox pauses to model the use of the Fab Four. She selects one of the four strategies to model with a think-aloud and then asks students to turn and talk to partners as they work their way through a verbal summary, quiz questions, and words and ideas to clarify. They also take a quick look to predict what the next pages will cover. Mrs. Fox circulates around the room to assist and prompt each group as students work cooperatively. Each student records a question, a word to clarify, a prediction, and a one-sentence summary on a four door chart

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Information/Reminders

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• Certified Staff:  This email was sent this past week from Connie Zinnen about life time licenses... just wanted to make sure everyone saw this... 
• Earlier this fall certified staff were made aware of the new lifetime license provision.  At that time, DPI was still in the process of determining all of the logistics of the conversion of licenses and the federal guidelines, which included a background check every five years.  The details have now been worked out and some of you may have already received your e-mail from DPI indicating the need to apply for the background check.  The e-mail will look similar to what is included below.
• If you have received the e-mail, you will need to comply with the timeline provided to you.  If you did not receive an e-mail then you are not required to complete a background check at this time and will receive the e-mail when your renewal date approaches.  
• Hope this helps to provide clarification for those of you who have received this notification.
• Wis. Admin Code s. PI 34.041 (4) requires educators who hold a valid Lifetime license to submit a request to the department to have a new background check conducted once every five years. The request shall be made between January 1 and June 30 of the fifth year since the individual's last background check.  The most recent background check that DPI has on file for you is:  _________. You are due to submit a background check to DPI in order to maintain your Lifetime license.  You must submit this background check to DPI by June 30, 2019, to maintain your Lifetime license.  
• The Request Background Check - Lifetime Licensee [5900] application will be available January 2, 2019.  Follow the Application Directions for Background Check to Maintain Lifetime License to submit your background check.  
• Upcoming iReady Training - January 30.
• We were not able to pick our training date due to the trainers schedule... the training is set for January 30. We will start the training after the morning assembly with 8th grade having the training first in the morning and then 7th will be in the afternoon.
• I do not have the exact time we will be switching for the training but will work on getting that determined this week.
• The following people will be paired up to share a sub for the day. The FIRST person listed below please enter your sub request in the employee portal and ReadySub ASAP to ensure we have subs for everyone - please request a full day sub noting in the notes that they will be your partner teacher in the afternoon:
• Sturdevant/Hancock
• S. Rummler/Botsford
• Geyso/Murphy
• Jones/Tenhagen
• Weis/Berezowitz
• Schmidt/Ferstenou
• K. Rummler/Smith
• Stoughton/Jorgenson
• Riggs/Varnes (Riggs.. we will have you attend with 7th in the morning)
• Fulton/Thate
• Ebbers/Zeman
• Newholm/Bekken

This Week:

• Monday, January 14 - iReady ELA Diagnostic week.  
• Please be cognizant that testing is taking place this week within our ELA classes so that we provide a quality testing environment for our students.  
• This week - AIMSweb testing will also be taking place so you may have some students pulled from ALL or electives in order to get some of their benchmarking done.  
• Monday, January 14 - The grading window for term 2 is open... closes on January 25 @ 3:30.  
• Monday, January 14 - BLT Meeting from 2:40 - 3:30.  
• We have a lot on the agenda!  I sent you all an email about this meeting so if you want more details please look for that email!  
• I did add an additional BLT meeting for January 28 in order to ensure everything we want and need to talk about we are able to!  I would like to update more on the referendum during the January 28 meeting so please add this to your calendars.  
• Tuesday, January 15 - Start of new iTime rotation... this rotation is 4 weeks long.  
• Just a reminder to be on the Fall 2018 tab within iReady to see your group.  
• All Advisory Teachers:  
• The advisory list for where to send your students for iTime will be in your mailboxes sometime on Monday.  The goal was this past Friday but some adjustments were still taking place so we held the sheets until Monday.  
• Here is the Excel Document for the iTime Rotation.  
• Tuesday, January 15 - Math Meet @ UW Whitewater with Mike Jones and Grace Jorgenson.  
• Group will be leaving at 7:30 and returning at 2:30.  
• Mike Jones will be sharing the students who are attending on Monday.
• Wednesday, January 16 - PLC in the library - we will be focusing on learning more about the "We do it" portion of the GRR Model as a team.  

Pictures from the week!

Home wrestling this past week!

Examples for the need for collaborative space in the 6-8 new construction!

Even a student down past the doors...