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2018-2019 Karcher Calendar
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Kudos
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- Kudos to all of our staff who assisted with Outdoor Education for our 8th grade students both at Camp Timberlee and at Karcher! Though some experiences were not open for students at Camp Timberlee you all did such an awesome job adjusting and still creating a great experience for our students. Thank you all!
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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
Chapter 1. The Fab Four: Reciprocal Teaching Strategies
Fab Four Classroom Poster (photo courtesy of Kara Collins)
Prediction is when you say what you think is going to happen in the book and you look at all the clues like the cover, pictures, and chapter headings.
—Rachael, 4th grade
Reciprocal teaching is a scaffolded, or supported, discussion technique that incorporates four main strategies—predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarizing—that good readers use together to comprehend text. Think about how you use these strategies in your own reading as an adult. For example, when you read an article in a newspaper, in a magazine, or on the internet, you probably first look at the visuals and skim as you predict what the piece is about. Then, as you read, you alternate between clarifying ideas and words by rereading and using other strategies such as asking questions or wondering about something you don't understand. You summarize throughout your reading and predict what will come next along the way. Good readers do all of this naturally every time they read.
How Reciprocal Teaching Fits into the Literacy Program
It is important to understand how the Fab Four strategies fit into an entire comprehensive plan for teaching reading comprehension. I like to think of reciprocal teaching as a "powerful reading vitamin" that ensures reading success and strengthens overall comprehension. The core reading program provides a healthy diet of comprehension from a broader list of strategies, but when students also benefit from at least two weekly doses of reciprocal teaching, they become stronger readers. In short, reciprocal teaching complements core reading instruction. In the schools in which I consult, reciprocal teaching is delivered alongside the other essential comprehension strategies.
Keep in mind that reciprocal teaching is a subset of a larger group of comprehension strategies. Reading is a complex, multifaceted process, and reciprocal teaching is designed to focus on only four of the most important strategies that good readers use to comprehend text (i.e., predict, question, clarify, summarize). Many researchers and educators provide a broader framework for teaching comprehension that includes the following eight strategies, which are necessary for teaching students to understand what they read (e.g., Harvey & Goudvis, 2017; McLaughlin & Allen, 2002; Oczkus, 2004; Pearson & Duke, 2002):
- Previewing: activating prior knowledge, predicting, and setting a purpose.
- Self-questioning: generating questions to guide reading.
- Making connections: relating reading to self, text, and world.
- Visualizing: creating mental pictures.
- Knowing how words work: understanding words through strategic vocabulary development, including the use of graphophonic, syntactic, and semantic cueing systems.
- Monitoring: asking whether a text makes sense and clarifying by adapting strategic processes.
- Summarizing: synthesizing important ideas.
- Evaluating: making judgments.
Although the names and total number may differ slightly, these strategies are founded on the same strong research base used to develop reading curriculum and standards. In my project schools, I work with the staff to teach one of the comprehension strategies from the broader list of eight strategies each week. We focus on that strategy during whole-class and small-group instruction and call it the "focus strategy of the week." Then the teachers select a regular time for students to employ the four reciprocal teaching strategies so they can experience the power of multiple-strategy instruction. The kid-friendly term I use for the broader list of comprehension strategies is the "Super Six," which include making connections, predicting/inferring, questioning, monitoring/clarifying, summarizing/synthesizing, and evaluating (Oczkus, 2004, 2009). By combining predicting and inferring, and synthesizing and summarizing, I've narrowed the list to a more manageable number of strategies. Note that visualizing is included in the clarifying step since good readers pause to clarify words by picturing the meanings in their heads.
The Super Six and Fab Four work together in the context of literacy instruction. The broader list of comprehension strategies provides a comprehensive framework for the entire literacy program. Textbook publishers often build programs around the list of six to eight strategies and suggest teaching one per week. The Fab Four is a subset of strategies that provides a framework or protocol for classroom discussions. All four strategies are used in concert with one another at least several times per week as a multiple-strategy technique. For example, in Mrs. Langham's 5th grade classroom, she posts the Super Six comprehension strategies on the wall and teaches one strategy each week with her basal reader and social studies text. The Fab Four is posted beside that list and is arranged in a circle, which demonstrates that these four strategies are a subset of the longer list and can be experienced in any order. Her students also enjoy the analogy that the Fab Four is a vitamin pill to boost reading skills, and the circular shape helps keep the metaphor alive. Mrs. Langham's students follow the Fab Four as a discussion protocol during literature circles with novels twice during the week.
A 1st grade teacher, Mr. Romero, displays the strategies in the same way. However, he uses a character for each of the reciprocal teaching strategies and displays props to represent and prompt each one. His students understand that when it is time to read with the Fab Four, they should employ all four strategies in the same lesson—which usually occurs during a read-aloud or partner reading. In this way, students benefit from ongoing instruction in all of the comprehension strategies as well as the Fab Four.
The Fab Four, though extremely effective, is not an entire literacy program. Students need more than just reciprocal teaching strategies. A 6th grade teacher at one of my schools recently announced, "Since my students are so needy and read well below grade level, I am abandoning everything else and only focusing on the Fab Four!" This teacher understood the research on reciprocal teaching and figured it was the lifeline his students so desperately needed. Even though his conclusion made sense, his students still need a wide variety of literacy experiences. With that in mind, I encouraged him to continue using the district-adopted materials that incorporate multiple reading skills and strategies and to use reciprocal teaching during guided reading and literature circles. This way, his students would benefit from many rich strategies and texts. (See Figure 1.1 for a list of resources on incorporating reciprocal teaching into your lessons.)
Figure 1.1. Resources on Lessons That Strengthen Reciprocal Teaching
Cooper, J. D., Boschken, I., McWilliams, J., & Pistochini, L. (2001). Soar to success: The intermediate intervention program. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Oczkus, L. D. (2008). The fabulous four: Reading comprehension puppets. Berkeley, CA: Primary Concepts.
Oczkus, L. D., & Rasinski, T. (2015). Close reading with paired texts (K–5 series). Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Education.
Taylor, B. M. (2011). Catching readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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The Fab Four: A Powerful Package for the Age of Standards
Reciprocal teaching strategies help educators effectively implement the type of close, evidence-based reading called for in any standards-based curriculum, including the Common Core State Standards. With an increase in both informational texts and more rigorous reading material, students need reciprocal teaching now more than ever to help them comprehend. Since reciprocal teaching is a discussion technique, many listening and speaking standards are naturally met. Each of the four strategies plays an important role in meeting a variety of standards:
- Predict: Students make predictions using evidence from the text, such as text features. Students also predict the author's purpose and text organization.
- Question: Students cite textual evidence and draw on multiple sources to ask and answer questions in order to understand the text better.
- Clarify: Students apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills to decode new and unfamiliar words. They rely on context to confirm, self-correct, and reread when necessary. They also analyze how parts of the text fit together and clarify by rereading or reading on to figure out confusing points, words, or phrases.
- Summarize: Students identify main ideas and details and compare and contrast the structure of a text to determine themes and summarize narrative text. They also integrate and evaluate information from the text and support their claims with text evidence.
Reciprocal teaching is considered a multiple-strategy approach since all four strategies need to be included in each session to yield the best results. Research indicates that strong readers employ more than one strategy at a time as they read (Reutzel et al., 2005). However, each of the four strategies comes with its own legacy of research and rigor that affects reading achievement. Once you've introduced reciprocal teaching to your students, it's possible to teach minilessons that focus on strengthening them independently.
Let's take a look at each of the strategies to see what they bring to the comprehension equation.
Predicting
Many students have been exposed to this popular strategy. Students often define predicting as a form of guessing, and they seem to enjoy making predictions. However, predicting goes beyond merely guessing and involves previewing the text to anticipate what may happen next. Readers can use text evidence and information from the text along with their prior knowledge to make logical predictions before and during reading (Pearson & Duke, 2002). The actual process of predicting differs when reading fiction or informational text (Figure 1.2). When reading fiction, students may consider the theme and characters' motives and feelings; when reading informational text, they need to pay attention to text features and the author's purpose.
Figure 1.2. Predicting with Fiction and Informational Text
Predicting with Fiction
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Predicting with Informational Text
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Many students experience problems with predicting because they share "bland" or simplistic predictions, such as "I think it is about a frog." After studying the title and cover of a book, students should first try to figure out if the author's purpose is to inform, persuade, or entertain. They can then make a stronger prediction based on that, such as "I think it is about how frogs are becoming endangered because …" They should also be able to provide information and clues from the text to support their more detailed predictions. Teacher modeling is essential, as is the use of sentence or strategy frames that students use to help guide their own thinking and discussion.
For both fiction and informational texts, it's important to stop periodically during the reading and ask students to gather clues to make predictions for the next portion of the text. Students need to understand that they can—and should—confirm or change their predictions while they read and gather new information from a text. Giving students the opportunity to preview what they read by discussing text features and using graphic organizers (such as a story map or Venn diagram) provides them with visual clues for predicting.
The language that students should use when making predictions includes the following phrases (Mowery, 1995; Oczkus, 2009). The word because is included so students will include text evidence and their own inferences as they predict:
- I think … because …
- I'll bet … because …
- I wonder if … because …
- I imagine … because …
- I suppose … because …
- I predict … because …
- I think I will learn … because …
- I think … will happen because …
Predicting is a strategy that helps students set a purpose for reading and monitor their reading comprehension. It allows students to interact with the text, and it makes them more likely to become interested in the reading material while simultaneously improving their understanding (Duffy, 2009; Duke & Pearson, 2002; Duke, Pearson, Strachan, & Billman, 2011; Fielding, Anderson, & Pearson, 1990). In my experience, students seem to enjoy predicting, and they do so with exuberance. The key is to scaffold the discussion so students will make logical and increasingly sophisticated predictions.
Questioning
Good readers ask questions throughout the reading process (Brigham, Berkeley, Simpkins, & Brigham, 2007; Cooper, 1993; Palincsar & Brown, 1986), but formulating questions is a difficult and complex task. Poor readers often become so lost they can't even begin to ask a question about the text, let alone answer a teacher's question. Questioning is an integral part of reciprocal teaching. Students pause throughout the reading to address questions that come up. There are many types of questions that are important for students to know how to ask and answer—from text-dependent questions, to wondering and hypothesizing about the topic, to asking author questions.
I often bring in a toy microphone to serve as a metaphor for questioning. During reading, we ask "game show questions" that can be answered or inferred using text clues. Many students begin by asking questions about unimportant details. However, as I continue to model question formulation and students share their own questions with the class, the quality and depth of their questions increase. I also model how to ask questions based on inferences and main points in a text. Finally, I model how to ask thinking or discussion-type questions, such as "Why do you think …?" or "How do you think …?" These question stems motivate students to discuss the text with one another, and questioning in general motivates students to interview, quiz, and challenge one another to think deeply about a text.
Younger students naturally wonder and ask questions about the world around them. When students are encouraged and taught to ask questions as they read, their comprehension deepens (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2001; Keene & Zimmermann, 2007). When students know—prior to reading—that they need to think of a question about the text, they read with an awareness of the text's important ideas. They automatically increase their reading comprehension when they read and generate questions (Lubliner, 2001).
Students also enjoy the opportunity to "be the teacher" and ask questions during reciprocal teaching discussions. For example, during guided reading sessions, try giving each student a sticky note to mark a portion of text that he or she wants to turn into a question. Then have students share their questions with one another and the larger group. Students need modeling to improve the quality and depth of their questions, but with practice, students learn to generate questions about main ideas and details and their textual inferences. I've found that questioning often becomes the favored strategy of many students.
- Who …?
- What …?
- Why …?
- Where …?
- When …?
- How …?
- What/How/Why do you think …?
Younger students and English language learners sometimes struggle with question formulation, so make a point of giving these students longer question starters or stems. For example, instead of inviting students to ask a question with just the word why, provide a longer stem for students to complete, such as "On page 10, why did the …?" (See Figure 1.3 for how the actual process of questioning differs when reading fiction or informational text.)
Figure 1.3. Questioning with Fiction and Informational Text
Questioning with Fiction
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Questioning with Informational Text
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Clarifying
Clarifying—or monitoring comprehension—involves more than just figuring out difficult words in a text (see Figure 1.4). A broader definition of clarifying includes keeping track of one's comprehension of the text and employing fix-up strategies to maintain meaning during reading. Research clearly indicates that monitoring is an important strategy that distinguishes strong readers (Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991). Unfortunately, many young readers don't recognize when meaning has broken down as they read (Routman, 2003). I once observed a creative 2nd grade teacher use a toy car and tool belt to help explain this concept to her students. She placed the toy car under a poem she had printed on a chart. Then, while she read it aloud, she pretended the car got stuck as she stopped at a difficult word or sentence to clarify. She wore a toy tool belt and pulled out various gadgets to help her clarify, including a pointer or "rereader" to go over confusing passages or words, a different pointer to read ahead for clues to figure out unfamiliar words, a word chopper for breaking words into known parts, and a glittery pair of glasses to help students visualize and make pictures in their minds. What a great metaphor for what it means to clarify while reading!
Figure 1.4. Clarifying with Fiction and Informational Text
Identifying the problem or breakdown in meaning:
Clarifying an idea/part/sentence/phrase:
Clarifying a word:
Clarifying to visualize or use other senses:
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Clarifying helps students monitor their comprehension as they identify problems, misunderstandings, and the meaning of new and unfamiliar words (Allington, 2001). It's also a complex strategy that involves two basic steps: (1) identifying or admitting that one is stuck on a word or idea, and (2) figuring out how to remedy the situation. Most students can easily identify words with which they need help deciphering, yet many are reluctant and embarrassed to admit that vocabulary or larger portions of text have caused them problems. A go-to strategy is to ask them to find a word (or part of a text) that they figured out but might be difficult for a younger student. Then ask them to describe how they would teach the word or passage to that younger reader. This is one of my favorite tried-and-true "tricks" for getting kids to open up and identify potential difficulties with a text. This works because students feel like they're doing it for someone else!
Although students can be taught to identify difficult words and work through them, it is far more difficult for some students to recognize unclear sentences, passages, or chapters. Perhaps these difficulties occur because, even though students can read every word in a given portion of text, they still do not understand the main idea of the reading. During reciprocal teaching, the teacher and students have an opportunity to share fix-up strategies that will help them construct meaning. I find it extremely helpful to model this approach using the strategy frame "I didn't get the sentence … so I …" Modeling with a document camera or interactive whiteboard, I then highlight an entire sentence and model how to reread, read on, and clarify meaning. Next, I ask students to find another sentence that is tricky and mark it using a sticky note. Using the strategy frame prompt encourages students and gives struggling readers and ELLs concrete language on which they can rely. Stephanie Tanner and Laurie Lawrence—two educators in Ohio—came up with a nice way to give their students "a bit of grace" with the frame "I wasn't sure about … but then I …"
Educators often wonder where the strategy of visualizing fits into the reciprocal teaching protocol. In my project schools, we weave sensory images into the clarifying step quite naturally. Think about what happens when you're reading and suddenly realize you're merely looking at the words; you're not really reading. You've stopped visualizing. This happens all the time! You quickly reread to get yourself back on track as you make a picture in your head. I ask students to use the clarify stem "I didn't get the part where … so I reread and visualized" (or smelled, tasted, felt, etc.).
Summarizing
Summarizing is a challenging strategy, so it's no wonder that students (and teachers) often moan and groan when we say, "Time to summarize!" Teaching students to summarize is a research-based, effective way to improve overall comprehension (Duke & Pearson, 2002). Reciprocal teaching provides students with many opportunities to exercise their summarizing muscles as they formulate frequent verbal summaries throughout the reading of a text. Summarizing is a complex process that requires the orchestration of various skills and strategies, including recalling important events and details, sequencing, paraphrasing, and using synonyms or selecting vocabulary. When summarizing a story, students may use the setting, characters, problem, events, and resolution to guide their summaries. By contrast, informational text requires students to determine important points or categories of information and arrange them in a logical order.
There are many creative ways you can engage students in summarizing. To provide more practice and improve students' abilities to summarize, try stopping more frequently throughout a text to allow students to share verbal summaries or dramatize text. You might ask them to select a favorite part of a chapter and sketch a quick drawing to represent that scene (Oczkus, 2009). Other students in the group can then share their favorite parts, and the group can place those scenes in order and practice putting together a group summary. Alternatively, students can write down five key points from an informational text and make up hand motions for each to be used in a physical, hand motion summary. The main point to remember is that summary practice doesn't have to be boring!
During reciprocal teaching, the teacher and students should take turns summarizing different parts of a text. Students may use the following prompts to guide their summaries:
- The most important ideas in this text are …
- This part was mostly about …
- This book was about …
- First …
- Next …
- Then …
- Finally …
- The story takes place …
- The main characters are …
- A problem occurs when …
- In the beginning/middle/end …
Summarizing is extremely important because strong evidence exists that practice in summarizing improves students' reading comprehension of fiction and informational text alike, helping them construct an overall understanding of a text, story, chapter, or article (Rinehart, Stahl, & Erickson, 1986; Taylor, 1982). In reciprocal teaching lessons, students are provided with frequent opportunities to benefit from others' summaries and participate in creating their own, which helps them become more proficient readers. (See Figure 1.5 for how the actual process of summarizing differs when reading fiction or informational text.)
Figure 1.5. Summarizing with Fiction and Informational Text
Summarizing with Fiction
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Summarizing with Informational Text
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Information/Reminders
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- Millie Ahler started this past week assisting some of our ESL students as an ESL aide. She will be starting at the high school and then will be here at Karcher from 10:20 - 12:00. If you have any questions please let Ryan or myself know! Again, welcome to the team Millie!
- A 5.83 special education aide position has been posted on WECAN for Karcher. If you know anyone that has interest in working here at Karcher and with our students please encourage them to apply!
- iReady App - Staff... starting with this testing window please make sure students are using the iReady App that has been pushed out to their computers for this testing window and for their time on iReady online during iTime, ALL, etc. This app is just like MAP was and does not allow students to navigate to other sites while in the iReady program.
- Other important iReady information:
- iTime Groups
- Academic teachers, to see your January iTime group within iReady you can login as yourself. In the past you may have logged in as your math or ELA team member but this round I did assign your group to your login so that is where you would see it in iReady. Last time you added your students to iReady, this time it has already been added for you as Kim and Jane assisted in adding each group I created. Everyone's group is labeled: Jan (your name) 2018... so... that is the report group you should be looking for.
- To find it here are the clicks to make in iReady if you forgot how to navigate:
- Reports - Class - Instructional Group - Pick Subject - Choose correct "Class/Report group" (Jan Name 2018).
- Then... you will see your students either all in one group, two, or max three groups. This is where you should be looking at the Tools for Instruction items for that group of students and designing/determining your lessons from there.
- Online instruction information:
- Student's online instruction currently is not accessible to any students at this time. The reason for that is because during a diagnostic window students do not have their online components available until they complete the Winter Diagnostic.
- Once they complete their math diagnostic then their online strands will appear in the same box that the diagnostic was.
- So... when you have them test they would login as they usually do and then click on the math or reading box but the test will be there now versus the online strands.
- This is also REALLY, REALLY important to talk with students about as they should NOT be on iReady during the testing window unless they are in their Math class or ELA class taking the assessments. Once they complete the math assessment then and only then can they click on the math icon and work on iReady at another time. We just don't want them completing their diagnostic in a non-testing environment.
- iTime and iReady...
- Because of the online not being on until the diagnostic is over this means you cannot have students during iTime working on iReady. What you could have them do is read an article or their ELA books while you are pulling a strategy group based on the Tools for Instruction materials on iReady.
- Once students complete their diagnostic then they can go on that icon and do online strands. So... during the ELA testing week students could go on their MATH iReady online instruction as they would be done with the math diagnostic.
- If any of this does not make sense to you please let me know and I can come talk to you or I will answer questions during PLC on Wednesday about iReady.
This week:
- Monday, January 7 - Start of iReady testing within our Math classrooms.
- Again, please make sure all students are using the iReady app for their diagnostic testing.
- In order to take the assessment students login and should see the two options for testing... math and reading.
- Monday, January 7 - District Essential Skills Committee meeting from 3:45 - 5:15 in our Karcher library.
- Monday, January 7 - Jon Nelson will be filling in for Ryan Heft starting Monday through February 1.
- Starting Tuesday, January 8 - Extended Advisory "Huddle Time" within our academic classes. Please take a look at the Karcher Calendar to see which periods are meeting on what days.
- 8th grade would like this time for ODE wrap up.
- 7th grade this is a great time to conference with students and ensure all students are caught up in your classes. If they are this is a good time for them to read for ELA.
- Reading Intervention with Riggs, Fulton, and Ebbers will still take place during this time so you will not have students in reading intervention in your academic period rotations during Huddle Time.
- Wednesday, January 9 - PLC in the library.
- Academic teachers: this week will focus on time for iTime planning. If you finish your planning you can use this rest of this time for your mid-year SLO adjustments. I know some of you are using iReady data but you an still get some it organized and ready, etc.
- Applied Academic teachers: We will meet in the conference room focusing on how we are continuing to infuse literacy into our classes while also utilizing the "I do it" component of the GRR model.
- Friday, January 11 - Flex time during Extended Advisory time.
- This is available for any staff wanting to meet with a group of students - thinking clubs, student council, etc. If you have a need for this please add your name, location, group, students that need to attend to THIS Google Document.
Pictures from the week!
Mrs. Murphy's, Mrs. Smith's, and Ms. Fulton's ELA classes collaborating by sharing infographics to encourage other students to read their book!
Outdoor Education!
