 We know that when we look intently into the eyes and the heart of a kid, we can make a difference. It's how much we know about that kid, how much we know about that family, how we embrace them and respect them and own them and share them with others. But always with the peace that says, because you are you, it is my job to figure out how to help you become more of a reader. And person and all those other things. But there's that peace that it's when we get to the heart of it, we can make that difference. And so that's the peace that no matter what's going on. And when we look at the research and we look at some of the other pieces that I really want you to keep thinking about is that and when you're thinking about how do you choose the student in the classroom and you know what are the things that you do that make a difference. Who is it going to be that you're really going to get inside their soul this year because that'll make the difference. And every single person in this room can actually do that. So that's the most important message. Now here's the other piece that if you need to talk to somebody about how this fits in with the BC Ed Plan, this is called personalized learning. When you look into the individual kid, you don't need to have a new computer program. You don't need to have a computer. You don't need to take down the walls of your building. You don't have to do any of those things. What you have to do is get to the kid and make it work for them. That's personalizing. That's the heart of personalizing. And so that's a piece, you know, sometimes we get caught in the political piece and are you doing this and how does it all fit in. So those are the two big things that I thought about the most this morning as everybody was talking. And so you can see I haven't even had a chance to turn one of my slides and Laura, they're just like yours. Nice and developing as we go in terms of the glory that comes with it. So that's the first piece. Now, here's what I want you to be thinking about. And I didn't, I've been thinking about what would the learning intentions be for ages and ages and ages. And Art was looking over my shoulder this morning. You notice that I'm still working on my presentation because I was changing my learning intentions as people were talking. As I thought, okay, I don't think that's what we're really trying to do this afternoon. So I think this is what we're trying to do. Okay, so the first one by the end of this afternoon and it may be by the end of tomorrow afternoon. We want to leave thinking that I can find evidence. I, as the learner, okay, can find evidence of current reading research in my practice. Okay, because when we start looking at the research and what it is that makes a difference in reading. So to Susan Close's phrase would be standing on the shoulders of research when we're looking at the research that others have done well beyond our province and well beyond the jurisdiction of our own classrooms. I can find evidence of what I'm doing in that research. But I can also become curious because that's the inquiry piece that makes a difference with our teaching. I can also become curious about something that's in the research that I might be able to pull and put into my classroom. Now this isn't about finding a program. It's about finding those kids. That's the part first. Finding those kids, finding out what they can do and thinking about what they need to do next and then saying what is it that research and other practice tells us that I can pull from to bring in to meet the needs of the kids. Given who it is that I am and what it is that I know at this point. The second piece is I can consider the impact of my language on my learning community. Many of us read Peter Johnson's book Choice Words a few years ago and he's so eloquent in thinking about the impact of the language that we use and how that changes what's happening in learning. He has a new book out called Opening Minds which just came out in 2012 so I'm trying to sound like I'm really, really current and even more current because it was my first e-book which I got. This is a little side bird walk but I'll help you remember it's the story part. So I get my first e-book. It's called Opening Minds by Peter Johnson. It's again a brilliant take on what we do with the language in the classroom and how it impacts and how kids learn. I order it the day before we leave on our holidays and I manage to do that successfully and it pops up on my desktop and I think I am getting so smart. And then I go away on my holidays. I think that it's important to have it on my desktop just in case I want to read it while I'm away. Well of course I don't actually look for it until I'm home again but I look for it and it's no longer on my desktop. So if you happen to be like me which is I'm sure the minority and you've never ordered an e-book before you have to open it on your desktop and then you have to save it and do something else. It didn't ever really figure out what that was. Otherwise it disappears. So then I had to phone the publisher and say I did actually order this book and it seems to have gone and I can't figure out how to get it back. Do I need to order it again? She said is it your first time? And I was expecting, comma, dear at the end. I said it is. But she said well yes, I'll send it to you again. So anyway, when you do that it's even cheaper than getting a paper book but it's not the same as reading it. In your hands but it's that piece of it's never too late to learn something and you can still highlight on it which is good but your notes don't fall out the same as post-its. But he talks about language and the language that we choose. And that's the second learning intention. And this is an intention that I'm hoping transcends what I'm talking about this afternoon to what you're thinking about the whole two days that we're here and that we continue to take back with you to the classroom about when you talk about kids, when you talk about learning, when you talk about school, our language choice colors the picture that everybody else gets. And it colors the way we think about what it is that we're doing. So that's the second learning intention today is to think about the language that you'll hear me using and some of the language that you'll hear others use and how that impacts on the way you change your view and continue with your view of what's going on in schools. And lastly, I'm hoping that by the end of today and the end of tomorrow you're leaving with a question, something that you're not sure about, something that you're thinking, you know, Laura said, they said do it, go do it. But you know, so that's nice, I like that part a lot. But there's also the piece where you're thinking, well, face it, do it, and I'm not so sure. But I want you to leave with that piece too. So even with the research piece, I've only chosen research that is well substantiated research. And I've chosen some because I think it's provocative and I've chosen some because I think it makes us feel better. It supports the stuff that we're doing. I think that's an important thing. I'm thinking yes, but. And what about and what if so that those pieces are coming in there too. So those are the three things. They are, you know, semi-concrete and semi-specific. And that's, you know, by the end of today, that's what you need to be thinking about. And we are going to start with some research first because I know there's no way I can be doing research according to three. But we're going to try and do that in a way that keeps you talking and thinking and relating it to what's going on in the jurisdiction that you're working with and the kids that you work with. So I'm going to give you a series of quotes and I'm going to ask you to talk about them in some different ways. And with each quote when I give it to you, I would like you to think about sort of these three phrases or words. The first piece is what would happen if if I took this statement, this research statement or this quote that comes up on the screen and I believed it and put it into practice, what would happen? What would look the same? What would look differently? And because you need sort of open instructions each time something like this comes up, I want you to think about it in terms of as you're thinking about what would happen if. How much of this do I actually believe? How much of these pieces do I think, oh, I'm not so sure about that. And what do I think this looks like in practice? Or what might it look like in practice? It's kind of like a big sort of loosey-goosey framework that's going to come around each of the pieces as we're going. Does that make sense? Okay, good job. So, here's the first one. Richard Allington. Richard Allington was here last March with the Special Ed Association. Hands up if you heard him when he was there. So he's been one of those people. You know how you have these different people in your life that influence you in different ways? I love the work that Dick Allington does. My previous hero was Pearson, David Pearson, because I think he synthesizes research and puts it into an accessible way better than almost anybody. And then along comes Dick Allington, and he kind of sashes in, and he does what Pearson does, except he's ruder. A lot ruder. David sort of walks and tries to make sure that everybody is still happy and gets along as they're going, and Allington is just sort of turning off people as he goes, because he doesn't care who he affects for what I guess my who knows why. We can all have our theories on that. But when he was here in March, what he did was he did a repeat presentation. He did a full day's presentation on what he had done as a keynote at the International Reading Association in May of 2011. And he spent a day sort of uncovering what was current and what he thought made a difference. And he started off, well, he didn't start off with his statement, but he should have started off with his statement because everything else was premised on it. We have good evidence that virtually every child who enters an American kindergarten can be reading on grade level by the end of the first grade. And so he'd been talking for a bit before he popped that up, and I thought, okay, now that's a bit presumptuous. You know, because we did have Gordon running around saying grade four, and I thought that was a bit rude. And then along comes Allington, and he says grade one, and I thought, oh, you've got to be kidding. You know, like settle down. We know we can make a difference, but let's be reasonable about what's happening. But think about the framework again. What would happen if? And how much of this do you believe? And how much of this do you see in practice? So hold on to that piece. Now, what the Americans are saying is that they're going to have this all accomplished by 2014. Otherwise, schools are going to lose funding because that always makes a difference to moving education forward. So it's good that Linda thinks that we're going to do it by 2017 and not remove funding because, you know, that seems a little bit more humane away and perhaps proactive in moving forward. But so think about that part. Now, a lot of this is based on three different studies that have been done at, you can see the different points in time. In these classes, in the places where these were studied, three major studies that they've looked at, there were common elements in the classes where all kids succeeded. And these were the common elements. So again, be thinking about that in terms of belief and practice and what would happen if. Every successful intervention study used either one-on-one expert tutoring or one-to-three very small group expert reading instruction. Now, notice that there's no definition of the kind of program they're using. They're just saying that there is some kind of intervention, a word which I don't like. I just think this happens to be teaching, but they're looking at one-on-one or one-to-three for kids who need some more time. And that was common to the studies. None of them used a scripted reading program. None of them used a scripted reading program. Now, this also goes back to the grade one studies that were done about six or eight years ago when they looked at the grade one studies and they studied the classrooms where all kids were successful compared to classrooms where some kids struggled and they followed those kids for three years later. None of the classrooms used a scripted reading program. So I'm going to do that one one more time. Any form of scripted reading program for any kids, particularly kids who struggle. If you did have to use a scripted reading program, the group that you'd want to have it is the kids who were already reading because you couldn't hurt them. The scripted reading programs are not there to make a difference. I mean, the publishers say they are and they say they've got research to support them, but the research is done by researchers who are connected to the publishers. They're not done by outside researchers. They're not done by the Sharon saying, let's have a look and see what's going on. They're done by people who've already published the program and then they get themselves to look at it and make a difference. If we're trying to make a difference in reading, scripted reading programs don't make a difference. According to the research. I might be wrong, according to the research. All of the students engaged, kind of a key word, were inactively involved with real reading for at least two-thirds of the lesson. So big chunks of time, real reading, were involved in reading, not reading like activities, for the majority of the lesson. Still making sense? So one more piece and then remember the part where I said you could get to talk. In grade one and two, the lessons were there were 90-minute lessons, a minimum of 90-minute lessons. And of that time, 60 minutes was on reading. And sometimes this reading is interpreted as sort of a reading writing piece because they're so reciprocal, but it's on, again, the real meaning-making task and 30 minutes on skill, which would be related to the reading. So words that were related to the reading, decoding that was related to the reading, but it all came back. It wasn't sort of a separate practice that was being done at the site, but there were still 60 minutes. Now again, notice the time, 60 minutes that was spent on reading. Still working on having their kids be exposed to reading books in their hands, at least six books at school and at least six books after school. So you could read the same book several times. You could read two books several times. You could have six different books, but the bottom message in there, books. One little book is not going to do it. It's a bunch of little books in here. So when they're talking about, and some of them are a bit sort of random, they don't necessarily fit into a fluid context, but that's okay. So this is a piece when we talk, we often hear high success reading described or kids need to have text in their hands that they can read easily and well and the high success reading seems to float around in different definitions. So the current definition is high success is 99% accuracy, reading in phrases, and with 90% comprehension. So remember when we used to say to kids, if you're picking up a book in the library and just look through that book and read a little bit and just count. And when you get to five, that's probably not going to be a good match. Well if you get to five and you haven't finished the book, then maybe that's not a good match, but you only get to get to one in a hundred words before it starts to affect your comprehension. Because if you're working at having your kids become better comprehenders, which would be the whole point of reading, not just sounding good, but actually knowing what you're reading about or being able to find information or being able to read to get a question, then it is about understanding that there's really nothing to talk about in that. It's fluency only counts if it's helping your understanding, being super fluent and not being able to understand what you read means you're not reading. So it is all about understanding and if we want our kids to get better at the understanding, they need big chunks of time practicing in books that they can read, which is 99% accuracy. Throughout the day, remember the intervention word that we're just going to ignore? It's throughout the day for every kid are we engaging them in high success reading opportunities. Now that doesn't mean that you're only going to spend time reading these kinds of books because we have to set you up to do that but we want all of the kids to have that opportunity as the day goes on. So here's another piece. This is from the What Works Clearing House. They looked at 153 reading programs and they said, so let's look, this is doing the really academic piece, the statistical piece on it and said, okay, so what actually makes a difference? Which of these reading programs make a difference? And you can pretty much name any program you choose. And we'll put dibbles in there as an example. But you can put any program in there that you'd like and only one made a statistical difference on improving kids' achievement in reading. And can you guess what the one was? Reading recovery. Reading recovery, the only one. Nothing else showed up. And if they weren't actually on the list of 153, it was because there wasn't enough reliable research to support it even entering the list. Now that's pretty significant because there's an awful lot of glossy stuff out there and there's glossy stuff floating around in our province and living and growing in different spots. And I hear testimonials about this is making a difference. It's always making a difference for the struggling readers. It's never making a difference for the good readers because that's who we give the stuff to. But I'm coming back to the piece of if you want to make a difference in reading, two-thirds of the time needs to be spent in reading. Not on doing stuff. Because the goal is comprehension as we're going through. So reading recovery is the one that makes the difference. Now here's my, this is not what the research says. This is the personal opinion piece on reading recovery. I believe it's because reading recovery is all about teaching. And reading recovery is all about teachers having a mental model of what is reading. And saying I know what I think reading is and I'm going to use that model of reading to help these kids become that kind of reader. I'm not waiting for somebody outside to say this is what reading is, go do this. I'm as the teacher in reading recovery making the decisions based on what I know as a mental model about reading as having a process theory about reading and matching that up with the individual kid who's sitting in front of me. And I'm not going to use words because it's teacher skill. It's teachers as professionals. It's teachers as thoughtful, interactive beings making a difference with each kid. So the work that goes on with Kathy could be slightly different than the work that goes on with Elizabeth could be slightly different than the work that goes on with the next person because it's personalized. But it's all pulled from the same theory of I as a teacher know what counts in reading. Another favorite book of mine and I actually saw somebody had this today and I'm trying to remember who had this book and I've got a little bibliography for you at the end. So this is Catching Readers Before They Fall. And this is one of those books that you wished you'd written. So, oh there it is, how to go Lisa Catching Readers Before They Fall. And what they talk about in here and this is looking at what do we do to support those young readers so they don't become the group that's been left behind. Remember when in primary program we used to say you've got a little bit of time to develop as a primary student? Rather than you have to be at this place by the end of grade one you have to be at this place by the end of grade two that would be the part of the Ellington quote at the beginning. You've got a little bit of time to get here. And let's not worry about intervening with kids in kindergarten and grade one when they haven't even had a chance to be yet. That's supporting peace with everybody as they come through. So what these two authors talk about in their book is that whole premise and I think it ties back to a classroom teacher's version of reading recovery it's about having a reading process system. So if somebody's not coming into reading easily it's because they haven't developed a system. And so that what our job is is to help them develop the system. Not to give them the bits not to go through a series of comprehension strategies not to go through a series of word attack strategies not to go through a series of spelling strategies but to help them develop a system for approaching text. And so that's one of the pieces that I would like to think about as we're going. And then as our job as teachers then is to help kids work and support them in developing that system. So then we're always asking two questions. Really complicated questions. The first one is did that make sense? Then to ask to us this morning when they've been talking about something I think I've already said it once somebody said to me once you sure say that a lot when you're talking that what it's my check-in. Did that make sense? And that's what I'm saying to kids. If I'm reading to them and I'm trying to explain something to them then I'm saying to them did that make sense? Because if I get the look back from them of what are you talking about now? Or was that a question? Was I really supposed to respond? Then it clearly didn't make sense. And so I need to adjust something. And if they're reading to me and it's not sounding quite right then I need to say back to them. Did that make sense? Because that's what I'm hearing when I'm sitting side by side with them and they're reading. And if it's kind of bumping along and there's different stuff going on my first question always is is that making sense to you? Does that make sense? Because if it doesn't then we need to fix it up. But if the child doesn't own that and own that question then that needs to be where I'm starting. If they're waiting, and that's how many of them are when we start is they're waiting because they think that's my job. It's my job to tell them that it did it or it didn't make sense but it's not my job. It's their job. It's my job to help them learn that it's their job to have that question in their head. Did that make sense? And the second question and again it's that side by side piece that's so important. When you're reading and kids stop and self-monitor or sound out a word or self-correct or reread or do the Valley Girl piece with the question at the end of the sentence then the piece that I want to say to them is that I notice that your brain is working on this because you're thinking I need to make a change and you did something differently. How did you figure that out? Because that's when they're getting control over their processes. So the first thing you need to know is did it make sense and the second thing we want to be asking them is how did you figure it out? Because that's the executive control. You see now I need to be doing that with my whole class so I'm modeling it with my whole class about this is what I'm doing it. I need to be doing that with my small groups and I need to be doing that in those same two questions every time I sit side by side with the kid and read with them which is every moment I've got all day long. Not just in that 19 minute period or the two hour period any kind of text that's roaming by our class at any point in time and all those big chunks that we give to kids to get in with books and text to move around then I'm moving around and sitting beside them and saying can we just read this bit? How to choose this book? Why to choose it? Does it make sense? Wow! How do you know? And when you figure something out how are you figuring it out? Because the more they develop that language the more when they sit and buddy read or do something side by side with somebody else or work with a partner then they've got the language to go instead of just correcting for the other kid to say to them how did you figure that out? Because that's where you get the strategies back. So the strategies aren't just about comprehension the strategies are about how we work with the process of reading all day long. What does that piece look like? And so it comes to a really simple piece. Meaning, structure and visual information and in that order I don't think there's a whole bunch of life that's about sequence and I think there's very little in reading that's about sequence but I do think this part is about sequence it is always meaning first meaning is the driver. So when I'm looking at the process of reading when I'm looking at teaching reading with kids whether it's kindergarten or grade four or grade 12 it's meaning first and that's the first big structure that we work with and my question is does that make sense? And my second piece my second process that we're working with is language structures does that sound right? And think about the kids that you work with because this is an important question does that sound right? If the line in the text says he went out and the child reads he go'd out and the child talks he go'd out it is working in a language structure way for him. It's not working in a visual piece yet but it's working in a language structure way because it's making sense Tick, that's the first thing we want to have happen but what the child's doing is making the text sound like the way he thinks the language sounds because that's the way he speaks and so there's a piece in there that's a language structure that again we have to go back and think where do you want to spend most of your time? I'm going to go back to the meaning piece and then the structure piece next and the third piece is the visual information piece and that's when we're looking at what does it look like on the page? So if I go back to the he go'd out you might see to the child you know, it makes sense to me it sounds like you're talking but let's put our fingers on each one of these words and see if it matches with the sounds we know in letters he go'd what do you think go'd's going to start with? some kind of go'd letter so you got some choices in there because it's English but do you see a go'd in this word that's starting with the w? maybe we need to look at that one again but notice that the visual came last I think when I'm moving around and I know we do it because we're trying so hard to see a change with the kids that we're trying to support the most I think that still one of the things that happens is that when kids need more support we start at the bottom first and so we start at the part that I think is the hardest to do because it has no context it's all made up stuff that doesn't fit into any kind of thing that makes sense because they came into the classroom talking and walking and laughing and smiling and being able to live their lives and then if we focus too much on the visual information we're going from the hardest first we need to start on the sense piece and bring the visual into the sense piece it's not that we don't need it but perhaps our order could have some fine tuning to it because the time that the visual makes the most sense is when you know the most about reading when we get to be really good at it then we're really good at those initial sounds and final sounds and can you figure out the vowel that's going in the center we get really good at that part because we already know it but if you don't know those pieces and you don't know that you're supposed to look at the picture of the dog to see that the word in the page says dog then it's way easier to figure out dog but if you start with the dog first without the picture and the sense and we've talked about dogs and built up some background knowledge before we've begun I think we've set it up to be too hard so when we're looking at the structures and the processes we're looking at it going down meaning, structure, visual information and the questions because it's the piece that we need as teachers we need those questions automatically in our heads because otherwise we start saying something that we think afterwards oh I could have said something differently there but it came out already because you know they're always doing 14 things at the same time so it's a bit intense as it's going through you need them automatically there so that it's coming did it make sense how did it sound did it look right rather than having to think our way through it's just an automaticity piece that we want as we're coming remember I said the opening minds Peter Johnson book you know what I'm going to talk to you at 3 o'clock because I know Maureen's going to hook me at 3 so don't let me escape without talking to you but otherwise my hook will be out and I'll be gone what Peter's comment about the language choices that we use and how that creates a picture of who they are as an individual and the picture of the community so and the language that we choose helps create the world so I consider myself as sort of part of a little language police squad I think I first started learning this my first really big learning I remember it was from Judith who said to me one day I did some work eons ago about kids with special needs and I said something about special needs kids and after I finished talking to Judith said to me you know like you do a really good job of watching your language thing but that would be like a really bad thing so what would that be she said you can't say special needs kids you can say kids with special needs but you can't say special needs kids now that was about 20 years ago and she sits on my shoulder but that's a piece that I think that comes in I think that's the kind of thing that Johnson is talking about in his writing as soon as our language talks about it's like all of us trying to figure out how to talk about those kids that we're really worried about as soon as we say I think Sharon said I don't like the word struggling as soon as we say struggling we think oh are you you know it's a piece of like oh like you're suddenly part of the other group rather than the part of the group that's moving forward and so we really need to be conscious about how it is we talk about our kids and we talk about the work they do with them and with others so we think about some of the language things that we talk about the very best language that we say to anybody when they contribute an idea is thank you and I can remember the first time I heard Susan's close say that when we were doing a workshop and this is before 1988 and we were because we hadn't written reaching for higher thought at that point and we were doing something in a workshop and somebody said something that was medium on what I thought we were talking about and Susan looked at them as only Susan could and said in all sincerity thank you and I thought boy did that ever work and when I said you're welcome and we moved forward and again it was one of those things that stuck so I have consciously tried ever since to when you know we're brainstorm whatever we're doing the response is thank you rather than yes you nailed it or boy that's so good and if we teach that then kids do that too thank you for the response rather than an evaluative comment because it's not about judgment it's about participation if you're not engaged you can't be learning being judged and put in a category doesn't move the learning forward we build agency through causal statements because you worked hard I can see that you hit these two criteria that is cause for celebration and that was because you really focused on working those two so that you're putting it back to the student that's where the agency comes from and we're doing that with all of our kids because you did this this happened they need the power they need to be the person who's in control of what's going on the first one is every child gets to read something of his or own choosing every child every day now I think there's always ways to to think about this in the context of what you're doing so let me give you two very quick stories on this choosing something of your own choosing does not in my mind mean random choice because our job as teachers is to help kids learn to make better choices so we're constantly marketing books constantly marketing books so when I'm looking at choosing books and it's a choice time then I might say to kids something like this I've got two books here that you might be interested in first of all I have got this ultra cool alphabet book well you know who it is I'm wanting to read the alphabet book not Susie Smarty Pants but somebody that I think needs to work a little bit on some of the letters of the alphabet and some a little bit of association with sound and symbol and some of those pieces but if I just say there's a great alphabet book here not a soul is going to pick it up because who wants to read an alphabet book when you could read about smelly skunks because smelly skunks you know is going to be a better book so the piece that I need to do because I need to constantly be talking about the books is saying I've got to tell you about this alphabet book it's not like any ordinary alphabet book of course it's got all the letters of the alphabet in it just like you would expect but like check out this giraffe it is not only one giraffe it is the mother giraffe and her baby like that's really cool because all the kids love the babies right but I'm not going to tell you how many of the animals in here have babies because you'd have to choose this book in order to figure it out to see which have babies and which don't have babies and sometimes they show the animals where they're actually living and sometimes they show just the animals but you'd have to read the book in order to figure that out because I'm sorry Nita I know you want me to tell you the answer but I'm not telling you the answer just now you'd have to check out the book now the other book that I thought you might be interested in today is smelly skunks how many people have smelled a skunk you know so then you do a little bit now this is an easier one to market because who doesn't want to read about smelly skunks okay you know if you're in a primary classroom of course you want to read about smelly skunks it's about you see one of the things we know about reading is background knowledge counts okay so we're talking and building background knowledge all the time when's the last time you picked up any text to read any text at all without first of all thinking about what you knew about it already okay we never do that you know you don't walk blindly into chapters and think I think I'll take this book it feels good okay so we need you know our kindergarten kids our grade one kids our grade two kids our grade three kids they need to know how to get beyond but let's choose blindly because that's what they're doing to choose something think about what you know and how it matches that's one of the pieces of choosing okay here's another piece every child reads accurately so you need a chance every day and I think in your random choosing you might actually read something that you weren't at your 99% on and I wouldn't be in a big sweat about it okay but I wouldn't be in a big sweat about it if at some point you didn't get to read that 99% accuracy piece because you need the practice okay but you need to be able to do both you don't just because you're in a level J you just stay in J all day long okay you need to be in J for part of the day and you're doing your accuracy piece but not just that piece you also need to read something that you understand okay remember the two thirds part focusing on the reading and the understanding but there's a piece in the understanding that comes in with the background knowledge that I think we cannot overestimate we don't ever fling texts at kids and it takes a long time to teach kids how to look at books and to look at the pictures and to think about what they know and to think about what they wonder and to do that on a regular basis and to talk to their neighbors about it and did you like it and what did you think about it because that's how we choose books okay no matter what the kind of text is as we're going and we want to teach them to read with questions in mind because that's what understanding looks like okay so we're playing with that all the time and when we sit down for those side-by-side conversations we're saying to them how did you choose that book and is it working how can you tell it's working and what's easy and fun and who are you going to tell about this book and what's a part in here that you want to remember because that's what it those are the processes of reading that we're trying to get them to do okay so it's take anybody's list of comprehension strategies that's our side chat as we're coming mixed in with the chat about meaning structure visual information okay we also have every kid every day write something that's personally meaningful we can't separate out the reading and say this is all about reading and here's writing over here because they work hand in glove okay now writing something meaningful in my mind does not mean this is my vigilante committee part the journal okay welcome back okay let's write today about what you did on your summer holidays and then once we get the summer holidays milked then we do the write a journal every day about something that happened last night or you know blah blah blah blah blah blah blah just this is the aging part I think we don't have enough time to do that personally meaningful means something that's grown in my mind from shared experiences in the classroom that's just as personally meaningful and in fact that starts saying to kids this is all connected this all works together and so we could be writing about something like that almost every day because there's good stuff happening it could be a little right a longer right and we're writing right from the beginning of time so I can't actually remember he's got six and I'm going to come to the last two but I cannot leave without showing some kid work otherwise you'll think what she's doing talking so I want to show you just one little this is really a fast sample from a K1 classroom I stopped by Lisa today and I said I think there were Ks in this classroom last year because I never really I'm not very good at paying attention to the grades and she said I said were there a few she said actually they were almost all Ks I said it was a good thing I checked because I said there were all grade ones so Jerry and Leanne are a resource teacher and a classroom teacher that have been working at Tate together for years and so last year was the first time for full-time K they had K and some ones they've been writing this year four times a week and they write together and they always start off they were really really influenced by that brilliant book by Vancouver Educators what's next for this beginning writer now in its second edition brilliant brilliant so they start together they usually start with a picture they co-construct the picture the kids are helping out it's kind of like a just it's a great rollicking fun time and then they move from their picture and the kids go off and they write and most of you know sometimes they write about the stuff that they've done together and sometimes that's just a springboard and they write this is when they write about the birthday party that they really wanted to write about but if they didn't have a birthday party then they can write about what was going on over here so nobody's ever stuck for something and all the skills teaching is coming in here in this particular circumstance they had just bought a bed of fish and so the fish voila is there it's been purchased the day before and so what they're doing in their shared time is the kids are brainstorming because they'd all like to choose a name so they're brainstorming for names and they're voting on names and then they're choosing the name for the fish and they finally decide that the fish is going to be called Arvana Max a hyphenated name because they've got a tie after many multiple votes repeated votes and then their job today and it's a directed job when you're writing today can you write about the fish because this has been a big thing in the classroom and so let me just give you this is them sitting yacking on the floor getting ready to go so let me just give you four different samples so you can look and see look at this with the eyes of what does the child know what does the child know so first thing he wanted is Zachary wanted lines now Zachary in September could not write his name so this is June the 7th and he writes he likes to eat pellets notice the language he likes to swim around he likes to look at his pellets so and of course they're reading it back and forth they're reading it to each other here's Zara she's really big on punctuation the fish is happy the fish is swimming she points to the words she's reading it to me I am watching the fish now she's got four more words in her language than she actually has on the page because she doesn't bother with all the eyes and that after she gets going because she just does the key word and then she just she reads it around I am watching the fish as she's going because she's kind of pooped out she doesn't want to write anymore okay now Connie because we're talking about kids who are learning as they're coming right check out Connie's Connie arrived two weeks ago without a word of English and Connie comes up and she's reading to me I'm sitting on my little chair and she's reading to me I have no idea what she's saying and she says something to me with each one of these words she points to the words and then she draws a letter the first letter in the air that she's been doing and I'm just saying yeah yeah absolutely you are really using what you know about language I know she has no idea what I'm saying but I'm trying to get back with the right kind of body language and she beams and back she goes but I'm looking at it and I'm thinking so what do we know about Connie she knows about words she knows about sounds she knows that sound symbol and that first letter is important because we've been fussing about it when we're doing on the board she knows about spaces between words she's got all that stuff done and she hasn't a clue what's going on in the language in the classroom she is going to be just fine you don't leave her with her kids brothers and sisters at the mall and she'll be even better okay and this one I know you won't be able to read but let me read part of it to you so this is one of the kids in grade one the fish can do lots of things like exploring her tank and when she opens her mouth that means she's going to swim and the kids will be bigger and then they'll get born babies too and that's the life cycle ta-da and then there are a couple more sentences but I figured you should have stopped when she was on a roll with the life cycle okay every child talks every day to their peers about reading and writing every day to their peers about reading and writing and we'll see if this is going to work I know you won't see all I want you to see in here is notice where I am as a teacher because these kids are talking to each other about their reading and writing but it's new to them they don't really know what to do so I have to be there in their face pointing showing and watch what's happens with these girls this was a K to 3 classroom so they talk a little bit these are the 3s they're quite superior and then the one does the sharing and then these are okay because the piece you know and I thought oh this is a perfect one because it's the piece that you can't you can't just talk about it you can't just talk about it in big groups you have to be right there in the moment with them let me show you what it looks like when we talk to each other okay and so that does mean being down there right in there and I may only get 2 each time as I'm going but the more we do that together the more they learn that piece every child listens to an adult read fluently every day in different kinds of text with some commentary so it doesn't mean we're dissecting every book as it comes through every piece of text but we're reading we're reading constantly constantly and we're talking about our thinking about reading oh Maureen I have to do just one more slide before we go and then you can be done and you can have it next slide this summer and so I would just like you to talk I'm going to sort of show you this one as something about how I would talk about the reading piece because reading is all about thinking right so you're always showing them this is what reading looks like so don't worry about the stuff that you can hardly see at the bottom just worry about the top so just one week ago today I just as you can see you've reached your destination what about your target and when I looked at this what did I see relaxation sun beach chairs and I thought whoa so of course then I immediately turn and I read that part because that's what reading looks like like that to me is reading fluently does that sound like reading fluently to you it's just I don't have to because that makes sense now here's the piece that you can't really see on the bottom I've retyped it on the top it says yearly you could probably read it fluently yourself in your head okay 17 million 655,000 265 passengers in Brussels airport 93% of them are visiting the toilets and this is the sign on the inside of the door of the stall in the bathroom in Brussels toilet I thought whoa I can use this at a workshop how good is this now but you see that's a piece I want us to it's that expanded view right it's not just about picking up the book and reading the book fluently it's picking up all kinds of different text and saying to kids here's how I read it here's what goes on in my head what's going on in your head I just kept thinking that is a lot of people in the airport and then on the very bottom I took me forever to find it oh face to face oh so it's about advertisements you could be advertising in here and I checked out several other stalls they all had the same thing so nobody had actually figured out the action part after reading you're supposed to read and respond I think I could put my own advertisement up there that's the fluency part because fluency isn't just about getting the pattern in the words like that it's getting the pattern and the rhythm of the words so what changes your thinking okay every child every day all six of those guys