A Simple Way to Get Your Students WRITING

Our school district has been doing a book study on The Best-Kept Teaching Secret by Smokey and Elaine Daniels.  In case you haven't read it--the secret is that kids need to write more often.  I think we all know that already but I don't know if we truly understand how much writing impacts reading and other academic areas.  In the book, the authors give a plethora of ideas for how to get your students writing, regardless of whether you teach elementary or high school. There are tons of pictures and examples, which make the book an easy read and also quite entertaining.  Many of their suggestions revolve around letter writing and why this is a great way to get to know students better and build a community within your classroom.  I love using letters as part of my curriculum and did so when I was a classroom teacher. Since I've transitioned to my current position, letter writing has been one thing I've let go. I'm exited to start including more of it in my curriculum.
I've also been more cognizant of how often I am asking students to write responses after they read.  We know that reading and writing go hand-in-hand, yet I spend a disproportional amount of my time focusing on reading without incorporating many writing skills that will support students in reading.  I've been soliciting more writing recently and, while some students still complain because writing is hard for them, I have seen the writing impacting their reading and spelling skills.  As a Reading Specialist, my primary focus will still be on reading but I intend to include more written responses into my lessons.  Of course, I am talking about thought-provoking and creative writing activities--not writing answers on blanks on a worksheet.  We all know that this type of activity does not have the same impact when it comes to improving students' reading and writing skills.
One activity that I have incorporated recently is both simple and fun.  I am working with a group of first grade students on extension activities.  These are kiddos who are scoring way above grade-level in reading and many of them are also in our Gifted and Talented program. I love working with these types of students because they challenge my thinking as well.  This week, we worked on identifying the problem and solution in a story.  One of the stories we read was about a dragon with a sore back who needs a more comfortable bed. His human friend finds a solution when heat from a dragon's snort makes all of the corn in the field turn to popcorn.  The students loved reading this story but they loved writing about it even more, especially when they got to write on the white board with the dry erase markers.  With all of the technology we have today, we sometimes forget the overwhelming joy students have when they are allowed to do "teacher things."  This was certainly one of those things that they thought was cool.

Each student had the opportunity to write his or her thoughts on the board.

While the students loved writing on the board, this was also a very quick way for me to tell who really grasped what the problem was in the story and who needed to do some deeper thinking. Many of the students only wrote a short sentence, but you can see in the picture that one of them wrote a summary.  She definitely knew the problem and solution in the story and I let her help me reflect aloud on the story for the other students so that we could all consider  how the characters resolved the situation.  The entire activity took about 15 minutes (with 6 students) and by the end, everyone had a firm grasp on how to identify the problem and the solution in the story, as well as several other topics that came up during our discussion, which often happens with these creative thinkers. (We had a long chat about mythical creatures and why a dragon is a mythical character but Superman is not.)

A summary of the story, written by a first grader.  I love how she was able to synthesize  the whole story into a few sentences so succinctly.

How are you incorporating writing in your classroom and how are the students responding?

What Do You Infer?: Simple and Powerful Lessons for Figure 19D

This year I have had the privilege of working with several groups of 3rd grade students.  Though many of them are struggling with comprehension, the conversations we have are extremely interesting, particularly when we are practicing making inferences. And we practice making inferences a lot.  Because making inferences is hard when you are in 3rd grade--super hard.  And STAAR (our state assessment) expects 3rd graders to be able to infer like bosses.
Here are two lessons I use to help students understand the difference between what they know and what they infer.  The first lesson builds into the second lesson so I recommend using them both in the same order.
The objective of this first lesson is to teach the difference between gathering information that is obvious and making inferences. I begin the lesson with an introduction to the word inference and all of it's forms (correct or incorrect) such as infer and inferencing.   I give them an example of how they often infer information in every day life.  I demonstrate this by entering the classroom, shaking a wet umbrella.  Immediately, the students say, "It's raining!"  I ask them how they know and they site two obvious clues:  A) I have an umbrella and B) it's a wet umbrella.  I ask them if there are any other ways that I could have possibly gotten the umbrella wet. At first they usually can't think of any but eventually someone will come up with something, such as, "the sprinklers were on." Sometimes they throw in other forms of precipitation, such as, "It might be snowing." This is great because it allows us to talk about the difference between good evidence or clues and jumping to conclusions or using what we call "bad evidence" to make the wrong inference.  We talk about how the answers on the  STAAR test are often tricky and if they are not very careful, they might use evidence the wrong way or draw conclusions based on "long-shot" sorts of evidence. At the end, we determine that the best explanation for the wet umbrella is that it must be raining outside. We discuss how they were able to infer that without me saying a word.  We talk about how they use inferences all day long in real-life.
This leads directly into the next part of this first lesson.  The only resource you really need is an interesting photo, which you can easily obtain from the internet.  I give the instructions first.  "We're going to look at a picture.  I want you to look carefully at the picture and then, in a moment, I'm going to ask you to tell me what you see.  You can only tell me what you actually see, not what you think is going on."  I give the students a few minutes to study the picture and then we discuss what they see. When they accidentally make an inference--and at first this happens very frequently--I stop them and we talk about why their statements were an inference, what evidence they used to draw that conclusion and why it might be incorrect.  Usually, their inferences are pretty spot on and I have to really stretch to give them an example of why they might be wrong.  This is good for them, however, because it gives them an idea of what misleading evidence looks and sounds like.

Start with an interesting picture.  What can you see?  "A girl.  Trees."  What do you infer?  "She's pretending to be a fairy." Photo courtesy of Glitter and Tulle Boutique

After the students have listed all of the things they see, I let them explain what they think is happening.  This allows them to practice making inferences.  We talk about the supporting evidence that they found.  We talk about other possibilities and sometimes there is a bit of debate but most of the time the students draw similar conclusions from the pictures.  The kids love this activity and always (and I mean always!) beg to do it again--and then to do another one and another one.
Once my students have practiced this activity a few times, I lead them into the next activity.  This one follows the same steps, except for, instead of sharing their thinking out-loud, I have them make a graphic organizer and record their thoughts in writing first and then share.  This gives them the opportunity to write, which also allows them to think without being interrupted by someone else shouting out his or her ideas.  You can see a picture of the graphic organizer below, but it's pretty simple.  I have the students label the top of their paper "Inference" and then make two boxes, one for what they see and one for what they infer.  Even though a lot of my students hate to write, they enjoy this activity almost as much as they do the first activity where they are just looking at the pictures.  We've done both of these activities several times now and most of the kids are getting to be real pros at it.

On the left, you can see how my student recorded what was happening in the picture.  On the right is her inference.

Our next step will be to apply our inferences to texts.  I will start with good, authentic literature and then transition into grade-level passages that the students can read on their own.  I won't introduce written questions and answers until they are very good at both listening to texts and making inferences and then reading texts and making inferences.  For higher students, you may not need to scaffold so much but for my friends, this will give them a better opportunity to solidify the skills they are being introduced to, one step at a time. Otherwise, they will never cement the process, they won't have the opportunity to learn how to think or how to pay attention to their own thoughts, and they won't understand the academic vocabulary, which is a huge factor in determining who sinks and who swims when it comes to state assessments (and life in general!)
What lessons do you have for inferencing?  Please feel free to post them in the comments!

How to Create and USE a Cut-Off Chart for IStation

I am a huge fan of the computer-based intervention and progress monitoring tool, IStation, or ISIP, or Imagination Station.  It goes by many names but whatever you would like to call it, it is a great product and I am very thrilled that both of the campuses I work at have it available for all of our students.
In case you are not familiar with the program, it is a reading intervention that students can use to improve their reading skills.  The students take assessments and then play reading games based upon their needs identified in the assessment piece. We use it as an intervention and as a progress monitoring tool.  All of our students are required to use it for at least 30 minutes each week but our struggling students use it for 90 minutes each week.  I have personally seen tremendous growth from students utilizing this program and I am a big proponent of what it can do, when used along side an excellent classroom reading program. After all, there is no replacement for a great teacher giving individualized instruction.  However, IStation is the closest thing to it, in my opinion.

If your district doesn't use IStation, check it out!

IStation has some great features, including several excellent reports.  Our teachers utilize these to track progress, send home information to parents, and to set goals with students.  At a campus level, we are able to pull up all the data for a grade-level and look at trends, which students are struggling, specific areas that need growth, etc.  The program really does provide a lot of excellent, useful information.
There is, however, one report that I build for our teachers each month. I call it the "IStation Cut-Off" graph and I think it is extremely useful when it comes to grouping students, looking at how close students were to moving up a tier in IStation, and in identifying outliers in a grade-level. I'm going to explain to you how to set this graph up and what I use it for so that you can build it yourself, not just with IStation data but with any assessment data.
The first thing I do is create an Excel spreadsheet or a spreadsheet in google drive.  Along the left-side column, I fill in the numbers corresponding to the scores the students needed to obtain in order to reach tier 1 and tier 2.  I put the lowest number possible for a tier 1 score as my top number because, at this point, I'm not interested in tracking the students who are scoring in tier 1, the highest tier in the IStation program.  I use the "Instructional Tier Goals" chart provided by IStation in the Toolbox section to determine exactly what the cut-off numbers are for tier 1 and tier 2.  In order to determine what the final number on my graph will be, I look at the lowest scoring student in tier 3 in that grade-level.

Building the Cut-Off Graph

After I have entered the possible scores on the left-side of the graph, I create a green line in the boxes next to the tier 1 cut-off score by filling in those boxes with bright green.  This shows me where the students need to be in order to be considered tier 1.  I also fill in the boxes next to the cut-off number for tier 2 in yellow to show what score students needed to reach in order to qualify as tier 2.  This creates a great visual for determining how close (or how far away) students are from these thresholds.

The colored lines show the cut-off numbers for tier 1 and 2.

Next, I print a copy of the Summary report for the grade-level from the IStation reports section.  I place each student's name on the graph across from the number of points he or she scored that month.  I enter all of the students who are tier 2 or tier 3 for that month.  I only put one student's name per box and sometimes there are several students with the same score so they each go in a different box in the same row but different columns.

Entering the students' names is a great way to see where my groups are and who are the outliers.  Names do not reflect real students.

After all of the students' names are entered, I can easily identify where students are grouped together (which is great for pulling small groups), how close each student is to achieving the next tier, and who my students are that are way off track and hanging out in No-Man's Land as outliers. These are the kiddos I really need information about.
I always share this graph with the entire  grade-level, as well as administration.  I feel that it provides a great visual so that teachers can see just how much farther students need to grow in order to reach the next tier.
What data tools do you like to use and how to you use them to increase student performance?

What's Your Superpower for the New Year?

School is back in session here at CISD and our kiddos are so excited to be back at school!  Okay, maybe not all of them--but most of them!  As much as we enjoy being home with our family and loved ones, it is especially nice to hear the excited little voices exclaim our names when we walk through the doors in the morning, as if we are some sort of celebrities.

To many of our kids, we do have celebrity status.  We are their heroes--Superheroes--the people who are always there for them.  We have a great opportunity to change the lives of these children forever, to give them the tools, knowledge, and skills they need to be successful in this ever-changing world.  That is a tremendous amount of responsibility but it is also an amazing honor. So, now is the time to change some lives!

What Superpower will you be using in these next few weeks and months to challenge the thinking of your students? 

What's your superpower?
Photo courtesy of Glitter and Tulle Boutique

As we set our plans for the second semester in motion, we will need all kinds of Superpowers to make sure our kiddos are successful.  We'll need powers of planning, powers of data review, powers of implementation, and critical-thinking powers! Our kiddos will need these powers, too! We all know that state assessments are looming for most of our kids and it is very easy to let the weight of those assessments bring us down.  But we cannot think of state assessments as kryptonite! The approaches that we take in our teaching, the ones that incorporate higher level thinking skills into the curriculum can fundamentally change the way our students approach problem-solving,  will not only prepare them for assessments, it will prepare them for life. We need to make sure that we are incorporating as many of these higher-level thinking skills into our lessons plans as possible so that our kiddos grow their super-strengths and are able to defeat all of lives challenges, not just the Evil State Assessments.

As you reflect on the first half of the school year, how do you feel about where your students are? Your answers to these questions may increase your superpowers.   How do you feel about your approach to teaching--have you pushed hard enough and asked tough questions?  Have you made learning fun and engaging?  How have you differentiated for those learners who need scaffolding or more challenging work?  Now is the perfect time to reflect on where our students were, where they are now, and where they need to be.  The next question is, how do we get them where they need to be?

Knowing the exact level of super-strengths (a.k.a. knowledge and skills) each of your students currently has in reading is critical.  If you're not exactly sure what each student is capable of when it comes to reading, there are some great tools that you can use to gather this information. If you have access to a Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) or something similar, this  would give you great information about specific reading skills for each student.  Reading A-Z has a similar product with their Benchmark Assessments. You can check those out by visiting the Reading A-Z website here.   IStation can also give us some great information as to what our readers can and cannot do.  If you're not familiar with this amazing program, you can check it out here.  Every student in your classroom needs a clear-cut plan to grow his or her Superpower of Reading to maximum capacity by the end of the year.

Are your little superheroes ready to  fly?
Photo courtesy of Glitter and Tulle Boutique

In CISD, one way that we have done this with our third grade readers is to give a reading benchmark assessment to determine where our students are currently reading and then classroom teachers and I (the Reading Specialist)  created an end goal for each student. For most, this will be the end-of-year reading level expectation for third grade.  However, for our students who have special needs or other challenges, this may vary.  We looked at how many weeks we had until the student needed to meet that end-of-year goal and set check-points along the way.  We will be able to carefully monitor the progress of each student this way, in order to determine whether or not he or she is making adequate gains.  If not, we will need to adjust our teaching strategies to meet the individual needs of each student.  If a student isn't meeting check-point expectations, we will need to begin discussing what we can do differently, exactly where the student is struggling, and pinpoint our instruction to those exact skills.  Without the data from the benchmark and the subsequent check-points, we won't have a clear picture as to whether or not the student is making adequate progress until it's too late.  Knowing each of our students and their strengths and weaknesses is critical.

If you haven't done so, I strongly suggest you go back and look at your data and create a plan for each of your students.  If you need help doing this, ask a reading specialist, academic coach, team leader, or administrator to help you.  If you feel you don't have adequate data on all of your students, discuss what resources are available to you so that you can find out exactly what reading skills each of your students currently has and what they need to learn next, in order to successfully meet grade-level expectations.  Great discussions leads to great teaching, which leads to great learning so don't be afraid to approach a colleague to talk about your student data.

It's a new year full of new opportunities. Soon, these students will be on someone else's class roster.  When they leave your classroom, will they be prepared?  Let's use all of our superpowers to make sure all of our kiddos move on knowing everything they need to in order to be successful next year and for all of the new years to come.

Prayers and Positive Thoughts Needed for One of Our Own

A fund has been established for donations to help the Wood family. Please follow this link to the Love for Heather Wood site.  A donation of any amount is greatly appreciated!

Picture courtesy of M. Knight-Cordova via C. Smith Fitzgerald 

****I will continue to post updates at the bottom of this original post*****

The first day I walked into Press Elementary in McKinney as the Instructional Specialist and Response to Intervention Coordinator, I was a little intimidated. It was a new school, almost every staff member was from a different district, and I really didn't know anyone.  The building was available for us to move in literally days before school started. I was on maternity leave with my first child and I was trying to get my room set-up so that my substitute could get to work while I stayed home for the first six weeks of school.  I was unpacking boxes while my newborn lay on a blanket on the floor. I hadn't been there very long when I met one of the fourth grade teachers whose room was in the same hallway as mine.  I knew that she had also just had a baby and I asked her to keep an eye on Imma while I went off to run an errand.  I wasn't gone more than five minutes but when I returned, I found Heather swaying back and forth, humming to my baby, as if she was her own.  I knew from that moment, this woman was someone special.
Heather and I worked together in different capacities for four years.  She was a teacher the first year.  Then, she was Frick to my Frack as I was the Reading Instructional Specialist while she was the Math Instructional Specialist. We co-handled RTI.  We were almost always together, especially the second year we worked as dual-IS's, as we also served on a lot of district committees together. If I wasn't sure about something, I asked Heather.  If I needed someone to cover something for me or read something before I sent it, or just talk me down off of the proverbial ledge, she was there. She knows everything there is to know about elementary math. She is a wealth of knowledge about RTI, struggling students, and differentiation.  She went on to be an outstanding Assistant Principal and Principal.  No one ever hesitates to approach Heather, regardless of how intimidating some situations can be, because she is a servant leader who truly cares about the people she works with.  She loves every student in the building as if he or she was her very own child.  Heather is an amazing educator.
Heather is also an incredible wife and mother.  Over the years, I've seen hundreds of pictures of Heather with her two beautiful daughters. I love to hear about their adventures on the lake, visiting family in Oklahoma, or just hanging out on their little farm with all of their animals.  They actually named one of their horses Charlie--as in "Charlie Horse"--which is totally cute and silly and just one more reason why Heather and her family are so very lovable.
A few years ago, Heather had a health scare.  Everything turned out to be okay but I remember how terrified all of us on the IS team at the time were.  It was very unsettling but in the end everything turned out alright.  Heather doesn't like to talk about her health and I respect that, but it's something many of us have been concerned about over the years and even when I have gone a while without talking to her, I've always hoped and prayed that she was feeling well.
Over the years, we have gone our separate ways.  We ended up in two different districts and while she is now back in McKinney, I'm not.  Our main mode of communication is Facebook.  Her posts are always cheery and happy, full of silly things her girls have said or places they have visited.  Now, however, Heather's Facebook page has turned into a make-shift Prayer Vigil, as she is in an ICU, fighting for her life. The posts today have been a little more positive than yesterday but she is still in grave danger and needs our prayers and positive thoughts.
This page is about education, it's about teaching kids how to read and sharing the wealth of knowledge that we as educators have to impart on each other. Today, however, it is also about one of our own who desperately needs our help.  Maybe you're a vigilant Prayer Warrior yourself. Maybe not.  But whether you drop to your knees and ask for God's divine intervention or just think, "Gosh, I hope that lady gets better!" it will help.  I believe it will help.  So I'm asking all of you to please pray or at least think positive thoughts on Heather's behalf.  Heather is the type of person who makes the world a better place. She cares about other people, she gives whole-heartedly to those in need, she loves unconditionally.  If Heather were to leave us, not only would the world of education sorely miss her, but the world in general would lose a little piece of Heaven.
As we start thinking about returning to school, back to the classroom, back to the students that need us, please keep Heather in your thoughts and prayers. I will keep you updated here as I get more information.  Thank you for reading and sharing the post as we spread the word that one of our fellow educators truly needs our help.

Update:  (3:03 PM Sat. Jan. 4th)  I just heard that Heather's white blood cell count is going up and that kidney function is improving but she still desperately needs our healing prayers. I truly believe that our prayers are working!  Please continue to pray for her! Thank you!!

Update: (3:18 PM Sat. Jan. 4th) From a family member: continued slight improvement - bleeding under control except in neck. Platelet count has been stable at 35 after being as low as 9 yesterday. Ventilator at 40% after being at 100% at one point yesterday. Lungs look better. Pulmonologist quote from a few minutes ago: "she's not out of the woods, but she's getting there."  Our prayers are working!  Please keep them coming!

Update:  (8:35 PM Sat. Jan. 4th)  Heather's status has been upgraded from critical to "critical but stable."  This is good news!  Our prayers and positive thoughts are working. Since this time last night when I received word that her little girls had been called in to say good-bye, she has made a vast improvement!  Doctors now think she may actually walk out of the hospital on her own in 5-8 weeks! But please don't stop praying now!  She still needs to feel our love and support.  Thank you so much for all of your kind words and positive thoughts.  I know she can feel all of us sending her our love!

Update: (11:03 PM Sat. Jan. 4th)  A CaringBridge site has been established for Heather. Here is the link.

Update:  (1:19 PM Sun. Jan 5th) Heather continues to make incremental improvements.  We still need to pray specifically that the bleeding stops in her neck and that she continues to improve her ability to clot.  She has been more responsive today and her color is better. Please continue to pray for Heather's body to heal, for her medical team to continue down the right path, and for comfort for her family and friends.  Thank you all very much!

Update: (9:17 AM Mon. Jan 6th)  Heather had a great night last night. She was able to respond to all commands and responded when the hospital staff talked about her daughters.  We need to continue to pray that her platelet count increases and that her body continues to heal.  Thank you all again for all of your prayers and positive thoughts!

Update (12:57 PM Jan 7th)  Heather had another good night.  She was able to respond to simple commands and teared up at the mention of her girls.  Please continue to pray for body to fight off the infection.  Even these incremental improvements are blessings.

Update (7:45 AM Jan. 8th)  Heather had another good night last night.  It was expected that she would need temporary dialysis but when her labs came back, they showed that her kidneys were functioning well enough that she does not need any dialysis at this time.  She has also been able to stay fever free for the last few days. Specific prayers needed now are that she continues to fight the infection and that her extremities begin to heal.  Both Heather and her husband, Eddie, are educators.  Once they run out of sick days, they will have no income coming in at all.  Please consider donating to the Love for Heather Wood fund so that this family does not have a financial crises to deal with once this medical crises is over.

Update (7:45 AM Jan. 9th)  Heather has stabilized and continues to make slow progress.  Her sister, who is also a nurse, reports that she is doing a little better each day and she is fine with the slow progress as long as she does not get any worse.  Heather's donation site had hundreds of visitors yesterday and the goal had to be increased because of the amazing generosity of her friends, family, and even strangers who had heard of her story.  If you would like to donate, please see the link in the post above.  Please continue to pray for Heather and her family.

Update (7:45 Jan. 13)  It has been a good weekend for Heather!  She continues to make slow and steady progress.  She was allowed to come out of sedation and has been very responsive.  She has spent most of her time sleeping while her body continues to heal.  Thank you all so very much for your continued prayers!

Update (7:45 Jan. 16)  Heather is doing amazingly well!  She started opening her eyes a few days, followed shortly by talking!  She was actually able to make a phone call to one of her friends yesterday.  This is truly a miracle!  We are all so thankful for all of the prayers and well-wishes. Please continue to pray that Heather will find her strength and keep fighting the infection so that she can be home with her family soon.

Update:  (7:45 Jan. 22)  Heather's recovery has been nothing short of a miracle.  While she still needs to regain her strength and continue to fight the infection, she is able to talk, visit with her family, and stay awake for long stretches of time.  Thanks again for all of your prayers!