Accurately Assessing Reading Levels

 At first glance, the use of leveled texts in the classroom seems like a helpful tool for students as they progress through the reading levels. While the leveled materials do have value to emergent readers, there are quite a few pitfalls that can easily turn a learning experience into an inadequate practice. Many teachers ignore the fluidity of reading levels and treat them as rigid boundaries, not allowing students to progress at a pace that is natural for them. That being said, Kathy Glasswell and Michael Ford argue that progress is not equivalent to proficiency in their article Let’s Start Leveling about Leveling. In their opinion, educators can be quick to hail progress through the levels in guided reading as proficiency. This kind of assessment can lead to problems such as they saw with half of a school’s fourth grade class reading below grade level. Educators must design a reading curriculum that accelerates the progress of below-grade-level readers to help them catch-up with proficient readers and not widen the gap between them. This gap can easily grow wider as proficient readers read longer and denser texts. Stronger readers get more practice at reading words, as weaker readers struggle to keep up. Though leveled materials are not inherently bad for the classroom, using leveled reading without an understanding of how to use reading assessment data can have negative effects.

Knowing your students' abilities and how you as an educator can make reading exciting and educational is a step in the right direction. The process of getting to know your students and assessing their literacy skills can be a daunting prospect. A helpful tool to guide educators in the right direction is the spider chart. Karen E. Wohlwend explains how to use miscue analysis along with spider charts to more effectively chart students’ reading abilities in her article A New Spin on Miscue Analysis: Using Spider Charts to Web Reading Processes. By analyzing assessment data and plotting it on spider charts, it gives educators a visual representation of a student’s reading abilities at that particular moment. This is extremely helpful when educators are planning their next lessons and will allow them to personalize their teaching, as students will inevitably be at different levels of reading. I have seen this information being collected in my field experience classroom; however, having the assessment data plotted on a spider chart would be much more useful than endless rows of data. While raw data can be difficult to extrapolate from, charts add another dimension to viewing how students are working with cueing systems and highlighting where they need assistance.

Using What Children Already Know To Make Connections

While observing in my field experience classroom last week I was pleasantly surprised to see students responding to a read aloud by the teacher. She was a little over halfway through the book when two students raised their hands. She asked the students if their questions could wait and one student said, “But I have a connection.” Though I have read a great deal about text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections the past few months, this was the first time I had seen students use this language in the classroom.

This reminded me of a piece written by Debbie Miller, Schema. Miller describes how educators can help their students take advantage of the knowledge they already have when it comes to making literacy connections. Miller’s appreciation for schema is apparent and her suggestions for classroom instruction are useful. She explains how a student’s ability to access background knowledge is crucial in the classroom. Students when learning any subject can use schema; however, it is essential to the connections children must make when learning literacy skills. The most exciting, yet possibly most intimidating aspect of schema is the fact that each student comes to your classroom with a different catalogue of background knowledge in his or her head. The possibilities seem endless when considering the wealth of knowledge that each student will bring to the classroom. As a future educator, this is truly exciting, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that this sounds quite daunting. Though the classroom will undoubtedly benefit from each student’s unique knowledge, being able to extract this knowledge and personalize literacy instruction for each student demands a unique talent that educators must possess if they wish to give their students the best education possible.

My current field experience classroom faces some unique challenges in regards to children’s schema. The classroom is made up of students from many different countries and many different cultural backgrounds. While I see this as a positive in many ways, it seems quite difficult having such culturally diverse schemas in one classroom. This being said, the children work together nicely and do find ways to use their unique backgrounds for the good of the classroom as a whole.

Phonics Instruction in the Classroom

The subject of phonics in the early elementary classroom is the main topic of discussion in two informative articles, Catherine Compton-Lilly’s “Sounding Out”: A Pervasive Cultural Model of Reading and Anna Lyon’s and Paula Moore’s Sound Systems: Explicit Systematic Phonics in Early Literacy Contexts. Both articles discuss strategies that young students use when learning to read and write, though Lyon and Moore’s article does go into more depth surrounding a complete phonics curriculum. I have seen aspects of both articles played out in my field experience classroom thus far.

The idea of “sounding out” words when reading is so engrained in our minds as a society that it is difficult not to go to this strategy every time a student runs across a difficult word. Compton-Lilly’s article discusses this phenomenon and how children are using many other strategies to help themselves read; however, the term “sounding out” always seems to be mentioned first. In my field experience classroom this semester I have already come across the term “sounding out”. I witnessed a student having trouble with a particular word during their reading time. As I approached their desk, another student was telling them to “just sound it out.” Shortly after this, the student figured out the word. When I asked the student how they knew they were right, they first explained that they had sounded out the word and then told me that the picture at the top of the page helped as well. Though children are using a multitude of strategies when reading, “sounding out” seems to be the first thing on their minds.

While Compton-Lilly’s article explores the cultural usage of the term “sounding out” and the actual strategic practice of sounding out in students’ reading processes, Lyon and Moore detail developmental reading and writing stages and how they fit into a phonics curriculum. As a future teacher, it’s helpful to read about the different stages and how students move throughout the spectrum from emergent to early, early to transitional, and ultimately arriving at the fluent stage. The article also lays out a rough outline of a developmental curriculum for phonics instruction. I found this to be very interesting when comparing it to the classroom which I am currently doing my field experience. Although I have only been in the classroom for one week, the phonics instruction is matching the developmental stages and activities that Lyon and Moore describe for this age group in their article. There is somewhat of a range of abilities in the classroom, making it absolutely necessary to modify phonics instruction for the varied reading and writing stages that are present. When phonics instruction meets the needs of students by correlating with their particular developmental stage, significant gains can be made in reading and writing. I am eager to see how this plays out in an actual classroom over the semester.

Inviting Family Members Into the Classroom

Bringing families and community members into the mix when considering literacy instruction is a new concept for me. When I think back to my primary school years, I have a difficult time remembering any interaction between my parents and my teachers concerning literacy. Though I understand that I might not have been privy to those conversations, it is apparent to me that this type of instruction, at school and at home, did not make a lasting mark on my memories of primary school literacy education.

In the article, Every Mark on the Page: Educating Family and Community Members about Young Children’s Writing, Kate Foley Cusumano gives examples of how to bring families and community members into the classroom for instruction on how to assist children as they move towards becoming effective writers. I can only imagine that it is quite easy for parents to be drawn towards the mistakes that are made in young children’s writing; however, Cusumano makes a strong argument against focusing on their mistakes. Instead, she contends that parents should praise their children’s strengths and work with their children in a constructive manner that reinforces good choices and allows for creativity. It’s also eye opening to read Cusumano’s assessment of the student’s piece that she describes in detail in the article. She makes it quite clear that when a young child’s writing is just glanced at, it can easily be dismissed as below average, when in reality there are many positives that are signs of a young child making great progress towards proficiency in writing. This is where an effective use of newsletters, writing workshops and family-teacher conferences can make all the difference in a young students journey towards literacy. As an educator, informing family members of your methods and expectations is a powerful tool.

I find that this article is not only helpful for me to think about my literacy instruction as a future teacher, but helpful in all aspects of the classroom. Whether it is literacy, mathematics, science, or social studies, students can benefit from family members that take an active role in their child’s education. Parents can be a game-changer in a child’s life in so many ways, none of which are more important than in their education. Primary school teachers are afforded only a small amount of time to assist children in making colossal leaps in their education, but parents and other family members can help move students in the right direction.

A relationship like this, between teacher and family members, can only exist if the teacher is confident enough and willing to invite them into the classroom. This seems like a difficult task for a first year teacher; however, examples such as the ones laid out in Cusumano’s article, make educating family members about young children’s writing a necessity.