Fantasy for the Emerging Reader

In general, I think fantasy is a good genre for older struggling readers. I feel this way for a couple of reasons.

First, when reading a book students are more likely to read it if they know something about the book. Well in a fantasy book they give you everything you need to know. They created this whole new world for the reader. Thus, even if the reader comes to the text with little or no prior knowledge, then they can build up that knowledge as they read.

Second, often the most complicated words are made up. Thus, the author repeatedly uses the complicated words in context to give the reader a comprehensive definition of the word. Again, the book is giving the reader what they need to know.

Third, fantasy is full of action, and it starts right away. This gets the reader hooked early. I find that my students must be hooked right away. I find that the sooner they are hooked, the more likely it is that they will stick with it — especially reluctant readers. Reluctant readers have been struggling for years, and they need instant gratification. This makes them feel good. The sooner they feel good, the sooner I can teach them basic comprehension skills.

Fourth, fantasy usually deals with a big adventure where the character learns a lot about themselves a long the way. This involves basic human emotions that all people feel. This may help a reluctant reader relate to the story.

However, I am very nervous about giving unscreened fantasy books to my reluctant readers for one reason. As Jeffry Wilhelm found in his classroom, one of the biggest struggles for emerging readers is visualization. Texts just don’t come alive for emerging readers the way they do for a well practiced reader. In order to really understand a fantasy novel, the reader must be able to see this new world created by the author. If they struggle with this skill, then they will struggle with fantasy.

Of course, as with everything, I take each student into account.  I take an inventory of that students skills each time I help them choose books to find the book that will make them excited about reading.

How do others feel about fantasy books for emerging readers?  Any experiences?

Caring Isn’t Enough

When I first began teaching, I figured that if I cared enough, then I would be able to teach kids. I began as a New York City Teaching Fellow, and, for better or for worse, they fed this belief. (They may have even been the cause of it.) To a certain extent, I feel that the public believes this as well. This is only fueled by movies like Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds.

The other day, I was speaking to a non-teacher friend of mine. I was telling her about one of my turn-around kids — Mario. Mario disrupted many classes and has a documented history of being a real bully. In an effort to calm him down, I moved him into one of my smaller and calmer classes. I hoped the move would help him focus. The second day he was in class he had a bit of an outburst. He demanded that another student in the class get his book for him. When the other student refused, he paid the other student to get the book. However, when Mario gave the other student the money he threw it on the floor. He then declared that the other student was his slave and proclaimed his dominance over this student. He turned to me and said, “I had control over that other class. I need control now.” It just floored me. I realized that as a teacher, I need to make Mario realized just how much control he could have over his own reading.  Using this I began to reach Mario.

After telling this story to my friend, she told me how lucky he was to have me. And this is what most non-teachers say. Now, I alway love a good ego boost, and, after some experience, I realize that I am better than I was as first year teaching fellow. But the reality is that Mario needs more that just my caring and compassion. The most frustrating thing is that with only a little support, I could provide it to him.

First, I need to know more about how to teach basic reading skills, such as phonics and fluency. I know some of this, but not nearly enough to support Mario. This is the kind of training elementary school teachers get, but I need it. And most teachers won’t get it in the traditional secondary education training program.

Second, after speaking to my friend who is a social worker, I realized how beneficial training in social work or counseling would be. I don’t need a lot, but she spoke about all of these professional guidelines she uses when speaking to adolescences. I wished I could have picked her brain forever because I could use those things with Mario, as well as other students.

Third, I need materials appropriate for my students. Books they will read is a start, but I would love to have worksheets and handouts that they can relate to. Rather than having them read short paragraphs about random topics, I would love to have them read short paragraphs about things they can relate to. I have created some of this, but I just can’t do this all the time.

Teaching is an art, and teachers cannot support students with out the training and materials necessary to create this art. I get sick of this idea that caring is enough. In fact, I believe that this idea leads to burn out. Teachers feel that if they could only do more, then the students would be able to succeed. I do the best I can, and I am resourceful, but please, give me the training and materials necessary to support my students.

Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez

What an amazing book, and how culturally appropriate for my students!  Before We Were Free is set in the Dominican Republic during the reign of the dictator, Rafael Trujillo.  The main character, Anita, is 12 years old — just old enough to understand that something bad is happening, but not old enough to understand the implications.

Anita’s family is directly involved with a plot to overthrow the brutal dictator, which puts them in grave danger.  She recounts the story with innocence and honest insight.  Eventually her family has to go into hiding.  She begins to write in her journal with the hope that, if she is murdered by Trujillo’s men that her journal will be her legacy.

This book is very good for my students for several reasons.  First, the main character, Anita, doesn’t understand many of the complex things that are happening in the book, such as the embargo the U.S. put on the Dominican Republic.  Thus, the book does a very good job of explaining these terms to the reader.  The book touches on very complex ideas and emotions that my students can understand.  But it does it throught the eyes of a young child, making the language simple and easily decodable for a struggling reader.  This is exactly the kind of book my students need.

Second, it is culturally relevant to many of my students who are from the Dominican Republic or have family in the D.R.  I am not sure many of them know about the history of the D.R.  When I discuss it with them they don’t really seem to have any prior knowledge of it.  However, this may be a book they could discuss with their parents or grandparents.  Beyond that, it often uses Spanish phrases.  I assume they are common to the D.R., and I would guess that many of  my students would have heard them.

When I first began teaching and realized just how many of my students were from the Dominican Republic, I began asking about why there would be so many refugees.  I never really got a very good answer.  One woman said there was some evil man in the D.R., but didn’t say anything more.  This book really sparked my interest, and I hope to read more about Trujillo’s reign.  I can’t wait to discuss this book with my students! (Several of them are reading it now).

You Gotta Be The Book

I am currently reading You Gotta Be The Book by Jeffrey Wilhlem. I have to say, I cannot put it down. This is the first text book I have ever said this about. Most the time, I read non-fiction, text books for the same reason I drink tomato juice — it is good for me. When reading text books, I am not reading for pleasure, but for the stuff that will make me a better teacher, writer, citizen, ect. I trudge through it because I feel better for it.

I believe I enjoyed this book for the same reason I enjoyed to To Kill A Mockingbird — I connected with it in a human way. In Wilhelm’s book, I feel akin with him as a teacher who struggles. My favorite part is when he says that he aims for 3 out of 5 classes to go well because 3 out of five will take you to the World Series. Not bad logic, and it made me feel better about my own teaching. I’d say my classes go well that often, thus, we’re headed to the World Series. YEE HAW!

The meat of his book is about his teaching in his class with his kids. It is honest and reflective in way that only a true teacher could be. So much of the education research I read is done by some university professor who sits at the back of the class only observing 10 percent of the time, and then makes judgments about practice. It is so nice to read a real teacher write about real events.

He writes about several cases studies he did on students who were engaged readers, then he goes on to talk about the case studies he did on struggling readers. He used what he learned from the engaged readers to better understand the struggling readers. I found myself very intrigued by the engaged readers, but wanting so much to hear about the struggling readers. If I am generous, I have 5 students that like to read. Thus, the majority of my kids are struggling, and I just wanted to see what his strugglers looked like. I wanted to see how they were like mine so bad.

I am also fascinated by the process he used for these case studies, as I am about to embark on my own case studies. He talks about the nitty gritty of finding the time to interview kids, and how he collected data and information about the students. I am really encouraged to see that he actually finished what I am about to start. There is something calming about that.

However, the most intriguing thing to me is how I read during this book. When he discusses interviewing kids, I start picturing myself interviewing my kids. And I start predicting what they will say, and I start thinking about what they will say back. It makes this book come alive for me in a way I never thought a text book could. Perhaps I never engaged in a text book because this is the first time I have, first, read one by choice, and, second, I always took classes before I started doing what I studied.

This lead me to thoughts about why teacher training is so hard (translated to: usually ineffective). When we read texts given to us by our well intentioned professors, we didn’t have background knowledge of a classroom to activate and understand the theories and strategies. I say this because when I told a close teacher friend of mine I purchased this books she said, “Oh, I have that book. I read it in grad school. It wasn’t very helpful.” But I am finding that the book helps me make sense of my classroom in ways I never thought possible. But, had I read it even 9 months ago, prior to teaching reading, I would have felt the same way, simply, because I could not activate scheme in the same way I can now.

Teacher training in this country is broken, and I feel that part of the problem may be that we don’t work with kids enough before we start in our own classes. But I am not sure exactly what this would look like. I just know I wasn’t ready, and I know most of my colleagues feel the same way. Some say nothing can prepare you for the job, but that doesn’t feel right either.

But I digress, beyond being uplifting and real, Wilhelm has some pretty concrete strategies in the book as well as a good theoretical structure to draw from when it comes to reading instruction. Good book. Check it out.

Goodreads.com

I joined this online book club thing — like myspace.com or facebook.com.  But for books.  I joined it with the hopes of learning about new books for my students, but I find myself really enjoying the time I spend writing reviews of the books I’ve read.  I never realized the true significance of having my students write reviews of their books until I got so into writing my own reviews.  I feel so accomplished, and it makes me want to read more.  And I really like reading other people’s reviews of books.  I hope my students start to feel the same way.

Fallen Angles by Walter Dean Meyers

Fallen Angels is about a young African American boy (right out of high school) who goes to war in Vietnam. The main character, Richard Perry, tells the story of the other young men in his platoon. This was an amazing read and really changed my perspective and understanding of the Vietnam War.

Walter Dean Myers is one of my favorite young adult urban authors. Not only does he write good kid books, but he writes about what my kids know. I wish I could find a thousand other authors like him.

However, the Vietnam War is something my kids don’t know much about, and, I fear they may struggle with this book for a few reasons. The first issue is this idea of prior knowledge. There are a lot of references that they won’t get simply because they haven’t studied U.S. History (in depth) yet. I teach 9th graders. They study world history for 9th and 10th grade, then they move into U.S. History in 11th. Second, it is very slow moving. Most of the books my kids like are books that start off with some major drama (i.e. a big fight, someone cheating on someone else, etc.) While this book has drama, it takes knowledge of the Vietnam War and a bit of patients to work into the drama. At this point my kids don’t have a lot of either. The last thing that concerns me is the reading level. The book is fairly inferential and used a lot of “big” words that are not at all colloquial.

That being said, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to teach this book in a co-curricular setting. If I could, I would love to teach this in an English class, while the students learned about Vietnam in their U.S. History class. Also, I think teaching it to an older crowd would be better.

The other way I would love to teach this would be in conjunction with a new curriculum developed by the New York Collective of Radical Educators called Camouflaged: How The U.S. Military Affects You and Your Community. Unfortunately, in the poor, urban areas I work in, the military is ever present. The first school I worked in used ROTC officers for security. The school I work in now is only 2 blocks from an military recruitment office. I care deeply about my students, and I don’t want to see them go to the military. Yet, I can see how that would be appealing for some of them. I would like to really explore this issue with them, so they could make an educated decision about their lives. Fallen Angel would give them a glimpse of what war is like, and might help them make an truly informed decision about their lives.

As a teacher, the one thing I hope to give my students is options. I want them to choose the path of their lives. Unfortunately, for reasons out of my control and theirs, they are often faced with limited choices. This powerful piece of literature could help them weigh the consequences more effectively.

Linguistic v. Socio-Linguistic Reading Education

The basic question is should we teach kids how to read using basic linguistic skills, for example, “a” sounds like apple? Or should we teach from a socio-linguistic perspective — that reading is a dynamic, ever-changing concept born from dynamic, ever-changing communities? Under a linguistic approach, a literate person is one who can use all of these rules when he or she reads and writes. He or she can decode and encode oral language with ease. However, under a socio-linguistic approach, language is dynamic and changeable. It is part of our social fabric, and it cannot be disconnected from the culture that produced it. When we teach reading, we must respect this and work from the culture that produced that particular student — even if that culture does not decode and encode their oral language.

Teaching from a linguistic perspective is easier. No doubt about it. So the theory goes, if I teach a student how to decode and encode all the letters in the alphabet, grammar, and all the other basic rules of the English language, then that student is literate. It makes some sense, and it makes the job of a teacher seem less like an art, and more like a production line. This is probably where scripted reading programs came into being. “If teacher say x, then student learn y.” It is a nice idea, and if it were true, then we might not have as many illiterate people in the world.  But it is just too easy for the complicated beings we are.

These conflicting theories lie at the heart of the whole language v. phonics instruction. But this debate is much deeper. This debate involves more than just instructional choices. This debate is about whose language matters, or the power and politics surrounding reading instruction.

If we choose to teach linguistically, then whose rules do we teach? We all probably know the answer to that white English (aka Standard English). The next questions is why? Because this is the language that brokers power in our world. Some people may not like that answer, but there is a reason I cannot find worksheets in Urban English — no one values it enough to buy or sell it.

I want to teach from a linguistic perspective because I think it is clearer cut than socio-linguistics. And I don’t know that it is entirely a bad thing to teach student the language that brokers power in our society. I don’t want them to believe their (mostly Urban English) language is bad either. I’d really like to add Standard English to their repertoire of tools. But I can’t really teach straight linguistics because it is boring, and the kids rebel, and I am not challenged when teaching. It is too easy. Granted I teach some skill based (or linguistic) stuff, but when I can, I base most of it on my students’ socio-linguistic backgrounds.

The reality, however, is that I don’t always have materials to do this. Sometimes I have to resort to skill based materials that do not meet the student’s socio-linguistic demands. And I am not sure how I feel about this. Part of me feels that the kids don’t learn the skill as well. Yet, I also feel that we must introduce them to new socio-linguistics. This will help them grow.

I’d really like to see how the kids would respond to a skill based work sheet written in the dialect they speak.

Romiette & Julio

Ahhh…young love & tough young men…what teenager wouldn’t like this book? It has action, adventure, and intrigue. As the title suggests, it is based on Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet.

However, it includes a lot of modern features young adults like. First, there is the racism. Romiette is African American, while Julio is Mexican. This creates racial tension in the book. I hate to admit it, but this racial tension is frighteningly familiar for students of African and Latin decent. Thus, it makes the book “real” for the students, and they have some background knowledge, which will assist them in reading this book.

Second, there is romance. All my 9th graders do is flirt. It is the hallmark of high school. Again, this is something they can relate to and understand.

Third, there is fighting involving gang members. Again something my students know too much about. Fortunately, I believe that only a handful of my students are directly involved in gangs, but, unfortunately, they know all too much about gangs for their age. While the gang activity in this book feels a little hokey, so does most of the book. (But kids like that.) Violence and gangs are presented as a very black and white issue. There are good people and bad, with very few shades of gray. While I am not sure how I feel about this personally, my feeling is that kids would dig it.

Fourth, one of the coolest features of this book is Sharon Draper writes some of it as if it were a chat room, some of it is excerpted from Romiette’s journal, and other parts is in prose. How cool?! The only thing that would make the book cooler is if it were written in text messages. My students totally relate to texting!

There are a couple of things I dislike about this book. First, it is long, and takes a while to get started. One thing I know about my students, they have spent a long time being frustrated when it comes to reading, and a slow start soon turns into a no start. Second, it is long. This again, means students are quickly turned off by it. A slow start combined with a slow lead into action will quickly turn into an abandoned book. Third, it is at nearly a 7th grade reading level. This is simply too high for my students, who read at a 2nd grade reading level (on average).

If I taught a different kind of class, then I would include it in my library, but it is not at the top of my ordering list for the coming semester!  I hope some of my students will check it out from the library, but I need to focus getting books into my library that are more like Search for Safety — high interest (and high comprehension), but easily decoded.

Syntactic Gymnastics has tagged me!

My friend, S.G., who has been blogging on education politics for a while, tagged me.  She felt popular.  I just feel silly.  I don’t know that many education bloggers to pass it on to. Oh well, I want to join in the fun.

Here are the rules:
- Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
- Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
- Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
- Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here are my 7 random things about myself:

1.  My hair has been about every color in the rainbow, and one of the things I like about my job is that I can dye my hair any color I want.  I am still a teenager inside.

2.  I really read children/young adult literature to make me feel smart.  I am a very slow reader, and I need a lot of time to process non-fiction. (And some adult fiction.)
3.  On that note, I didn’t like reading until I was in college.  I was in all the advanced English classes, but I always faked it.  I even wrote an “A” paper on Les Miserables without even reading it.  I always said I read in my spare time so people would think I was smart.

4.  I am a messy person, yet, some how, I am also very organized.

5.  One time, when I worked with younger kids, one of them peed in the corner. When I asked him why, he said it was because he was stupid.  I felt so bad, I just sent him to the bathroom to wash his hands, and left it at that.

6.  When I worked in fast food (as a teenager), I used to over charge people by 25 cents.  Then, I would pocket the extra money for gas. My manager taught me how to do it.  She used the money for diapers for her kids.

7.  I slept in a homeless shelter once.

I am not tagging anyone because everyone’s blog I read was already tagged…oh well!

What a RADCIAL idea….ask kids what they like about reading!

In an article titled “‘Just Plain Reading’: A Survey of What Makes Kids Want to Read in Middle School Classrooms”, Gay Ivey and Karen Broaddus do something so simple, yet so radical that I am stupified. Why aren’t all curriculum designers doing more of this?

They asked middle school kids about reading instruction. They sampled a little under 1,800 kids in classrooms of all different socio-economic levels. What they found is not rocket science. Kids like read alouds, quiet time for reading, interesting books, and choice in the books they read. These are the basic components of most reading programs, but often these programs throw in all of this extra stuff, like word study, strategy instruction, comprehension questions, shared reading, guided reading, etc. The teacher in me says, wait, we shouldn’t even question leaving all of these things in a reading program, but the radical in me says, we have all this “stuff” in these programs, and many of these programs are so complicated and time consuming, we can’t even use them. Maybe we (secondary teachers) should just be teaching these basic items — read alouds (to teach the sounds of letters and give access to otherwise unaccesable material), silent reading (for reflection and decomposure), and how to choose books.

This sounds a bit too whole languagey for me, but, then again, teaching a 9th grader how to decode words has always been a trick for me. I don’t want to not teach it…if they can’t make the “ch” sound, then they can’t read. However, if I try teaching it to them, then I might lose them spiritually. They will feel stupid for the rest of the class, and it will take me six weeks to catch them again. Perhaps a read aloud is just the medium.

Either way, I believe that if we want to change reading (and literacy) instruction to meet the needs of our learners, we should be asking them what they like and don’t like. This way we can begin to empower them to think about their own education.