Session N: Can’t, Won’t, Don’t: Changing Attitudes of Reluctant Readers
1. Robert Probst – The importance of talk to contribute to understanding
a. Dialogue with a text
b. Sonrisas by Pat Mora
i. The discussion ended up focused on just one topic and organically flowed
around
ii. With students, often they’ll receive these and be finished in the next moment
iii. Accepted different interpretations instead of thinking that there is a right
interpretation was accurate; how do you help students accept this?
iv. Consistently returned to the text; gradually worked to the word level
v. Follow the conversations and eventually throw the books away
vi. Appropriate for grades 7-16
2. Linda Reif - Creating fluent writers
a. To become fluent writers (and readers), our students need:
i. Reading that engages, interests, challenges
ii. Real writing for real reasons and real audiences
iii. Students can do their best work when given time, choice, and positive,
constructive responses
1. This is what you did well
2. Questions you need to consider
3. Suggestions
iv. Models of fine reading/writing (fiction/nonfiction)
v. A Writer-Readers Notebook to collect their thinking
b. There are so many students in our classes who are afraid to use their voices—and
sometimes we are afraid to hear from them
i. We can help them escape that poverty of silence by giving them room to talk
ii. We have to take the risks for those students—so how do we give them room
to choose the things that matter to them as human beings
c. We have so many students in our class with the resources they need to write—but we
restrict those tools.
i. How do we get those tools to be acceptable in the classroom so their writing
can be authentic?
ii. We have the opportunity to draw a connection between the writing they do at
home and at school.
d. Our students need a place to collect their thoughts; there’s value in their thinking.
i. This can include the drawing they do to work through their thoughts.
ii. Graves
iii. The Outliers – those that succeed have practiced for 10,000 hours
e. Read for a half hour every night
f. Have the kids come up with the traits for good writing
i. I can relate to it as a reader.
ii. I can relate to it as a writer.
g. Sharing writing; conferences
i. Northern Lights; storyboarding
h. How do we have kids teach other
i. Post writing in the room with post-its to give feedback
j. Character analyses through poetry
k. Storyboarding
l. Keep portfolios—the work they do is valuable work and they have to have a place to
save it.
3. Kylene Beers – Book by Book (Heineman)
a. How do we help struggling readers read with deeper understanding, to see the clues
in the text so that as they read, they actually can say some of the same things more
skilled readers say.
b. “In the future, how we educate our children may prove to be more important than
how much we educate them (301).” The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
c.
How we get them to think is more important – comprehension processes (1960’s
research);
i. how we think is called a process—the stuff we do to pull it out is called the
strategy
ii. How do we help them predict better? To move from guess to prediction?
Automaticity of
both reading and
comprehension
Predicting
Deep reading in genre
Recognition of text clues
d.
Repeated practice
Notice and note lessons
iii. Students need repeated reading in a particular genre to begin to
automatically recognize/comprehend—to develop that deep knowledge
that’s need to automatically make predictions; Need enough deep reading in
a genre that that comprehension is automatic
Notice/Note Lessons
i. The clues in a text that allows a student to recognize that they should notice
the clue and should document it; looking for clues particularly in YA books
since these things change in adult books
ii. Again and Again
1. Mini-lesson; when we read a book, a lot of times the author will use
in the story an image or a phrase or an event that happens again
and again; when I see that, I want to notice that and to make some
notes, because almost always that’s going to let me predict
something about the conflict. We want kids to notice the lesson of
again and again; they need to know that they can’t make a guess,
but they can see a connection between what they see again and
again, so they can predict if that will happen again.
2. As you plan reading, think about the location in the text where you
can teach a mini-lesson, think about what you were thinking and
then think about what we would say (what you want to students to
notice)—and then come back out the lesson
3. We need to use generalizable language that students can carry from
text to text (as compared a Think Aloud, which is text specific).
iii. Lesson of the Elder
1. Mini-lesson: Say to kids, as your reading, I want you to look for the
point where the central character is off with a trusted elder and
those two people are having a very serious conversation. If you can
notice that, then what we would like for you to note is what’s being
said between the elder to the main character, because what’s being
said almost always lets you predict the theme.
iv. Lesson of Contradictions
1. Mini-lesson: Say to kids, as you’re reading, you’re capturing all this
stuff in your head, and occasionally you’re going to come across
something in the text that doesn’t seem right. When you see that—
something that seems to contradict what you think or know—I want
you to notice that because authors do that for a reason. Then we
e.
f.
need to figure what that might see about see what’s going on inside
that character (helps to understand internal conflict).
v. Tough questions
vi. Last Lines
How do we help them better find the theme?
Post-its are a scaffold until the student doesn’t need it.