1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,880 This is the Reading Instruction Show. 2 00:00:02,880 --> 00:00:05,120 I'm your host as always, Dr. Andy Johnson. 3 00:00:05,120 --> 00:00:14,080 The topic of today's podcast is creating the conditions for early literacy learning. 4 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:20,000 And we're going to focus on writing and writing instructions. 5 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:28,480 Which types of environments enable young children to develop their full writing potential? 6 00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:30,160 Well, there are three things. 7 00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:36,800 First thing, there's lots of talk in these effective literacy learning environments. 8 00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:40,080 Good literacy learning has lots of talk. 9 00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:44,680 Here adults are having conversations with children. 10 00:00:44,680 --> 00:00:49,520 This is different from talking to children. 11 00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:57,040 Conversations with children involve pauses for listening and responding, just like real 12 00:00:57,040 --> 00:00:59,160 conversations. 13 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:03,600 As a matter of fact, they are real conversations. 14 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:09,560 These conversations are used to direct conceptual learning and vocabulary. 15 00:01:09,560 --> 00:01:16,120 In other words, conversations are used in these effective literacy learning environments 16 00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:21,640 to explain and to describe the world that surrounds children. 17 00:01:21,640 --> 00:01:25,120 They're both planned and incidental. 18 00:01:25,120 --> 00:01:30,400 And as students are engaged in conversation with adults, as these children are engaged 19 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:37,680 in conversations with adults, the words, the language patterns, the ways of thinking, and 20 00:01:37,680 --> 00:01:45,960 the specific cognitive operations involved eventually become internalized. 21 00:01:45,960 --> 00:01:53,760 In a good literacy learning environment, students are also having conversations with other students. 22 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:59,880 Like the conversations with adults, these are both planned and incidental. 23 00:01:59,880 --> 00:02:06,600 The planned conversations can be between pairs or small groups, something as simple as turn 24 00:02:06,600 --> 00:02:14,200 to your neighbor and share an idea, or in your small group, see if you can identify. 25 00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:20,080 In these conversations, children are communicating their ideas. 26 00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:26,400 They're getting direct verbal and nonverbal responses from other students to their ideas. 27 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:28,520 They're revising their thinking. 28 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:35,440 They're hearing new ideas and words, and they're revising or reifying the thinking. 29 00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:42,540 The incidental conversation that occurs between children happens naturally as you leave spaces 30 00:02:42,540 --> 00:02:44,040 in the classroom. 31 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:52,880 At all great levels, in all subject areas, learning of any kind is enhanced when teachers 32 00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:58,440 leave spaces for conversations to occur. 33 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:02,400 Social interaction enhances learning. 34 00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:08,040 Instead of just listening to a teacher blabber on and on and on, when students are able to 35 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:14,920 talk to other students about the ideas they've just heard, they're able to process information 36 00:03:14,920 --> 00:03:22,520 more deeply and get insights from other students and engage more parts of the brain. 37 00:03:22,520 --> 00:03:25,120 Talking enhances learning. 38 00:03:25,120 --> 00:03:33,160 Also, conversation can be used to enable students to pause and process new input that the teacher 39 00:03:33,160 --> 00:03:35,320 has just given them. 40 00:03:35,320 --> 00:03:38,400 And finally, the big picture. 41 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:45,880 Human beings looking at each other, communicating, sharing ideas and describing experiences with 42 00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:49,480 each other is always a good thing. 43 00:03:49,480 --> 00:03:57,720 Now, when conversation gets a bit off track, there's a natural tendency for teachers to 44 00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:03,720 close the conversation and get children back on track. 45 00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:12,160 But in the larger picture of things, off the track is on track. 46 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:18,360 Human beings who are enjoying each other's company and sharing the commonalities of the 47 00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:24,440 human experience is perhaps of greater benefit than your silly little lesson with the cute 48 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:28,200 little behavioral objective on top. 49 00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:37,120 The second thing that occurs in a good literacy learning environment is lots of reading. 50 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:42,800 This includes teachers reading books aloud in their classroom, reading a book that students 51 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:48,840 enjoy is one of the best ways to help them fall in love with books. 52 00:04:48,840 --> 00:04:55,560 As well during teacher read-alouds, students encounter new language structures, vocabulary 53 00:04:55,560 --> 00:04:58,640 and concepts. 54 00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:06,680 I just talked about these encounters become internalized over time, enhancing both their 55 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:10,280 verbal and written communication. 56 00:05:10,280 --> 00:05:15,280 Teacher read aloud should occur at all levels to some degree. 57 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:23,200 As well in an effective literacy learning environment, there should be daily self-selected 58 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:30,040 reading, providing time every day for students to practice reading improves both reading 59 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:32,760 and writing. 60 00:05:32,760 --> 00:05:37,800 This means of course that there are lots of good books available, both narrative and 61 00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:42,680 expository texts, at a variety of reading levels. 62 00:05:42,680 --> 00:05:51,120 Thus, in addition to a good school library, all classrooms should have many libraries with 63 00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:55,560 lots of books and other reading materials available. 64 00:05:55,560 --> 00:06:01,280 And of course, in a good literacy learning environment, students are writing every day 65 00:06:01,280 --> 00:06:04,520 for a variety of purposes. 66 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:10,480 This could include any kind of writing done in the real world such as letters and lists 67 00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:19,640 and emails and journal entries and text messages, creating meeting with print, expressing ideas, 68 00:06:19,640 --> 00:06:25,560 teaching at the impact of word choice and sentence structure are all important in developing 69 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:30,000 writers no matter what form the writing takes. 70 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:35,680 For young children and struggling writers, this could include a variety of shared writing 71 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:43,160 experiences where students provide ideas as the teacher writes and sounds out words. 72 00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:50,800 So let's now turn to systematic, direct and explicit instruction. 73 00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:53,800 Yes, absolutely. 74 00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:57,480 There should be direct instruction of writing skills. 75 00:06:57,480 --> 00:07:00,760 This would be grammar and punctuation. 76 00:07:00,760 --> 00:07:06,560 And this should be taught in a systematic way in every classroom. 77 00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:09,760 Now it's not the what of direct instruction. 78 00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:17,240 Rather, it's the how and the how much of direct instruction that's in question here. 79 00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:22,640 So let's address the how much of direct instruction first. 80 00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:33,240 Now, Eric Jensen, the brain guy has recommendations for the duration of direct instruction episodes. 81 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:42,320 He shows that a student can effectively attend to input for only a certain amount of time. 82 00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:47,040 Students in K2, 5 to 8 minutes at a time. 83 00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:51,720 That's the appropriate amount of direct instruction or the appropriate duration. 84 00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:54,760 Grades 3 to 5, it should be 8 to 12 minutes. 85 00:07:54,760 --> 00:08:00,200 6 to 8, 12 to 15, 9 to 12, 12 to 15. 86 00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:04,920 And adults 15 to 18 minutes. 87 00:08:04,920 --> 00:08:08,760 Oh my gosh, let's go back to that K2, 5 to 8. 88 00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:12,560 Grades 3, 5, 8 to 12. 89 00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:21,320 Outside of this, their ability to attend becomes increasingly more difficult and learning is 90 00:08:21,320 --> 00:08:23,440 reduced significantly. 91 00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:30,320 They can only effectively attend to input for short amounts of time. 92 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:36,280 Now this doesn't mean that your skills lesson should only be 5 to 8 minutes or 8 to 12 minutes 93 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:38,200 in duration. 94 00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:45,040 Instead it suggests that direct instruction within the lesson should be brief and briskly 95 00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:54,800 paced, followed by time to pause and process or some other strategy to get students actively 96 00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:56,520 involved. 97 00:08:56,520 --> 00:08:58,400 Good teaching is this. 98 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:01,920 Say a little bit, do a little bit. 99 00:09:01,920 --> 00:09:09,080 The point is this, the human brain learns best when instruction is provided in smaller 100 00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:16,120 bits, followed by a chance to think about or do something with that new instructional 101 00:09:16,120 --> 00:09:18,440 input. 102 00:09:18,440 --> 00:09:26,320 Pouring large blobs of blabber over the heads of students is not effective teaching at 103 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:29,040 any level. 104 00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:34,960 Pouring large blobs of blabber over students head does not mean that more learning is going 105 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:36,960 to occur. 106 00:09:36,960 --> 00:09:45,480 The quality of teaching is not determined solely by what you say, rather it's in how 107 00:09:45,480 --> 00:09:50,160 much students learn. 108 00:09:50,160 --> 00:09:58,040 Now everybody agrees that there should be systematic instruction of certain writing 109 00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:01,960 sub skills all well and good. 110 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:09,440 However, some have interpreted this to mean that you start at one end of a scope and sequence 111 00:10:09,440 --> 00:10:16,440 chart and make your way down the list in a predetermined order. 112 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:20,960 This reflects a Humpty Dumpty approach. 113 00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:27,960 And this of course is silly because students are ready for different skills at different 114 00:10:27,960 --> 00:10:28,960 times. 115 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:36,560 Now, I did a little online googling as I want to do looking for different standards and 116 00:10:36,560 --> 00:10:43,560 curriculums that schools have adopted and I found one and they have some standards for 117 00:10:43,560 --> 00:10:50,560 second grade all laid out first quarter, second quarter, third quarter. 118 00:10:50,560 --> 00:10:57,680 And the first quarter says things like student will write story, generate ideas, etc. etc. 119 00:10:57,680 --> 00:10:58,680 Okay. 120 00:10:58,680 --> 00:11:01,400 Now, here's the thing. 121 00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:08,160 When standards are laid out by quarters like this, they become the curriculum. 122 00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:12,880 Instead of saying this is what students should generally learn, they become a curriculum. 123 00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:20,120 And instead of teaching writing or creating the conditions for writing to develop to develop 124 00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:30,760 using the five step writing process, teachers teach a series of meaningless writing sub skills. 125 00:11:30,760 --> 00:11:37,080 And what good is it to master all these sub skills if at the end of the day, students 126 00:11:37,080 --> 00:11:40,640 still are not able to write. 127 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:43,840 And that's the big point here. 128 00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:47,200 Acquiring all these writing sub skills. 129 00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:56,200 This grammar and punctuation and other stuff, while admirable is different from writing. 130 00:11:56,200 --> 00:12:07,520 Expressing meaning with print is much different from sub skill acquisition. 131 00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:13,520 Instead we need to get students writing for real purposes, then use many lessons to teach 132 00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:19,440 these skills during the year as students are ready for them. 133 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:25,200 Systematic construction does not mean going through a prescribed list of skills in a predetermined 134 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:27,200 order. 135 00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:33,600 Rather it means there's some system in place for documenting when skills are taught and 136 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:37,240 when that skills have been mastered. 137 00:12:37,240 --> 00:12:46,480 Yes, you can teach all these usage and mechanic things, but again, what good is it if they 138 00:12:46,480 --> 00:12:51,960 know how to use singular and plural nouns and pronouns if they still can't write. 139 00:12:51,960 --> 00:12:54,040 And that's the purpose. 140 00:12:54,040 --> 00:12:57,800 We're teaching students how to write. 141 00:12:57,800 --> 00:12:59,680 This has been the Writing Instruction Show. 142 00:12:59,680 --> 00:13:09,680 As always, I'm your host, Dr. Andy Johnson.