| Instructional Decision-Making | Before Reading | During/After Reading | Letter/Word Work | Reading/Writing Connections |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Interactive Writing
Facilitator Notes
See also Suggested Readings for information you may want to provide for discussion during the Session, or as follow-up after.
How does Interactive Writing support struggling beginning readers and writers?
PREPARATION:
- Teachers will need to download or have available:
- Text transcripts of Baby and Busy Dad
- You may want to show a copy of each of the above books if available.
- Ask teachers to bring (or provide) additional Level 1 books.
- Blank chart titled “Reading-Writing Connections”
BEFORE VIEWING: Read the introductory information on the webpage about interactive writing. Consider the guiding question. You may want to break down the question into specific aspects:
- How does the teacher choose the story to write? What characterizes a good story for interactive writing?
- What opportunities were presented for the children to practice and reinforce skills and strategies they need as readers? As writers?
- What role does the cut-up play?
- How is the reading/writing connection strengthened through interactive writing?
DURING VIEWING: We suggest that teachers take notes related to the guiding question as well as other thoughts and questions, while they view each video clip.
AFTER VIEWING: We recommend discussing the questions after each clip. In Interactive Writing 1, the teacher explains her thinking as the lesson develops. Interactive Writing 2 then provides participants with the opportunity to notice the teaching moves on their own before the teacher provides commentary in the subsequent clip.
- Chart ways the reading/writing connection is developed through interactive writing. Continue the chart through the remainder of the Reading/Writing Connections Section. You might include the following points:
- The sentence itself, coming from the book just read, reinforces the connection between reading and writing;
- Slowing down to create a letter requires children to look at it carefully and remember it, which can be more easily overlooked in reading, especially in early texts where the meaning is carried in the pattern and pictures;
- Listening for initial sounds and matching them with letters (the opposite of seeing the letter and articulating the sound) provides multiple pathways to learning letter-sound relationships;
- Spacing, capitalization, and punctuation all play important roles in the conventions of reading as well as writing, and eventually support fluency;
- The cut-up reinforces serial order (left to right), 1-1 matching, recognizing initial letters and predicting words from them, punctuation, the importance of rereading, and many other strategies, all of which support the reading process.
- If teachers need practice in conducting an interactive writing lesson, in small groups, role play the process, using level 1 books as stimuli for the sentences.
FOLLOW-UP: Support teachers individually or on teams in modeling or planning interactive writing lessons for their students in guided reading.
Back to Home
Guided Writing: Dictated Stories
Facilitator Notes
See also Suggested Readings for information you may want to provide for discussion during the Session, or as follow-up after.
PREPARATION:
- Teachers will need to download or have available:
- Text transcript of Jack and Billy
- Student writing journal pages for Jack and Billy
- You may want to provide copies of the book if available.
- Ask teachers to bring (or provide) additional Level 3-4 books.
- Reading/Writing Connections chart.
How does guided writing with a dictated story support struggling readers and writers?
What did the teacher learn from the writing to inform future teaching?
How does guided writing with a dictated story support struggling beginning readers and writers?
BEFORE VIEWING: Read the introductory information on the webpage. Participants may find it helpful to read the text and have the students’ journal pages available.
Consider the guiding question. You may want to break down the question into specific aspects:
- How does the teacher choose the story to write? What characterizes a good story for guided writing?
- What opportunities were presented for the children to practice and reinforce skills and strategies they need as readers? As writers? How did the teacher support these opportunities?
- How is the reading/writing connection strengthened through guided writing with a dictated story?
DURING VIEWING: We suggest that teachers take notes related to the guiding question as well as other thoughts and questions, while they view each video clip.
AFTER VIEWING: Discuss participants’ thoughts and questions. We recommend discussing the guiding questions after each clip.
- Examine each of the students’ writing journals. Notice where they each worked and how the teachers differentiated their support.
- Add to the Reading/Writing Connections chart, e.g.:
- Writing known high frequency words in the story helps children build quick recognition of them in reading;
- Using Elkonin boxes to slowly articulate sounds to write a word supports making a careful, left-to-right search of the letters in reading as well.
What did the teacher learn from the writing to inform future teaching?
BEFORE VIEWING: Consider the guiding question.
DURING VIEWING: We suggest that teachers take notes related to the guiding question as well as other thoughts and questions, while they view each video clip.
AFTER VIEWING: Discuss participants’ thoughts and questions.
- You may want to refer to the previous student running records and Jack and Billy running record in Book Choice to note how the problems with high frequency words showed up in reading, and here are confirmed in writing.
- Using other level 3-4 books, practice creating dictated stories that might be appropriate for the struggling readers participants are teaching. Remind them to consider high frequency words the children know or partially know, words that would be useful to put in sound boxes, and words teachers would provide.
FOLLOW-UP: Support teachers individually or on teams in modeling or planning guided writing lessons for their students.
Back to Home
Guided Writing: Co-constructed Stories
Facilitator Notes
See also Suggested Readings for information you may want to provide for discussion during the Session, or as follow-up after.
How does guided writing with a co-constructed story support struggling readers and writers at emergent text levels?
PREPARATION:
- Teachers will need to download or have available:
- Text transcript of Kitty Cat and the Bird
- Student writing journal pages for Kitty Cat and the Bird
- You may want to provide copies of the book if available.
- Ask teachers to bring (or provide) additional Level 4-5 books.
- Reading/Writing Connections chart.
BEFORE VIEWING: A question is provided above each set of clips to guide viewing and discussion. Participants may want to skim the text and have the student journal entries available.
DURING VIEWING: We suggest that teachers take notes related to the guiding question as well as other thoughts and questions, while they view each video clip.
AFTER VIEWING: Discuss participants’ thoughts and questions. We recommend discussing the guiding questions after each clip. For the Teaching Strategies in Writing clips, view the lesson clip, discuss it, and then watch the commentary.
- Add to the Reading/Writing Connections chart, e.g.:
- Constructing a written summary (e.g., Somebody Wanted But So) or other response to a text is an effective way to build and consolidate comprehension.
- Using a known word/part to write an unknown word (fat to cat) is the reciprocal strategy to using a known word/part to read an unknown word in reading. (See Reciprocity in Using Analogies clip later in this section for more discussion of this connection.)
- Solving words by parts is important for efficiency and effectiveness in both reading and writing.
- We need to limit the work children have to do both in reading and writing to what is useful to them at the current time. In both reading and writing, we take some of the work off the children so they can focus on what is most productive.
- Teaching pronoun references and other language structures in writing is useful to limit confusions when children encounter them in reading.
- Examine other texts approximately in the range of levels 4-6. With partners or in small groups, ask participants to describe the needs of a struggling reader they are teaching at these levels, (or use a hypothetical reader needing support with high frequency words and learning to read words in parts rather than letter by letter.) Create an appropriate sentence for guided writing, and then think about how to negotiate getting to something close to it with the students.
What are the benefits of negotiating a co-constructed story with struggling readers and writers in early text levels?
PREPARATION:
- Teachers will need to download or have available:
- You may want to provide copies of the books if available.
- Ask teachers to bring (or provide for them) additional Level 8-14 books.
- Reading/Writing Connections chart.
BEFORE VIEWING: Consider the guiding question. Participants may want have the student journal entries available.
DURING VIEWING: We suggest that teachers take notes related to the guiding question as well as other thoughts and questions, while they view each video clip.
AFTER VIEWING: Discuss participants’ thoughts and questions after each clip. Examine the students’ journal pages to think about the types of work they did and support they needed.
- Add to the Reading/Writing Connections chart, e.g.:
- Negotiating a written summary (e.g., beginning, middle, and end) of a text is an effective way to build and consolidate comprehension.
- We can teach children to read complex sentences more easily when we teach them to compose and write them as well.
- Examine other books approximately in the range of levels 8-14. With partners or in small groups, find examples of the increasing complexity of the sentence structures, as well as other components of language, that you might want to include in stories in guided writing to support students in learning how to read and use these structures. Write down some sample sentences to use as the basis for negotiating stories. Share.
What additional insights can we gain to maximize the effect of guided writing with struggling readers and writers?
PREPARATION:
- Teachers will need to download or have available:
- Ask teachers to bring samples of the writing their struggling readers have been doing over the last few weeks in guided reading, and the books that the children read with the writing, especially at levels 8-14.
- Reading/Writing Connections chart.
BEFORE VIEWING: Consider the guiding question and have the journal pages available.
DURING VIEWING: We suggest that teachers take notes related to the guiding question as well as other thoughts and questions, while they view each video clip.
AFTER VIEWING: Discuss participants’ thoughts and questions after each clip. (You may want to refer to the transcripts for specific language and examples or replay the clip.) Refer to the student’s journal page to think about the types of work done and support needed. Choose the activities below most relevant to participants or let them choose which ones will be most helpful to them.
- Add to the Reading/Writing Connections chart, e.g.:
- Getting students to incorporate more sophisticated language from the text in their stories helps them begin to understand and use those constructs more naturally;
- The cut-up of a story offers opportunities for reinforcing phrasing, rereading, breaking words in parts, close checking, etc. that children may grasp more easily when they have produced the story in their writing, and can then transfer to reading;
- Letter boxes in writing reinforce noticing what words look like in reading.
- Revisit where the teacher incorporated structures from the text into the child’s tadpole story. Discuss situations in which teachers might want to write sentences not about the text (e.g., major school, classroom or other events taking place), and how they might incorporate high frequency words, structures, or strategies (analogies, taking words apart, etc.) even if they are not writing directly about the text.
- Bates says in the video, “Every strategic action we want children to do [in reading] occurs in the cut-up.” Using stories that the participants have brought from student journals, practice using a cut-up to support the strategic actions in reading needed by the students.
- Examine books for words where children may stumble in writing where letter boxes might be useful and discuss why. (Note that we use sound boxes until children firmly control their use and are ready to attend to how the word looks when multiple letters make up a sound.)
- Find words in the books where children might need support and discuss analogies to known parts or words that could be useful. Practice using concise, clear language to provide that support.
- Give participants time, with partners or small groups, to critically examine the recent journal entries from their struggling readers during guided reading. Ask them to identify how anything they learned in the Guided Writing portion of this Section will lead them to add strategies or revise how they have prompted students in guided writing.
FOLLOW-UP: Assist individual teachers or teams in modeling or planning guided writing lessons during guided reading.
Back to Home
Independent Writing
Facilitator Notes
See also Suggested Readings for information you may want to provide for discussion during the Session, or as follow-up after.
How does independent writing support struggling readers and writers at transitional text levels?
PREPARATION:
- Teachers will need to download or have available:
- Text excerpts of Where Does Pizza Come From and The Careful Crocodile
- Student writing journal pages for Where Does Pizza Come From and The Careful Crocodile
- You may want to provide copies of the books if available.
- Ask teachers to bring writing journals from struggling readers they are teaching at level 16 or above, or collect some of these from other teachers with students at these levels, and the books read with the writing.
- Reading/Writing Connections chart.
BEFORE VIEWING: Participants may want to skim the texts and have the student journal entries available. Consider the guiding question. You may want to break down the question into specific aspects:
- How does the teacher set up the writing to scaffold the students’ success?
- How does the reciprocity between reading and writing work to support reading comprehension?
- What opportunities were presented for the children to practice and reinforce skills and strategies they need as writers? As readers?
- How did the teachers differentiate support?
DURING VIEWING: We suggest that teachers take notes related to the guiding question as well as other thoughts and questions, while they view each video clip.
AFTER VIEWING: We recommend discussing the questions after each clip. In the first set of clips from Ms. Owens, the teacher explains her thinking as the lesson develops. The second set of clips from Ms. Arnold then provide participants with the opportunity to notice the teaching moves on their own before the teacher provides commentary in the final clip, Analyzing Children’s Writing.
- After watching the final clip, discuss what Ms. Arnold learned about her students through their writing and how this information is guiding her next steps.
- Note the increasing levels of independence for some of the students in using the strategies they have been taught (e.g., independently going to their practice page, taking words apart on their own, rereading, etc.)
- Discuss other types of reader responses that would foster comprehension through writing that might fit well in guided reading settings.
- Add to the Reading/Writing Connections chart, and/or highlight points made through earlier sessions and how they apply.
FOLLOW-UP: Support teachers individually or on teams in modeling or planning independent writing lessons for their students within their guided reading groups.
Back to Home
Serial Order Difficulties
Facilitator Notes
See Serial Order Difficulties in During/After Reading Section. See also Suggested Readings for information you may want to provide for discussion during the Session, or as follow-up after.
How do we help children who have difficulty with serial order (reading and writing print from left to right?)
PREPARATION:
- Teachers will need to download or have available:
- Ask teachers to bring writing journals from struggling readers they are teaching who have difficulty with serial order. Also bring running records of struggling readers that participants are puzzled about (to analyze for hidden serial order issues).
- Serial Order chart from During/After Reading Section of this module.
- Reading/Writing Connections chart.
BEFORE VIEWING: Participants may want to have the student journal entries available. Consider the guiding question.
DURING VIEWING: We suggest that teachers take notes related to the guiding question as well as other thoughts and questions, while they view each video clip.
AFTER VIEWING: We recommend discussing the question after each clip.
- Add to the Serial Order Chart ways to help children overcome serial order difficulties through writing (e.g., preventing them from writing or continuing to write words out of order by immediately showing them how to begin at the left and move right; using Elkonin boxes; repeated writing of high frequency and known words left to right; drawing attention to first sound (“What are you going to start with?”), slowing children down to attend to each letter in order while articulating, teaching letter formation that always moves left to right (e.g., d – circle, up, down, not stick first))
- Add to the Reading/Writing Connections chart. The strategies above for using writing to combat serial order issues directly links to preventing them in reading.
- Examine the journal entries brought by teachers showing evidence of serial order difficulties, and discuss what was done or what could be done to address them. If not done earlier, also examine running records of children who are struggling to see if serial order is a hidden problem, and discuss how writing could be used to address it.
FOLLOW-UP: Support teachers individually or on teams in closely observing children with serial order difficulties and planning and modeling ways to work with them.