Instruction and Literacy Tip #3 - Reading Motivation

Meghan Retallick contributed this post. Meghan sends a weekly "Instruction & Literacy Tip" to her staff. Click here for more "Instruction & Literacy Tips". Click here for all of Meghan's Literacy Booth posts.

Whether you love or hate the Superbowl Champion New England Patriots, you have to enjoy this story about Patriot's wide receiver, Malcolm Mitchell.  Mitchell's greatest accomplishment isn't winning the Superbowl, but becoming a reader. A teacher first shared his story with me three years ago when,as a college athlete, Mitchell joined a book club with women much older than him to improve his junior high reading level.  Watch this clip from CBS news to learn more about his story and what reading means to him now with his current success.  What an inspiring story for all of our struggling readers out there!

So how do we motivate more students to be like Malcolm Mitchell?

First, an important factor at the heart of reading motivation is creating a social relationship around text.  The student will find more value in reading if they have someone to talk about books with who cares.  Using read aloud and discussion are very effective in motivating all types of readers.

Research (Gambrell & Marinak, 2009) supports the following two strategies to improve reading motivation and foster a social relationship around text:

• I Picked This Just For You - Invite students into a reading conversation by selecting texts personally for them (i.e., “I picked this just for you.”).  This conveys the message that you can’t wait to hear whether they enjoyed your pick.  In other words, in addition to inviting reading, you are welcoming the conversation and inviting the student to develop a social relationship around reading.
• Experts Teaching - This activity is a modified jigsaw that allows choice of group, collaboration to learn challenging content, and choice of presentation mode.  Instead of the whole class reading a whole text, students work in groups to read one chapter/section of the text and then have the choice of how they are going to teach the content of their chapter/section back to their peers.

See this reference guide I've put together for more strategies to increase reading motivation.

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What practices have you found to increase reading motivation in students?

Instruction & Literacy Tip #2 - Visual Literacy

Meghan Retallick contributed this post. Meghan sends a weekly "Instruction & Literacy Tip" to her staff. Click here for more "Instruction & Literacy Tips". Click here for all of Meghan's Literacy Booth posts.

This is a continuation of my new way to connect with staff in my district.  Each week, I'm sending out an email with tips for best practices in instruction and literacy.  This week I've been thinking a lot about how students analyze images.  A report from NPR detailed recent research on students' ability to assess information sources.  The researchers at Stanford's Graduate School of Education "described the results as 'dismaying,' 'bleak' and '[a] threat to democracy.'"  See the full article and/or 5 minute podcast detailing their research here.

Two findings from the study caught my eye:

• Most middle school students can't tell native ads from articles.
• Most high school students accept photographs as presented, without verifying them.

So what do we do?  This site might be a good start for holding conversations to analyze images with our middle and high school students.

What's Going on in This Picture? from The New York Times and The Learning Network

On Monday of each week, a picture without a caption is posted on the website.  Students follow this protocol to participate in the conversation:

1.  After looking closely at the image, students think about these three questions:

• What is going on in this picture?
• What do you see that makes you say that?
• What more can you find?

2.  Next, students can join the conversation by commenting on the website (or you could discuss as a class and post one comment).

3.  After students have posted, they can try reading back to see what others have said, and then respond to someone else by posting another comment.

4.  Each Monday, the site's collaborator, Visual Thinking Strategies, will facilitate a discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time by paraphrasing comments and linking to responses to help students’ understanding go deeper.

5.  On Thursday afternoons, the site will reveal at the bottom of the post more information about the photo. How does reading the caption and learning its back story help the students see the image differently?

Utilizing this resource on a regular basis will improve student analysis of visuals and inspire critical thinking and discussion skills.  What else do you do with staff and students to improve student's visual literacy skills?

Instruction & Literacy Tip # 1: Concept Maps

Meghan Retallick contributed this post. Meghan sends a weekly "Instruction & Literacy Tip" to her staff. Click here for more "Instruction & Literacy Tips". Click here for all of Meghan's Literacy Booth posts.

I'm back from maternity leave and recent conversations with our technology and instruction planning team have inspired me to start a new way to collaborate with the teaching staff in my district about instruction and literacy.  Each week, I'll electronically share an evidence-based instructional strategy that can be implemented in all content areas, and I figured this would be something to share with our blog followers as well.  This week, I'm thinking a lot about concept maps!  Reading Rockets explains more:

"What is a concept map?

A concept map is a visual organizer that can enrich students' understanding of a new concept. Using a graphic organizer, students think about the concept in several ways. Most concept map organizers engage students in answering questions such as, "What is it? What is it like? What are some examples?" Concept maps deepen understanding and comprehension.

Why use a concept map?

• It helps students organize new information.
• It helps students to make meaningful connections between the main idea and other information.
• They're easy to construct and can be used within any content area."

See this link to Reading Rockets for step by step instructions of how to use and sample PDF templates.

I began thinking about concept maps after reading this blog post on Peter DeWitt's blog, Finding Common Ground, from guest blogger, Lisa Westman.  The title, "4 Phrases All Teachers Say and No Students Understand" definitely caught my eye!  I'm guilty of all of these phrases, but concepts maps are one strategy to make learning meaningful for students.  I love the idea of shifting our focus from vague phrases to best practices shown through John Hattie's research to make an impact on student learning.