Reading and Teaching

Richard Meyer, Maryann Manning

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000159318
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

Reading and Teaching raises questions and provides a context for preservice and practicing teachers to understand and to reflect on the complex issues surrounding the teaching of reading in the schools. It presents real teachers in their classrooms, dialogues about that teaching, and exercises for further clarification. The purpose is to help teachers make informed choices about their teaching of reading. The text considers the different types of decisions teachers might make in the teaching of reading and the knowledge upon which they rely in making those decisions—not simply factual information about using certain materials and methods to teach reading, but also knowledge about the mind, the political climate, the broader social and cultural circumstances of their students and schools and the communities in which they teach. Reading and Teaching is designed to engage teachers in beginning to evolve their own practical theories, to help them explore and perhaps modify some basic beliefs and assumptions, and to become acquainted with other points of view. Readers are encouraged to interact with the text and to develop their own perspective on the teaching of reading. This is the fifth volume in Reflective Teaching and the Social Conditions of Schooling: A Series for Prospective and Practicing Teachers, edited by Daniel P. Liston and Kenneth M. Zeichner. It follows the same format as previous volumes in the series.*Part I includes four real-life cases of teachers' experiences in the classroom: "Teaching Reading Via Direct Systematic Instruction"; "A New Teacher Learns About Teaching Reading and Culture"; "A Teacher-Constructed Whole Language Program"; and "Critical Literacy in an Urban Middle School." Each case is followed by space for readers to write their own reactions and reflections, educators' dialogue about the case, space for readers' reactions to the educators' dialogue, and a summary and additional questions.
*Part II presents three public arguments representing different views about the teaching of reading: direct instruction, whole language, and critical literacy.
*Part III offers the authors' own interpretations of the issues raised throughout the text and some suggestions for further reflection. A list of resources is provided. This text is pertinent for all prospective and practicing teachers at any stage in their teaching careers. It can be used in any undergraduate or graduate course that addresses the teaching of reading.

I
CASE STUDIES AND REACTIONS

There are four cases in this section. Each case is about a teacher engaged in teaching her students how to read. Two teachers are first-year teachers and two are experienced teachers. We have provided space after each case for you to write what you noticed, your concerns, your questions, and your overall reactions to the case. Each case was also presented to groups of educators who met with the authors to discuss the cases. As you read, think about the questions we asked these groups and consider addressing some of these questions in your reactions to each case. We asked them:

1. What did you notice about the way that the teacher teaches reading?

2. What strengths did you notice in the teacher’s teaching of reading?

3. What concerns did you have about the teacher’s teaching of reading?

4. What strategies did the teacher use?

5. What strategies would you use that the teacher did not? Why would you use those?

6. Based on the case that you heard, what might you expect the students to be learning?

7. What else do you want to discuss with the others in the room about this teacher’s teaching of reading?

After you write your reactions to the case, you can read what our groups thought about it. The reaction sessions are blended transcriptions of the sessions we held; blended means that we edited for space and to make them flow a bit more fluently than oral language. We discuss some of the themes that emerged during these sessions before presenting the transcripts. We hope that the themes help to guide your reading of the transcripts. We’ve also left space following the reaction sessions so that you might add your reactions at that point as well. All teachers’, schools’, and students’ names are pseudonyms.

INTRODUCTION TO CASE 1

Penny teaches second grade at a school that seems quite middle class as one approaches the building along any of the four quiet suburban streets that lead to it. However, Penny’s school serves just over 25% children of poverty, as determined by the percentage of children who receive free or reduced-price lunches. The school is located in a part of the city dominated by Whites; there are about 25% Latino/a, 3% Native American, 2% Black, and 2% Asian students attending the school. The school resembles the school in which Penny student taught one year ago. Overall, in the city in which she teaches, half of the students are Latino/a, over 10% are Native American, and about 30% are White.

This is Penny’s first year of teaching and she’s very excited about it. She loves her students and works very hard to ensure that they all meet with success. Her concerns about being a good teacher led her to enroll in an intense master’s degree program that includes course work in the summer prior to the start of the school year, two nights each week during the school year, and in the summer following her first year. She particularly likes the part of the program that involves observations of her teaching by support staff.

Rick met Penny when she was an undergraduate in a reading methods course he taught, and he offered to visit her in her classroom as part of his study of first-year teachers. She participated in interviews and monthly study group sessions with other first-year teachers as part of the research project. Her master’s degree program and her participation in the study keep Penny busy, but she likes that because, as she explains, “I learn so much from other teachers. I love talking to them and hearing what they’re doing in their classrooms. I want my students to succeed and I’m willing to do as much as I can to make sure that happens.”

Penny’s cooperating teacher in student teaching used a basal reading program. Penny found the teacher’s guides very useful because they explained what to teach and when to teach it (the sequence of skill work), and directed teachers to use certain practice activities and worksheets. Penny’s cooperating teacher helped Penny understand how to use the various assessment tools that the publishers provided in order to place students in groups. Penny learned how to organize her literacy instructional time so that she could meet with small groups while the other students in the class engaged in independent work that was planned and graded by the teacher. Penny was very impressed with the effectiveness of the supplementary phonics program that her cooperating teacher used. As a condition of her employment at her first teaching job, Penny requested that the school order the phonics program for her before she accepted the position. The school agreed, and Penny arrived feeling confident that she would serve her students well in the teaching of reading and writing. Her confidence was borne out as her students scored well on the standardized tests that the district administered at the end of the school year.

CASE 1: TEACHING READING VIA DIRECT SYSTEMATIC INSTRUCTION

Meet Penny

Penny grew up in an upper middle class section of the city in which she is now teaching. She went to high school at her neighborhood school and lived at home while attending the local university to earn her teaching degree. She wanted to teach ever since she can remember and says, “My mother taught me to love reading and learning. That’s the feeling I want to give to my students.” Growing up in a very diverse southwestern U.S. city, in a state that guarantees bilingualism in its constitution, sensitized Penny, an Anglo, to the needs of the diverse students that form the fabric of the public school system in which she is thrilled to teach. “Our neighbors spoke Spanish as their first language and I’m comfortable around Spanish speakers,” she explains. “I don’t speak it well, but I did take it in high school. I also think that it’s very important to honor children’s home languages and parents’ choices about their children’s schooling.”

Penny has always been successful in school. Knowing that she wanted to be a teacher led her to volunteer at her local elementary school while she was in high school and college, as her work schedule permitted. She loved helping her former teachers and their students and was observant of the strategies and materials they used. “I remember so many of the things we did in school and many of them are good ideas that I’ll use with my own students,” she told the study group one evening at Rick’s house. She has high expectations for her students, demanding that they do the work she assigns. But she doesn’t think that she’s overly strict with students and loves to smile and laugh with them at appropriate times.

Penny’s Class at Adams Elementary School

The district in which Penny teaches has over 140 schools, including elementary, middle, and high schools. Some of the schools have bilingual programs, but Adams does not because of its location in a mostly non-Spanish-speaking section of the city. Adams does have an English language learners program that involves children being taken out of the classroom for extra help in learning English. Penny has one child who is learning English as her second language, but the rest of her 19 students have English as their first language.

Penny expected to be welcomed warmly by her new colleagues and was excited to attend grade-level meetings with the other second-grade teachers. She was disappointed that they weren’t eager to help her learn about the school’s schedule, reading and math programs, and other facets of life in the building. She’d hoped that one of the more experienced teachers would “take me under their wings and be my informal mentor at the site, but that didn’t happen,” she reported to the study group one evening at Rick’s house. “Not only that, “she continues, “my classroom is not near all the other second-grade classrooms. I’m two hallways over because they decided they needed another second-grade room and put me into a space that was left when they reduced the number of fifth-grade classrooms”

Penny learned that the teachers at the school were expected to use the basal as the main part of their reading program. She liked this idea because she felt that her students and the other second graders would have very similar experiences in reading as they all read the same stories and were taught the same skills. She was also very pleased that she found time each day to do the phonics program that was ordered for her students. As the year progressed, Penny’s confidence grew and she reported that her students were growing as readers and writers. She also found a positive side to the isolation she originally disliked: She could do activities independently of the other second-grade teachers. For example, as Valentine’s Day approached, the other second-grade classrooms all displayed the identical art project in their hallway. Penny saw it but decided not to do that particular project because she had a different one in mind. She remained cordial to the other sec-ond-grade teachers, but rarely met with them. “This worked out okay for my first year because I had so much other support from Rick and the master’s program mentors,” she explained in an interview at the end of her first year of teaching.

Time

Penny’s students experience an organized and consistent daily schedule because she believes that routines help her students to learn. “They know the routines of day and the week and they know what’s coming next,” she explained to her colleagues in the study group at Rick’s house. “It’s not boring, though, because we do different art projects, have challenging math, and they get to write many different things during our writing time… I do think it helps them to concentrate when they don’t have to worry or wonder about what’s coming next.”

A typical day in Penny’s classroom follows the schedule shown next. Time slots marked with an asterisk (*) denote what Penny considers to be the reading instruction portions of her schedule and are elaborated on more fully after this overview of the day.

9:00 (often earlier): Penny is in the classroom getting materials ready for the day.

9:15: Students arrive, greet, and chat with each other and Penny, and find books they’ll read that morning. This reading time is called DEAR (for “drop everything and read”).

9:30: Penny passes out second silent-reading books to children who have completed the first; the second book is usually nonfiction and based on an area of study the class is pursuing (science, social studies). She starts her reading groups with lowest performing student (this is usually a group of just one child) as other students continue to read.

9:35*: The struggling reader works with Penny at the reading table, where she conducts all reading groups in sequence from lowest to highest performing because highest performing readers seem to be able to handle greater amounts of independent work time. Students usually receive an assignment from the basal (worksheets or workbook pages) at the end of their time at the table. Penny intersperses reading groups with phonics lessons and other whole group activities so that children aren’t independent for too long.

9:50: Students record morning independent reading in their reading logs (a columned sheet with the left column used for the date and the right column used for writing the title of the book and number of pages read).

10:00*: Phonics lesson to the entire class.

10:45*: Introduction of tasks (independent work).

10:50: Recess (all second graders go at the same time).

11:05: Recess ends.

11:05-12:00*: Penny meets with more reading groups as other students do tasks.

12:00: Writing. Penny and her students love this time and as the year progresses, their stories become more elaborate and include various genres.

12:40: Lunch/Recess

1:30: Teacher Read Aloud, when children return to the classroom. 1:40: Spelling. This includes a weekly list of words from the spelling textbook, assignments throughout the week, and a test on Friday.

2:00: Math

2:30: Science or social studies using district-provided materials.

3:10 Finish the work from the day, play a game, or do an art project.

3:40 Dismissal

The Basal Reading Program

Penny uses the basal reader for reading instruction. Many readers of this book learned to read using basal reading programs. The term basal refers to an organized system for teaching that is produced by a publisher. The basal program (sometimes referred to as a system) includes texts for the children, guides with instructions for the teacher, workbooks and workshee...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Series Preface
• Preface
• Part I. Case Studies and Reactions
• Part II. Public Arguments: Three Views of the Reading Process and Instruction
• Part III. A Final Argument and some Suggestions and Resources for Further Reflection
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index