December Think Sheet Pt. 2

“After meeting with my small group, the indicators of success I have identified for my routine data source are …

•  Abstracting from the text to create meaning (cause and effect, prediction, drawing conclusions)

• Predictions are based on greater understanding of the text and get to the heart of the story (beyond basic sequencing, details)

• Students are able to stop and ask questions about the characters and the storyline (not just definitions and basic comprehension questions)

“My learning goal for my focal students is …"

 I want my students to be actively thinking and responding to texts as they read so that they will better understand the author's message and enjoy reading more.

“The next steps I am going to take are  ….”

• Mini-lessons on cause and effect, going from basic to complex, using real-life examples and examples from the shared text The Tiger Rising

• Poster and Mini-lesson on asking good questions about characters and the story, encourage students to try and put good examples on the poster

• Start using "Stop and Jot" routine during Read Aloud as another source of data collection. Give students regular pauses to respond, not just designated responding points.

• Mini-lesson on exemplar post-its using deep thinking about character and story with evidence from the text.

December Think Sheet Pt. 1

      1.     What is the focus of your inquiry and why is this important to you?

The focus of my inquiry is on reading comprehension. In particular, I'm looking at inferential thinking, which is a challenging new requirement of readers as they get into fourth grade. before now, so much focus has been on phonics and literal understanding and in this grade they're being asked to think much more about what they read. 

This is important to me because it is a challenge for all of my students regardless of reading level, and because in order to fully love and appreciate a book, this is what students need to be able to do. Students loving reading is the ultimate goal!

2.     What classroom data are you planning to use for your routine data source to see how students are (or are not) progressing towards this goal?

      I am using post-its that students write while they read guided reading books alone and with a partner. Right now, I'm giving them the times to stop and predict and they are also identifying character traits with evidence as they read. I am interested in collecting this kind of data from read alouds and independent reading so that I can see the range of success across types of instruction.

3.     Take some time to look at the routine data source for 1-2 focal students.  What would indicate if a student was successful? What were you hoping to see?

• Students are able to abstract from the text to create meaning

• Predictions are based more on inferential (rather than superficial) evidence from the text

• Students are able to stop and ask questions that push their thinking.

4.     At the end of the year what is the learning goal that you would like your focal students to reach? 

  

I would like for my students to be able to use inferential thinking to help them better understand and enjoy a text that they are reading independently.

Progress and Re-evaluation

Since our last meeting, I've been concentrating a lot more on Read Aloud and Guided Reading as places to model and monitor comprehension strategies. I have intentionally mixed other strategies back into my Read Alouds, while still modeling and thinking aloud to demonstrate inferential thinking. While my students seem to often get caught up in the semantics of "inference" and "prediction," I think that their capacity for using these strategies is increasing. I would like to start gathering post-it data from the Read Aloud setting in order to compare it with what I am seeing students do independently and with a partner/small group.

One of the things I have emphasized in Guided Reading is slowing down. Most of my students are accustomed to reading for speed. Their fluency rate is often very high, but then they often cannot answer simple comprehension questions. Reading is not a race! I have provided students with reading assignments that are much shorter than they are used to reading in one sitting, and have given them enough questions (of varying levels of complexity) that they are thinking and discussing for as much time as they are reading the book. Because some questions are more difficult, students have to go back into the book to refer to passages. To my great pleasure, I have noticed that they are doing this more in our discussions during guided reading, many times without my prompting. This is evidence to me that they are beginning to take ownership of their books and are reading with more authority, two important prerequisites for inferential thinking!

Now that I have Guided Reading groups in place, I'd like to turn my focus to the progression of whole-class and small-group teaching points. Since this is all very new to me (I haven't even observed Guided Reading in the past, let alone done it myself), I am looking for resources and feedback on best practices both at my site and through MTS. I am curious if post-its will still be the best form of data collection with this newer focus.

MTS 10/13/12 Meeting

1 What are you thinking about right now for your area of inquiry?

     I'm thinking that prepared student interviews are interesting, but are not a sustainable or particularly informative way to go for my inquiry. So much of it is about what they're thinking and doing in the moment, and I need to figure out another way (in addition to post-it collection) to hone in on that moment of thought.

2 What is one thing you learned when you had a conversation with your focal student(s)?

     We went from no one doing prediction, to mostly using prediction, which makes sense since it's what I've been teaching and modeling during read aloud. My worry is that this might be too much focus (immersion?) and that they will forget the utility of other strategies we have learned earlier in the year.

     I also found it interesting that my higher students were able to really talk through their process of writing a post-it, and my lowest two had arbitrary stopping points and weren't able to communicate much meta-cognition about the process.  

     I was happy that they were using the bookmarks that I made for them! It's interesting though that they don't use those strategies, even though they're right there. My assumption is that all of the focus makes prediction on the forefront of their minds, and they might think that it's all I'm expecting of them (Note to self: Be explicit about the other strategies being fully available!) 

3 Did you find out what you were hoping to find out in the conversation?

     Yes, I believe so. I found out that my lowest students do not understand the purpose of post-its, while my higher readers were able to explain in detail why the process helps them in their reading. (Side question: Is this because their language development is higher and they are better able to articulate? Do my lower students have a greater meta-cognitive understanding than they are able to demonstrate to me because of their facility with English?)

4 What do you want to know now?

     I want to know if they are still able to use those other strategies, and how I can encourage them to use ones that make sense for them, while still practicing the current focus strategy. I am interested in how moving forward with guided reading groups and literature circles will provide students with a different kind of scaffolding and support for thinking about what they're reading. 

5. Where are you now in thinking about a repeating or routine data source?

     I would like to collect post-its during guided reading and literature circles. I am also thinking about recording the conversations I have with the book groups to be able to watch them as a third party to see what I notice. In particular, I think seeing the highest and lowest level groups would be fascinating. 

6. What do you want help with today from your small group?

      Next steps and clarifying my question as it stands now.

After group conversation:

What are you thinking now? What are your next steps for your inquiry?

     Suggested by my group was the idea of modeling thinking aloud and making a post-it choice in terms of strategy. I think this is something I can be doing much more during Read Aloud, really showing how I'm deciding how to document what I'm thinking on a post-it. Right now, I have presented post-its as a rigid routine so that it was strongly scaffolded, but thinking often doesn't fit into neat little strategy boxes. I wonder how I can open up and remove some of these scaffolds so that students can write what they're thinking a little more fluidly without losing the structure/usefulness/helpfulness of the post-it routine.

     Another suggestion that I'm going to mull over is the idea of "stalking" students as they read and approaching them mid-post-it-write to ask them about what they're thinking, why they stopped and what they're writing. I'm trying to figure out what the balance is between catching them off-guard in an authentic thought and having them be ready to talk about what they're thinking (when they're not surprised and possibly forgetting what they were just thinking!).

     For now, I will also be easing into the new guided reading/lit circle model that I'm trying and try to figure out what part of that process might lend itself to my inquiry. 

Focal Student Interviews

How do you decide when it’s time to stop and think while you’re reading?
SM - Take out a post-it, write my prediction what’s going to happen next. When you find something exciting or something bad is going to happen next. Write on your prediction what’s going to happen next. At the end of a chapter.

NA - Every five pages, or at the end of the chapter

JA - When the teacher tells us to put away our book. (Doesn’t stop while she’s reading)

GV - Something interesting is going to happen, or when I’m done with a chapter.

AV - When I know more stuff that I didn’t know before.

When do you decide it’s a good time to write a post-it?

SM - when you’re at the end of a chapter. when you feel like something exciting is going to happen.

NA - if I predict something, I write it down

JA - At the end of the chapter

GV - When I get enough information from what I read so I can predict or ask a question, so I can get things and answer later.

AV - When I learn even more things. (Summarizing what he has just read) Find a couple more things and write it down.

How do post-its help you understand what you’re reading?
SM - when I write it down, it doesn’t let me forget. If I don’t write it down, I’m going to forget.

NA - I have an idea of what is going to happen next. It helps me think about it better.

JA - This is a hard one. Do they help you? (nods) How? (unable to answer)

GV - Visualization, you can see what’s happening. Prediction you can see what’s going to happen and Making Connections how can you compare with a character. It can help me by... it helps me understand it even better. The character, the book, and what’s happening. Looking more closely at things? Yes.

AV - When I learn one thing and write it down, I might know what happens next.

What resources do you use?
SM - Bookmark

NA - Just a pencil

JA - I look at the strategies that you write on the board, or I use the bookmark that you gave us that has all the strategies.

GV - I just write it.

What strategies do you use?
SM - Visualizing, predicting
NA - Prediction. Used to do other ones, but not anymore. Why prediction? It’s kind of easier for me, it helps me understand more what I’m reading.

GV - Questions, predicition

AV - Prediction, Questioning, Visualizing

Think Sheet - First Round of Data

1. Right now, what is your area of inquiry?

Right now, my big question is around comprehension strategies and the use of post-its. I recently had a conversation about this inquiry with my Critical Friends Group, which started out looking at the post-its routine and some observations from initial readings of post-its from students.

I've been collecting post-its every day to hold students accountable for trying strategies, and also to hopefully monitor progress and patterns of use. Today was the first time I really sat down with several post-it iterations and I noticed a few things:

• Students are using the "visualization" sentence frame often, some are not using anything else (over-using it). Many of them are using it correctly and can say why they were picturing something in their heads. This shows me that I need to either remove it as an option or make it clear that they need to be trying one of the higher-level strategies every day.

• Very few students are attempting to use predict and infer strategies, which could be for several reasons, but because they are much more advanced strategies I am wondering if it's because they are confused by them, or don't have the tools they need to be able to use them.

• Using post-its as data is messy, because students are reading different texts and are trying the strategy on their own. They do give me a lot of information, but I think they would be very hard to use on their own. However, I think they are a great tool to help look at a students progress over time.

• There were varying levels of depth and facility within the predictions (Jenny/Sergio, who were re-stating; vs. Nathalie/Julissa, who were making thoughtful predictions/inferences; vs. Stormi, who was able to do so while also quoting from the text)

• There is some confusion around the difference between inferring and predicting

I brought in two whole-class sets of data, for which I asked them to use prediction as one of their strategies while they read. Immediately, I noticed that not everyone did one post-it, so I don't have data on everyone.
I once again notice that there is a range of abilities. At the lowest level, students are restating from the text as their prediction. Some students are inferring, but about things that have already happened (so they need clarification about the difference between prediction and inference). Some students are able to make a prediction but provided no evidence. Finally, there were a few students who were able to predict and provide evidence.

• Initial attempts at prediction and inference. Notes from shared story when the strategies were introduced. Were they able to use the strategies at all at that point?

• I would like to see what a middle-ground scaffolded response from students might be. I'm going to collect a set of data from students making a prediction during a read aloud, when I choose the stopping point.

Because there were so few examples, I looked for patterns in the students that were using the predict strategy, and I noticed that:

My question right now is, what data from this can I use, and how can I adjust the post-its routine to give me even better data? 

I already have some thoughts about what other things I things I can do: look at the initial worksheets from when they were learning these two concepts to see where these focal students were during the lesson, re-teach prediction and inference, have them split their post-it in half the way Zaira did. (Even that shows me that these post-its are a good source of data, because they're inspiring me to try things!) I will probably do those things as part of MTS, and that's not really where I want to focus for the discussion. What I really want input on is the post-it procedure itself. I'm wondering what other teachers are doing and what they see in the data that I have. 

So, after having discussed with my fellow teachers, we ended up getting into a deep discussion about inference and prediction, and I wanted to focus on collecting data around just one strategy. I wanted to see what the students who hadn't been using the "predict" strategy would do, and if I could learn anything else about how students were using the strateg by seeing a whole-class picture.

2. In thinking about your focal students, do you think you will look at the student or students whose data you brought today? What criteria did you use, or will you use to choose your focal students? (Some teachers like to choose one high achieving student and two or three of their basic or below basic students.)

I haven't decided yet about my focal students. I have a few in mind, but I'd like to look at this new data to then focus in on those that represent a range of success. I'd like to be able to hone in on what is happening at each level of use, and go from there.

3. How would you know what is happening for your focal students? What are you doing now that would make student thinking / student understanding visible?

There were varying levels of depth and facility within the predictions in the first set of data, prior to my Critical Friends Group discussion (some were re-stating, some were making thoughtful predictions/inferences, and another student who was able to do so while also quoting from the text).  

Each student has a bookmark with a list of comprehension strategies as well as options of sentence frames under each strategy. Each strategy was modeled, one at a time, over several weeks, with students gradually released into a common text, then were asked to use the strategy in their own texts. I have been collecting the post-its after each Independent Reading session and this will be the second time that I am looking at this data closely.

4.  What data did you bring today? What does the data tell you about what is happening for your focal student? Pick one focal student’s work to consider.

5. If you had the opportunity to ask this focal student a question about their learning what would it be?

If I were to talk to a focal student, I would want to ask them why they decided to stop where they did. What was it about what they were reading (or if it had nothing to do with their reading), that told them this was the right time to stop and make a predicition.

What are you thinking now?

I'm thinking that I need to do a re-teach and clarify around the difference between prediction and inference (maybe using examples where students have to decide which is which). I'd also like to use video to show students examples of productive conversations during student teacher and peer conferences. I feel like this will show students what "good thinking" about literature looks like and they'll be more able to think well on their own.

Next Steps...

I need to collect more data!