Sunday 27 November 2016

Learning to Read: Pursuing the Journey (Part 2 of 3)


"Close observation of reading behaviors enables teachers to teach the child, not the book or program."   (Fountas & Pinnell)

The journey to learning to read most always begins with invitations - invitations that celebrate human connections through the sharing of texts.

The best invitations are overt - read-alouds, digital storytelling, acting out stories, making personal connections with stories of culture or celebration - these are the first invitations that draw children's attention to text. Often these invitations are offered in infancy and continue to unfold through childhood and beyond.  Sometimes invitations to share text don't happen during this critical window of time for various reasons - growing up in homes where literacy is not a focus, where poverty controls access and attention to texts, where language barriers or families with low-literacy levels present obstacles. School offers a consistent, focused place where invitations to reading are offered multiple times a day to all children regardless of background experiences - overt invitations brimming with possibility for the youngest readers to pursue the learning-to-read journey.

Engaging children in learning to read is a most rewarding and interesting experience - it never looks or sounds the same way twice because each child is different from the next. While we might share a book together how each child receives the story, makes connections to what they have already experienced with texts and the world, and how they understand their role in making sense of text independently will differ - sometimes significantly so. The best invitations capture imagination and attention, provoke questions and nudge children towards reading proficiency with intentional, thoughtful challenges and guidance. And the best invitations encourage students to engage with text independently regardless of proficiency - it is only through independent engagement with text that children will strive to build deeper understandings of how text works and build skills to decode, understand and manipulate text.

Sharing text with peers and others (including adults) elevates awareness of text structure, context and meaning in a comfortable environment that promotes risk-taking and discussion. Reading with friends or buddies, family members or adult volunteers in the classroom presents additional opportunities for children to build awareness of genre as well as voice modulation as they expand experiences with text.  These are critical experiences for experimenting with expression, meaning, new concepts and practicing discussion strategies not available through independent reading alone.

Perhaps the reading invitations with the highest impact in the early grades of school are those involving shared, guided or conference support reading engagements with teachers. These opportunities usually occur in small groups or independent interactions with student-teacher. These supported learning opportunities allow teachers to interact directly with students, to listen, observe, question and record individual student progress and determine next best steps to move the child forward in the learning-to-read journey. It is not about the next thing a particular program suggests teaching, or following a sequential series of steps towards learning to read but rather directly understanding what a child is already able to do independently and having a broad range of strategies available to offer each student the next best possible idea for building strengths in learning to read.

A key component on the learning-to-read journey is celebration - celebrating good books, acknowledging favourite genres and topics, authors or series, celebrating successes in learning to read, sharing strengths and accomplishments - these are all ways to gently nudge children forward in their reading journey as they accept and appreciate their own successes while understanding what they next steps in learning to read truly are.  It is the artistry of instruction to balance independent and buddy reading experiences, supported reading interactions and celebration to ensure each child values and appreciates the nuances and dimensions learning to read presents to the learner.

Acknowledging the strong connections between reading and writing are essential and are rarely separated as children travel the learning-to-read journey. Understanding what letters and sounds do together in order to be read and understood as text also means students need to be able to manipulate and play with letters and sounds to generate writing and express ideas and meaning. Connecting reading and writing encourages students to develop control of language while taking risks, making predictions and connections and challenging meaning as they learn to read with increasing levels of proficiency.  It is a beautiful experience to watch a reader progress through a year of school, understanding their successes are sometimes independent, sometimes supported, other times shared and practiced in the company of peers.

Invitations, independent interactions with text, shared experiences, supported instruction and celebration all look and sound quite differently depending on the development, personality and intellectual engagement of each student and the artistry of teaching strategies employed by teachers. But the pursuit of learning-to-read is almost always exciting, engaging and exhilarating as children come to see themselves as readers in a most complex and interesting world.

Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
Eric Harvie School


Saturday 12 November 2016

Learning to Read: The greatest adventure yet!

"Precise observation of literacy behaviors is at the heart of effective teaching."
Irene Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell, 2016


The term ‘literacy’ is truly a loaded word – it can refer to any number of domains but essentially means to be able to comfortably navigate, create and communicate within a set of particular parameters.  As educators we often speak of ‘language literacy’, ‘math literacy’, ‘digital literacy’, ‘environmental literacy’ or ‘citizenship literacy’ - and there are many other 'literacies' across disciplines we all are likely to encounter in our educational experiences.  When I first began teaching, I recall that the word  'literacy' only referred to language literacy - an indication, I think, of the tremendous influences our experiences with language have on all other aspects of life!

This week I had the immensely pleasurable experience of spending a half hour with a Gr. 1/2 classroom during their 'Roots of Empathy' baby visit (it is always my personal goal to do this every month when baby visits happen - I haven't managed to accomplish this goal in 11 years of ROE school experiences but it is still an excellent goal I hope to accomplish this year!!). As the children talked about baby Parker, they made note of his vocalizations - his baby way of 'talking' - and that got me thinking about how this beautiful baby will navigate the world of language literacy - and how I hope he will be given the opportunities to experience language literacy in his own particular ways to support the amazing language adventures he is just beginning to nudge towards.

From the early weeks of conception, babies begin to hear language spoken all around them - unaware of the words, nuances or linguistic phrasing that will one day govern most of their personal experiences. At birth, the pulses of language that have swaddled the background of their existence become associated with faces - expressive eyes, smiles and a wide variety of coos, clicks and tones focused on each infant alone - a beautiful introduction to living is this immediate connection of sounds to loved ones, human faces and communication through expressions. We are tuned, so to speak, from birth to associate language with human connection in order to express the needs upon which our existences completely depend. 

And so begins the development of language literacy. 

Parker is just about 5 months old and he already knows to make eye contact, cooing sounds, cries and yells to connect with his family, others in life such as our Grade 1/2 students and anyone who might attend to his egocentric needs! He has already been issued invitations to written language through spoken language, having clearly been read to frequently - he knows to look at the pictures when Mom picks up a book and he will try to reach for the pages - Parker is, indeed, already well launched on the path of successful language literacy development.

So, what happens next? How do babies, who so successfully learn the power of oral communication with seemingly relative ease, move into the world of 'successful reader' as they become school aged?

The first thing is to recognize is that none of Parker's successes with vocalizing or interacting with books on the most basic level happened by accident - all that vocal interaction, sharing of toys and books, story telling and babbling with babies is done very intentionally by humans who have an innate need to communicate and interact to survive. Becoming a successful reader is a highly similar process - intentionally developing opportunities for every human to experience multiple interactions with words of all dimensions to expand and refine understanding of language.  Repeated and diverse experiences with language will lead as 'effortlessly' to successful reading as learning to vocalize 'effortlessly' does for infants.

It was pretty clear to the children and adults welcoming Parker to our school that he was greatly excited by every interaction - his enthusiasm showed in his waving arms, big smiles and pretty much constant cooing! He was like a little sponge, wanting to be part of every experience that was happening - very much the way we would describe most 5-month-old infants.  He is innately driven to learn and that is a quality of humanity that does not dissipate with age - it's just that sometimes we curb the enthusiasm for learning with our adult rules, guidelines, expectations and measurements. 

This is what I hope never happens to Parker - or to any of my children, grandchildren or the students I teach today and have taught over 28 years as an educator. And yet I know, all too well, it has already happened to most of them and it could happen to Parker as well. It is these adult perspectives that exert the most power to interrupt the innate learning of language literacy into successful reading. Sometimes, with the very best of intentions, we move learning to read from the world of human growth through interaction to the realm of rules, 'dos', 'don'ts' and 'musts'. What was once engaging and pleasurable now presents opportunities to 'fail' and 'suck' and say "I can't".

It is my opinion that learning to read IS the greatest adventure possible for children to learn - it is the entry point for so many further experiences in life! 

It is also my opinion we - educators, parents, grandparents and all other connected adults alike - must stop trying to fit children into prescriptive patterns of learning to read that often cancel out this most pleasurable experience and inhibit the Parkers of the world from seeing reading as a gateway to grand adventures. We need to stop placing our faith in 'systems', 'generalizations' and 'tests' - and we need to recognize reading comes to children in much the same ways oral language does - through iterative, two-way, positive interactions, many repeated small challenges to stretch thinking just a little further and through the sheer joy of experiencing things in connection with others. 

At Eric Harvie School, I believe our number one job is to make sure all our children become strong readers and writers - flexible, capable and creative in their experiences and use of language literacy. Nothing can be more important than this - we are the entry-point facilitators of our students' future learning experiences. 

And we can't do this alone - we need to be in concert with our families, our community and our world - for language literacy knowledge is not resident in classrooms, libraries, textbooks, worksheets or digital reading programs. It is just as much an immersion experience as teaching babies to speak and interact in the world.  And sometimes we are already working hard to overcome attitudes and beliefs children have acquired about how 'hard' it is to learn to read, how 'boring' it is, what 'level' they are reading at, who is the 'best' and 'worst' reader in their classroom, etc., etc., etc. 

The learning-to-read adventure is a path determined in direction only by the individual attributes of each child. Just as we are all born babies with life paths that converge and diverge repeatedly through life, our experiences with becoming successful readers do the same - sometimes we can be learning the same thing as the child next to us on the bus or at skating lessons, while other times we need to go off and learn something quite different in order to navigate the learning to read adventure successfully. The artistry in learning to read is led by caring, attuned adults who are not waiting to correct but rather to nudge a child gently towards an experience that is 'just in time' - to not interfere with but rather support positively learning to read successfully.

Where do we start? With read alouds from infancy. With conversations around the kitchen table, on walks through the community and the coulee. With visits to the library and the bookstores. With words - Nursery rhymes, chants, songs, tongue twisters and silly stories, with fairytales and mixed up fairytales and simple, interesting stories that have a clear structure. We gently move oral language into written with rebus stories or one word tags or colour words written in their own colours hanging around our kitchens and classrooms. With our names written in upper and lower case letters - on wooden blocks, or scratched into sand on the beach or made from playdoh or lego. With hand-written invitations - full of mis-spellings - to our birthday parties or our sleepovers or an afternoon skating - or thank you notes for Christmas presents or birthday gifts. 

We start with demonstrating gently and by example that the written word is as important as the spoken word, for that is where successful reading really begins - with the desire to be a participant in the experience - just like Parker vocalizing to be part of the oral language experience at 5 months old, our readers - regardless of their age, stage or development - need to want to be part of the successful reading experience. And that is accomplished by sharing, issuing invitations and valuing reading together in human connection.

This is the first of a 3-part series on learning to read. 

Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
Eric Harvie School









Sunday 6 November 2016

Stories: the grain of sand in the oyster...

"We need stories of hope perhaps more than we need new ideas on curriculum, formative assessment or instructional strategies. Stories of hope can nurture our spirits."
Elena Aguilar



Everything starts and ends with a story...our lives, the world, even our schools...

Opening a school named after a well-known person offers great opportunities for students to explore and investigate the stories and legacy of that school’s namesake - even as we begin to write our own stories of school.  

In our case, Eric Harvie was a very well known Calgary philanthropist who left an immensely strong legacy of citizenship and advocacy for care of people, animals and the land. As we work to clarify our vision for our new school, we know we have many stories to understand and tell as we begin – stories of the land, of Eric Harvie himself, of our school and the impact we hope to have on our community and the world, as well as the stories of who our students are becoming as they grow and influence their families, community and city. 

As we take up the work of exploring and unfolding many stories this first school year, we see the legacies of Eric Harvie as one of the 'grains of sand in the oyster' that will eventually yield the 'pearl' - the identify of our new school.  This is a metaphor we've been using in many ways as we've been building a vision and sense of identity for our new school - and it is a most effective way to begin exploring the legacy that informs our name as well as how we will enter the community, the CBE and the city of Calgary.

'Legacy' is one of the lenses through which we are telling, exploring, building and sharing our stories with students this school year - along with place-based and peace education. As a new school community, these wrap around the world we are entering (Eric Harvie - our namesake, the community of Tuscany with it's rich geological and aboriginal history, and the world goal we all hope to share) and offer us a way to texturize storytelling with our children.

In the coming weeks, all students from Eric Harvie School will begin to enter into the legacies of Eric Harvie, the man. We will begin by visiting the Glenbow Ranch just east of Cochrane on Highway 1A, donated by the Eric Harvie Foundation to the province of Alberta. As we engage with various investigations and explorations we will come to understand the man whose name we carry - his motivations, the places that shaped and framed his thinking and the scope of impact his philanthropy carried in our province, city and communities. More importantly, we will begin to see that all we are, all we do, all we share and how we interact with each other, the land and the world carries enormous impact well past today's experiences - that every step we take, every word we speak, every action we undertake - leaves a trail of legacy we cannot know.

This is the kernel - the grain of sand - in any great story - the possibility of impact. As we begin to shape our school story, we can 'see' the long history behind us that helps us envision the long future ahead as well. And as we write the stories - with words, images, acts of kindness, music, innovative thinking - we will  not lose sight of the threads of characters and events that brought us to this hopeful moment in time - the opportunity to thoughtfully imagine a new school for nurturing hope and joy in learning.

That is indeed a tremendous legacy - and a story of hope to nurture all our spirits!

Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
Eric Harvie School