A Few Random Thoughts on Read Aloud

I wasn't going to blog this morning. I spent most of yesterday helping write a grant for a community organization, and I needed to get up early and do some work for school. But then I read Mary Lee's beautiful entry about read aloud. And I knew I had to write something…

Two years ago, I was doing reading intervention half time. For 90 minutes every afternoon, I met with a group of fourth and fifth graders who were reading at a second grade reading level. Two of the eight were English Language Learners. One little guy we later found out was living with his mom and little sister in their car most of the year. One of the girls was living with her mom and four younger siblings-- her dad was in jail. Another guy was a gentle giant, one of those kids who I know I will see on Monday Night Football some day, but also a kid whose sweet sensitive spirit had some how gotten overlooked in favor of his athletic prowess. And then there were the random children that arrived at our school for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, and then moved on, often without any notice at all. If you were to ask me about a group I would always remember, it would be that group of kids. The reason being- they reminded me of the power of a great read aloud.

The first book I read to them was Barbara O'Connor's HOW TO STEAL A DOG (which, by the the way, is one of my all time favorite read alouds, and a book I have read to two other groups and am about to start for the third time tomorrow). Given that I hardly ever use a novel as a read aloud more than once- that's huge!). That book became the cornerstone of our reading life and of our reading community for the entire year. HOW TO STEAL A DOG was the measuring stick by which we measured all other books, "That was good," the kids would say, "but not as good as HOW TO STEAL A DOG." I turned to HOW TO STEAL A DOG every time I needed to teach a mini-lesson. The children used HOW TO STEAL A DOG as a lens into each other's lives. "You have to be nice to B," said M, a girl who was recognized as one of the biggest bullies on the playground. "Remember HOW TO STEAL A DOG? You don't know what someone else might be going through." HOW TO STEAL A DOG became that scarlet thread that bound the kids together as readers and as human beings.

This year, I'm working with an entire class of fourth graders. And I have to say, in over a quarter of a century of teaching, it is one of the toughest groups I have ever had. Almost thirty kids. Seven reading at a first grade level. Another five reading at least a year below grade level. Five that speak more Spanish than English. A mean girl group that rivals any I have ever seen. Three kids in foster care. A child whose fifteen-year-old mom's in utero drug and alcohol use has led to severe cognitive issues. Several others living with random relatives. It's a tough, tough group, kids with life stories that take my breath away on pretty much a daily basis.

I have taught a long time and have a few tricks in my bag. Usually I can figure out something to tame even the most savage of beasts, but the first month that I worked with these kids was really, really hard. Every time I tried to do a minilesson, or have a writing conference, or engage the kids in independent reading, chaos erupted. They wiggled and squirmed and fought with each other. They stole each other's pencils and chips and book bags. They harrassed and bullied and were unkind to each other.

Over Christmas, I thought about the fourth graders. About how mean they were to each other. About how hard they were to teach. About how far they had to go. About what we were not accomplishing. And I realized that the one thing that I had not done with this group was to read aloud much. In my rush to maximize my 90 minutes of teaching, I hadn't helped them to become a community of readers, or to learn to care for each other. Overwhelmed by their academic and emotional needs, I had forgotten the power of a good book.

And so that first day after Winter Break, we started again. I sat down in my chair in the meeting area. I opened up THE FANTASTIC SECRET OF OWEN JESTER. And I read to them. I read away the hardness of their lives. And read them into a world where a kid could make a hard choice to say goodbye to a beloved pet. And have a big adventure. And stand up to mean friends.

Things didn't change all at once. That first day, the kids complained about sitting on the floor. Some of them didn't listen, or at least didn't appear to be listening. They wiggled and squirmed and poked at each other. I had to do teacher stink eye pretty much every time I turned a page. But I kept reading.

And somehow, over the course of 150 pages, this group is becoming a community. They come to the floor without protest. They press against my knees, gently stroking my legs as I read. They are quiet and focused. After every chapter, they beg me to read, just a little more, just a few more minutes. They are attempting to incorporate some of Barbara O'Connor's techniques into their own writing. They stop by my office to ask for other books by Barbara O'Connor. They are becoming better readers. And more caring human beings.

And that, Mary Lee, is why I read aloud to kids...

OUT OF MY MIND- Sharon Draper

I'm wishing that I was teaching fifth grade this fall. I already have my first few read alouds picked out. I'd start with NO TALKING by Andrew Clements. Then I'd do one of my all time favorites, HOW TO STEAL A DOG by Barbara O'Connor. After that, I would read MOCKINGBIRD, one of my favorites from this summer, and then I'd move to my newest favorite, OUT OF MY MIND by Sharon Draper. (I'm thinking that when TOUCH BLUE, Cynthia Lord's newest book comes out, it might go on this list also). All of these books, I think, are great tools for opening conversations about how we treat each other, and helping kids understand and respect the differences in other people.

OUT OF MY MIND is the story of Melody, an exceptionally gifted eleven-year-old, who lives with her mom and dad, her baby sister, Penny, and her golden retriever. Melody is absolutely brilliant, but the problem is, very few people know it, because Melody was born unable to speak or walk. No one except Melody's mom and dad and her neighbor, Ms. V. recognize her brilliance and she spends her days in the self-contained special education classroom at Spalding Street Elementary School, where she learns the alphabet and sings from kindergarten CD's year after year after year. When Melody is in fifth grade her world changes. She gets a speaking machine (which she promptly names Elvira) and can finally communicate everything that she is thinking. She is able to try out for the Whiz Kids team, a kind of brain bowl. She makes the team, but still isn't like the other kids and still isn't totally accepted by them…

I absolutely loved, loved, loved this book. Sharon Draper does an amazing job helping readers to get inside Melody's head and understand that despite the fact that Melody's body is different, she is just the same as any other human being. She wants to to be invited to pizza parties and trips to the mall, to have friends and be accepted, just like all of us do. And I can't even begin to imagine the conversations that kids would have around last fifty pages…

FALLING IN

Isabelle Bean is one of those kids that many of us who are teachers know well. She's smart, not the "get straight A's in school" kind of smart, more the kind of living in her own world, super creative, going to be an artist or inventor or entrepreneur as an adult kind of smart. She's quirky, but not the kind of quirky that kids, or even most adults, like or appreciate. Instead she is the kind of smart and quirky that causes her to be isolated and lonely. "By the time Isabelle reached third grade, she had given up on friendship. She'd grown tired of sending birthday party invitations to children who never RSVP'd, much less appeared at her door on the given date with brightly wrapped packages in their hands. She'd given up making persimmon cookies to bring to school, where other children called them Cootie Cookies and refused to eat them. She'd given up handing out Valentines stenciled with pictures of beating, winged hearts. She'd even given up smiling at girls who seemed shy and in need of a friend themselves."

Isabelle's situation becomes even sadder when we learn about her family- she lives alone with her mother, who was raised in an orphanage, and doesn't quite know how to parent her very different daughter. One day, Isabelle is sent to the office for not paying attention in class. She opens a door, and finds herself falling into a whole different world. She soon meets Hen, who is as pragmatic as Isabelle is spacy, and Grete, who after being declared a witch by her community, has been hiding out in the forest for more than fifty years.

FALLING IN is a fantasy, which is not generally my favorite genre, and even though I loved Frances O'Roark Dowell's SHOOTING THE MOON, I didn't absolutely love this book. Isabelle is a quirky character, and I can only think of two or three kids in my school, mostly our "Isabelles" who would really understand her. At the same time, I'd love to try the book as a read aloud early in the school year. I think FALLING IN could open up some really big and important conversations about how we treat and care for people in our community. And those are exactly the kind of doors I want books to open for kids…

LESSONS FROM LISTENING

This weekend, the boys and  I drove to Wichita for a basketball tournament. The drive is  506 miles of  cornfields and prairie, so to entertain us, I took along a couple of books on tape. I wanted something we could all enjoy, so I got a John Grisham novel, THE LAST JUROR and also Tony Dungy’s new book, UNCOMMON. I thought the boys might like the fast pace/suspense of John Grisham, and even hoped they might like it enough to try reading a Grisham novel when we got home. They didn’t love that book, in fact, at one point, Son #2 asked me to turn it down because it was getting annoying. Interestingly, they loved Tony Dungy’s book,  UNCOMMON, which I thought was great, but would have rather read than listened to.

As someone who reads aloud to kids constantly, it was good for me to be a listener, because it helped me think about several different ways I could help kids enjoy and get more out of our read alouds. Here are some things I learned:

• It helps to activate background knowledge and set the stage for kids. Grisham's novel was set in the South in the late 1960's and early 70's. The book opens with a murder, and then, predictably, is followed by a court trial. The jury consists of 11 whites and one black. My boys and I talk about Civil Rights and racism a lot. Even so, it was helpful to my boys to remind them of what they knew about Civil Rights, what year Martin Luther King Jr. died, etc. 
• Chapter titles are tremendously helpful. John Grisham’s book didn’t have them. Tuny Dungy’s did. The titles helped set me up as a reader, and prepare me for what was coming. Many  books don’t have chapter titles. In that case it seems like it would be particularly important to help kids activate background knowledge by using whatever was available- summarizing information from the previous chapter, leafing through the chapter to check for illustrations, photographs, or other visuals, thinking about what I knew about the author's previous works, etc. Maybe, if I use a book as a read aloud, I'll ask the kids to title the chapters, then use those titles the next time I read the book aloud.
• Talking about story structure could aid kids' understanding tremendously. John Grisham's book was tricky in terms of time.  He included any number of tools- flashbacks, leap aheads, etc. As an adult, I had to rely on my knowledge of how authors build stories to help me better understand the text. My boys did not have that knowledge and it was confusing to them when Grisham flashed back, or moved ahead five years without any transition. With kids, it might even be helpful to physicially draw some kind of a timeline and either fill it in, or just talk about where various events occurred in relation to other events
• If you are reading nonfiction, and want kids to remember important information, it might be helpful to have them DO something either during or after the read aloud. Dungy’s book is kind of Christian “advice” book. We listened to all thirty plus chapters on the way back from Wichita. I doubt that the bos will remember much of it, however, simply because we didn’t spend a lot of time working with the text or talking about it.  I plan to listen to it with them again one chapter at a time. 

I'm going to try to remember these lessons next year when I start reading aloud to kids.

BELLA AND BEAN- Rebecca Kai Dotlich

For the past few weeks, I've been writing poetry in a kindergarten class. Today will be our last day together, because I will spend the next few weeks administering the CSAP to a group of fifth graders. I've found the perfect farewell read aloud- BELLA AND BEAN by Rebecca Kai Dotlich.

I first read about BELLA AND BEAN on the Year of Reading blog two or three weeks ago. Franki said, "A book about poetry and a book about being a friend. What could be better?" I couldn't agree more!

Bella is a poet. She likes sitting in a chair, thinking of beautiful words, and writing poems. Bean, on the other hand, is a going kind of gal. She likes walking to the pond and planting snow bushes. The fact that these two good friends care about such very different things causes more than a little "friction" in their relationship. 

This would be a great read aloud for a unit on poetry. Or for teaching kids about word choice. Or when you are talking about friendship or conflict resolution. Or when you just need a great read aloud…

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON READ ALOUD CONTINUED

A couple of read aloud images from yesterday:

11:00 Third Grade Intervention Group

It's the day before third grade CSAP (our state tests) and the anxiety level is a little high. I have decided that one more day of test prep is not going to make that big a difference for my struggling readers; instead, we are having a party to celebrate all that we've learned so far this year. Aside from poetry, I don't read aloud to this group a lot, mostly because I have them for such a short time every day. Today, though, I bring SEVEN MILES TO FREEDOM, a wonderful new picture book biography about Robert Smalls, a slave who smuggled his family, and the families of several other slaves out of South Carolina (and stole a Confederate ship and four cannons in the process). 

As I read aloud to my little group, which roughly reflects Stedman's population (50% African American, 40% ELL, mostly from Mexico, and 10% Anglo), I know that the decision to NOT read aloud every day was a really bad one. "I can't remember. What's slavery?" says S, one of the three African American kids in the group. M doesn't know what a harbor or a dock is. About two-thirds of the way into the picture book replete with images of water and boats, C says, "Are they going in a boat or on a train?" 

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1:00 Fourth/Fifth Grade Intervention Group

I have this group for ninety minutes each afternoon and have read to them since Day One. We are currently three chapters from the end of Christopher Paul Curtis' historical fiction novel, ELIJAH OF BUXTON. I usually begin our group with read aloud, but today several of the kids are late, so we start with independent reading time. The second I pull the kids together, Jackie says, "Are you going to read today?" I grab ELIJAH and read one chapter, a pretty long one, that takes about twenty minutes. By the end, my voice, on its fourth read aloud of the day, and still kind of hoarse from last week's bout with the Colorado Crud, is just about shot. "Can't you read some more?" says Rodolfo. "We're almost done," pleads DiAnthony. I grab a paper cub from the top of the piano (we meet in the auditorium) and dispatch Darlene to the water fountain, then read for 25 more minutes, until my fifth grade writing group is standing at the door. As they leave, I remember that we never did guided reading or skills block today. I think it's fine. Today I built kids' reading hearts.

I have been reading to kids since the day I began my teach career in 1981 (the first professional development session I ever did was based on Jim Trelease's READ ALOUD HANDBOOK). Those first few years, I joked, only half kiddingly, that read aloud was the only time I could get kids to truly settle down and listen. Today, I am reminded anew:  Read aloud is not only good for the soul, it's VITAL for building kids' passion for books, as well as their background knowledge, vocabulary, and listening comprehension.

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I was not entirely accurate yesterday with the statistics about how many parents read aloud to their children, it's actually about the same in the United States and Australia. One-half of the parents of preschoolers read aloud to their children. Two-thirds of the parents cite TIME as the reason they don't read aloud. Check out Susan's latest read aloud entry about one of her readers, who blogs at THE ECCLETIC READER has a magnet on the side of her car encouraging parents to read to their children. (I'm considering getting one of these for my car. I think that in addition to promoting this hugely important habit, it would cut down on my chauffeuring responsibilities because my sons, who already think I qualify as a leading candidate for Nerd Book Mother of the Year, would refuse to ride with me, despite the fact that I read aloud to them pretty much every day). 

NO TIME TO READ TO KIDS?

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to read to kids. Teachers at my school will tell you that I am a fanatic. This morning, I found a really disturbing post. Did you know that 1/2 of the parents of kids under 6 in the United States DO NOT read aloud to their little ones????? In Australia, it's worse-- 2/3 of the parents don't read to the kids. Head over to the The Book Chook and read her post about this!