Thursday Thinking…

I have always been a teacher.

But I have taught in many different contexts.

I started out as a first and second grade teacher.

Then I was a literacy resource teacher. That was in the days before there were literacy coaches. We had t-shirts that said, "Be a LRT" (Get it- be alert!)

Then I moved to New Hampshire, where I taught undergrads, which I loved.

And then back to the classroom for a year.

After that five years as a district literacy specialist, racing madly between 80 something schools, trying to do just a little good for a whole lot of people.

Then an assistant principal for five years. And after that a literacy coach/reading interventionist for five more years.

And now, this year, for the first time in many years, I am back in the classroom, teaching fourth grade. And I am loving it. But it's hard, hard work every single day.

So I thought maybe I would try a post about things I am thinking about. And I'm sure it will not be anything new to people who have been in the classroom. But it's what I am thinking about right now.

This week I am thinking about books. Specifically classroom libraries. And independent reading. And reading workshop. Some things I am thinking:

It takes a ton of books to run a reading workshop. I am a lover of books. I have probably well over a thousand books in my classroom library. I buy new books every. single. month. Actually pretty much every single weekend. And I don't have nearly enough books. I wonder, then, how teachers who have only the paltry little selections provided by cash-strapped school districts can ever run a reading workshop.

I am thinking about the quantity of books necessary in an urban setting, as opposed to a suburban setting. My kids don't have many books in their homes. Some of them go to the library, but not many. So the books they take home to read are the books from my classroom library. And yeah, I let kids take books home. I have to, if I want them become readers. But those books don't always come back. And travel, even in folders or ziploc bags, can be hard on books. And then they have to be replaced.

There is also the issue of how kids treat books. I cherish books. Adore them. Use bookmarks. Don't turn down pages. I talk with students constantly about caring for books. And still my books are getting really, really beat up this year. Sometimes because my kids don't have a lot of books around, and have not grown up loving and cherishing and caring for books. And sometimes kids just read certain books to death. I know, for instance, I'm going to have to replace my whole set of Babymouse and Lunch Lady pretty much every year. The kids just wear them out. I would love to hear what other teachers do to protect their books.

Closely related to that, it takes a ton of money to run a reading workshop. I make bookstore runs, or order online, pretty much every weekend. This year, I'm trying to limit myself to buying chapter books. And graphic novels. And a little poetry. And every once in a while a picture book, usually historic fiction, or one by an author or illustrator I love. OK, yeah, I guess I just buy books. A lot of them. And that costs a lot of money.

Yes, I search for used books on Amazon. And watch for the buy 3, get 4 ads. And yes, I go to Scholastic warehouse sales. I use book club points if I have them. But remember, I teach in an urban area. My kids don't order books. Any of the book points we have are because I have ordered books. And please don't tell me about going to garage sales and the Goodwill for books. I know you can find decent books in decent quality sometimes. But I am not willing to putting anything less than the cutting edge best in my students' hands.

While I am on the subject of how much I spend on books, I think I have to say something about young teachers, or families that are struggling in this economy. Fortunately, I have taught long enough that I make a little more. I can buy books (at least if I give up other stuff, like nice clothes and dinners out). But I look at teachers that are just starting out. And they don't make much. Or teachers who have other financial issues or commitments (like kids in college!). They can't buy books for their classrooms. And then we wonder why some teachers struggle with reading workshop.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, it takes a ton of knowledge to run a reading workshop. (Again, this is not going to be anything new to anyone who teaches). If you are going to run a successful reading workshop, you have got to know children's literature. Period. No, you don't have to have read every single book on the shelf, but you have to know books. You have to talk books, and advertise books, and sell books. Every. single. day. You have to be able to say, a hundred times a day, "I found a perfect book for you" or "If you loved *** you will love *****)." And yes, as the reading community develops, kids do that for each other. But the teacher is the chief reader. And she sets the tone. And the pace. And if she doesn't love books and know books nobody else, or at least not very many kids, will either.

I'm struck, as never before, by how many teachers don't read. Don't know kids' books. Don't read book reviews. Don't follow blogs. Don't talk to like-minded colleagues through Twitter or groups like "The New Centurions" on Facebook. And I wonder how they can ever run a reading workshop. It's like being a chef and not owning a set of knives. Or buying a set, and then never sharpening them. It just doesn't work.

It also takes a ton of professional knowledge to run a reading workshop. You have to know how to talk to kids about their reading. You have to know about reading strategies. You have to know when to push. What kids need. How to give them the tools they need to decode and comprehend text. There is no place for teachers who are not reading or growing professionally.

I love reading workshop. Wouldn't want to teach reading any other way. But bottom line is that it's really hard work. It takes a ton of books. And money. And knowledge. And I think it's time that we, artists who love our profession, start thinking about how we can make it more accessible to our colleagues who don't have the passion or the skills or the dollars that we have.

SPARKS FROM ONE FIRE- SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM MY TEACHING LIFE

About a month ago, my fourth grade friends and I finished HOW TO STEAL A DOG. Three or four chapters before we finished, the kids began talking about what we might read next. I really wasn't sure.

J approached me after our discussion. "I think you should read something scary," she advised me. "Maybe a GOOSEBUMPS." She named one of her favorites, telling me that it was one that she was sure all of the kids would love. I told her that I usually didn't read aloud books like GOOSEBUMPS or DIARY OF WIMPY KID, just because kids usually find those books by themselves. I also am not big fan of scary books (or movies), and don't know many good ones, but I would think about it. I knew that DEEP AND DARK AND DANGEROUS by Mary Downing Hahn, had recently won the Colorado Children's Book Award. I hadn't read it yet, but thought it might be a possibility. I promised J I would read that over spring break.

And I did. DEEP AND DARK AND DANGEROUS. was scary, creepy scary. Bad dreams at night scary. And well-written. A book I thought kids would love. At the same time, I was a little nervous that some parents might be uncomfortable with the ghost element. And while I'm not ok with censorship, I also felt like there are so many really good books, that maybe I just didn't have the energy to fight that battle at this particular time in my life.

The Monday after spring break, I put that book in my bag for J. I told her a little about the plot- that it was about Ali, a 13-year-old girl and her four-year-old cousin, Emma, who were spending the summer at a cottage on a lake in Maine. The cottage had been in their family for a long, long time, but one summer, many years before, something mysterious had happened, and no one had been back to the lake cottage for twenty years. Finally, Ali's aunt, had decided to return. The first week back, Ali and Emma were at the beach when they met Sissie, a strange and nasty little girl, who turned out to be the ghost of a child who had drowned in the lake. No one in town seems to know Sissie, but she keeps reappearing in the girls' lives…

I explained to J that I wasn't going to read DEEP AND DARK AND DANGEROUS out loud because I thought some parents might be uncomfortable with the ghost element in the story. I suggested that if she wanted to read the book, and if she thought her parents would be ok with it, I would be glad to lend it to her. J assured me that her parents would be fine with it, and took the book from me.

The next day, J was back. She loved DEEP AND DARK AND DANGEROUS. Did I have any more by that author? We looked for Mary Downing Hahn in our school library, but didn't find any. I returned to TATTERED COVER that night. Bought three more. J finished those within another week. I went back to TATTERED COVER. Found a couple more new ones. Bought those. J read them. This weekend I was at a bookstore in another part of town. Found three more. Bought those. When I brought them to J, she said, "I already read this one, don't you remember? But I don't have these two, so I'll take those." She added them to her stash, and when I saw her in the cafeteria several hours later, she was halfway through one. As of yesterday, as far as we know, J has finished all of Mary Downing Hahn's scary stories. She wants me to bring in PROMISES TO THE DEAD, a Civil War story by this author, that I bought because it had a scary cover. And I'm hoping that might help J's love of Mary Downing Hahn books might help her to make the leap into a new genre- historical fiction.

There is an interesting subplot to J's story, and one that I am still trying to wrap my head around, J makes a point of seeking me out pretty much every day- she stops by my office, or we chat on the playground or in the lunchroom. We talk about the books. Compare notes on which ones are the scariest. J asks if I've brought any new ones. J and I have kind of unconsciously formed our own pseudo Mary Downing Hahn book club. And somehow, other kids have picked up on these conversations. And it's almost like they are a little jealous of this relationship. They are clamoring to get into our club. Someone grabs each Mary Downing Hahn's books as soon as J shuts the cover. Makes a point of showing it to me. Ask if I can bring them books, too.

I've been trying to make sense of this story in my teaching life. I have always worked in an urban setting. Often, my students don't have lots of access to books outside of school and we don't have many kids who come to us as avid, book-a-day readers. I'm always thrilled, then, when I encounter one of those kids. I buy lots of books and can't wait to pass them on. I love talking about books with other readers. I go out of my way to get to know kids and match books with readers.

At the same time, if I'm really honest, the book-a-day kids are not where I invest most of my energy. I spend far more time thinking about my "dormant" readers (I borrowed that term from Donalyn Miller-I love the hopefulness of that label)- finding books they'll love, conferring with them, scaffolding their reading. I go out of my way to make sure those dormant readers are surrounded by great books (and other interesting print). I spend lots of time conferring with them, and getting them off on the right foot.

Thinking about J, and the influence she has had on her class, though, I'm wondering whether I might start next year differently. Instead of working so hard with my dormant readers early on, I might spend more time "going with the goers"- seeking out kids who love to read, fueling those kids' reading fires, and letting sparks from their reading fires ignite the other readers in the class.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this subject…

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A LOWRIDER

I got to know G. last April. when our school piloted a literacy intervention program for first and second graders. I told the second grade teacher that I needed three of her lowest readers for half an hour each day. G's name was the first one out of her mouth. "He cant' read at all," she said. "And he's very shy. It's really hard to know what he knows, because he doesn't talk. And he is really resistant to working with anyone. I don't even know if we will get him to go with you. " In the first few weeks that we worked together, all of those things were true. G scowled when I walked into the room each day and protested coming across the hall to our group. He read only the very simplest kindergarten level books. His writing was almost unreadable. He talked only when spoken to, and even then his voice was so, so, so quiet I often had trouble hearing him.

Eight weeks later, when school ended, G was starting to make a little progress. I had to take my sons to football conditioning three afternoons a week, so I asked his mom if I could continue working with him. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon, I drove to his apartment, waded through the 15 or 20 students shouting my name and begging to ride in my car, knocked on G's apartment door, and took him to the tiny public library a few blocks east of his home.

I had anticipated that G and I would spend most of our time in the easy reader section of the library. There were lots of great easy reads- Dr. Seuss and crew, David Shannon, Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggy series, Jon Scieszka's Trucktown series, etc. G had other ideas, however, "Do they got any books about lowriders?" he asked that first day. We made our way to an area I came to call "Car Corner" and G paged through car book after car book after car book. He couldn't read most of the the words, but he picked out the important ones- Chevy Impalas, hydraulics, chrome, classics, and custom interiors. When we had exhausted our branch library's supply, we got on the computer and borrowed thirty lowrider books from other libraries. We read cars and talked cars and drew cars (OK, G drew cars and I mostly admired the cars he drew). G wrote his own lowrider book and illustrated the book with pencil and crayon sketches, supplemented with color photographs we printed off the internet.

Although cars, and specifically lowriders, were definitely his topic of choice, G also had other interests. He loved books about the Transformers, and drew on extensive background knowledge, probably gained from hours spent in front of the television, to read words like Optimus Prime and Decepticon. He loved pop up books and returned to them again and again, carefully examining how they were put together, and fussing if anyone had mistreated them. He liked reading about jaguars and sharks and snakes.

G grew and grew and grew over the summer. I wasn't sure, however, how much of his growth would translate to the classroom. Would he talk at all? Would he even try reading? Thankfully, he has an amazing third grade teacher. That very first day, Mrs. D made sure that the book tub on G's table was full of easy books about cars, and Transformers, and sharks. She made a special time, even in that craziness of learning names, meeting parents, and sorting school supplies, to pull G aside and read his Lowrider book. She seated G next to his best friend and encouraged them to work together and help each other. I continued to support G with a daily 30 minute intervention group. When it came time for our school-wide special interest classes, G and I taught a class on lowriders. We read his book to the kids the first day of class. He taught them how to draw lowriders. He was in charge of the display at our lowrider celebration in December. And somewhere along the way, his reading took off.

Shortly before Christmas, I began hearing rumors that the family was going to leave. G's stepfather didn't have the right papers and needed to return to Mexico. It would probably be permanent. When G was at school the day after winter break, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Yesterday, however, G told me that he and his family- his mom and stepdad and four younger siblings had their bus tickets and would be leaving for Mexico this weekend. I was heartbroken. I packed a bag of books, gave him a hug, and went back to my office and cried. I will miss that little guy.

Teaching G to read (or maybe it would be more accurate to say accompanying him as he taught himself to read), has brought me back to some of my most important truths, the ones that are so easy to forget in our test-crazy, measurement-crazy world. First, G reminded me that it's so, so, so important to take time to listen to kids, to learn about their passions and their interests and to use those as a doorway into literacy. Before I started working with him, I had little or no interest in learning about low riders. I would never have thought of using lowriders as a tool to teach a child to read. And yet lowriders are the topic that has brought G into reading and writing.

Second, G reminded me that we have to be willing to enter kids' worlds, not just ask them to enter ours. I have never been a teacher who bought books about Transformers or Hannah Montana or other pop culture icons. G reminded me, however, that learners start where they are, with what they know best. Fortunately or unfortunately, for most of the kids I teach, that is stuff from the world of television and pop culture. It's ok to have that be a starting place for their journey into literacy.…

Finally, G reminded me that teaching is always, always, always about believing in kids, caring about them, establishing relationships with them. These truthsseem so basic, and so stupid, but sometimes I get so wrapped up in finding mentor texts and figuring out minilessons and monitoring progress and assembling bodies of evidence that I forget to take time to notice new tennis shoes or hair cuts, inquire about sick grandparents, or acknowledge things kids are doing well. When I forget to do those things, kids forget to learn.

Never underestimate the power of a low rider…

THE YET FACTOR

Late September. Five-year-old D sits at my round table, pencil clutched in chubby fingers. "Do you know how to write your name?" I ask.

"Nope, not yet," D says happily. "But I do know how to make circles. Wanna see?" Without waiting for an answer, D sets off on a circle making adventure. He hasn't quite learned to hold a pencil, and his marks are light and barely legible. The circles are decidedly lopsided. Some touch each other and overlap. D, however, is unconcerned. "Hey," he exclaims. "Look. That one looks like a fish."

As the person responsible for overseeing literacy in my building. I should be a little bit concerned. According to state law, in eight short months, D must be able to write not only his first, but also his last name. He must recognize all 26 upper and lowercase letters and know ten sight words. He has to read a book with three lines of text, variations in pattern, and a little dialogue. And right now, D's greatest literary accomplishment is drawing circles that look like fish.

Even so, I find myself more than a little taken with this little guy. He is not concerned that he can't write his name. He can draw circles. And amazingly, some of the circles even turn out looking like fish! There are lots of possibilities out there.

The operative word here appears to be yet. D can't write his name yet. D doesn't know too many letters yet. D can't read books with three lines of text yet. But right now, today, he's learning to hold a pencil. And he can draw circles, albeit a little lopsided. And I know from watching him in the classroom that he can read a little and that he loves books like NO DAVID.

It's all in the yet factor. As his teacher, I just gotta remember to view D in terms of yet.