Yesterday morning, I started out my Friday as I always do: reading Doug Peterson‘s This Week In Ontario Edublogs post. One of the posts that he highlighted was Stepan Pruchnicky‘s post on making your students love books as much as you do. He includes a wonderful list, but I wonder if there’s one more point to add to it: don’t level your library. 

For years, we’ve had two types of books in our classroom:

• groups of books that are sorted by topic/interest.
• groups of books that are sorted by level.

Most students only chose to read the levelled books as part of the Take Home Reading Program, but then this year, after many discussions and a lot of reading, we decided to change our Take Home Reading Program. This blog post by Fountas and Pinnell may have influenced our decision the most. We teach the youngest students in the building, and if their decision to explore a book is based solely on what words they can read in it, they may decide to never open a book. In the long run, what value does this have in producing life-long readers?

I understand why people level books, and I even understand the value in picking books that children can read on their own, but our very youngest readers are likely to need support with all reading materials. Often the easiest books are pattern-based, and as adults, we’re the ones that establish the pattern for the child. At times this may build confidence in reading, but how are we continuing to build reading skills?

• There’s value in children telling stories based on the pictures.
• There’s value in having children listen to stories and developing comprehension skills.
• There’s value in reinforcing letter-sound skills within the meaningful context of a book.
• There’s value in helping children understand that there are many reasons to read — from interest to information — and that even as adults we read items of varying degrees of difficulty. If we really want to read something, sometimes we’ll work that much harder at decoding and comprehending it, as the content matters so much to us.

Here are two things that I struggle with though.

• If a child sees him/herself as a non-reader because even the text in the easiest book is too challenging for him/her to read.
• If a child gives up on reading because the number (or letter) on a bin makes him/her feel as though he/she is behind in reading and/or less successful than his/her peers.

And so, a few days ago, we worked with a small group of children and we started to remove the levels from the book bins. 

We’re removing levels from the books today. Kids will help sort the books in a different way tomorrow. We thought about the ideas in the K Program Document & the impact that “levels” can have on how kids see themselves as readers. We saw first-hand today what happens when the levels come off & students see themselves as “competent and capable”: able to apply the strategies they know to read books that interest them & allow for more comprehension. Amazing! So much great book talk too with @paulacrockett as a small group worked on this. SWIPE FOR MORE. #iteachk #teachersofinstagram #ctinquiry

A post shared by Aviva (@avivaloca) on Sep 28, 2017 at 5:04pm PDT

Amazing things happened during this process. 

Students started to understand why reading matters. Why do we read?

A mini-lesson oh why books matter with Mrs. Crockett. pic.twitter.com/9DDULZgwkb

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) September 28, 2017

Students started to access books that they wouldn’t have read before. Even though these books were challenging, they began to really use decoding skills to help read the words on the page. 

Reading instruction with Mrs. Crockett today. cc @john_gris pic.twitter.com/8sdWkRneQh

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) September 28, 2017

The reading continues … @john_gris pic.twitter.com/Wdf1EWHRDQ

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) September 28, 2017

More reading … @john_gris pic.twitter.com/UpWYmvPJ9N

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) September 28, 2017

Working on reading the title of this book. pic.twitter.com/g6pttBuVF2

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) September 29, 2017

All students were drawn to the books. Children that spent the most time with the books were not the ones that usually do so. More children WANTED to read and to engage with text. 

Book sorting from today (for our at home reading program). #ctinquiry #iteachk #teachersofinstagram

A post shared by Aviva (@avivaloca) on Sep 29, 2017 at 4:31pm PDT

Students also got excited about reading and wanted to bring books home with them. The more they read, the more proficient they’ll become at reading. 

I’m curious to see the impact that removing reading levels has on children’s perceptions of themselves as readers and on children’s growth in reading. Would less focus on levels help increase reading interest across the grades, and ultimately, lead to more proficient readers? I’d be curious to know what others have tried and what they’ve observed. Like Stepan, my teaching partner and I want kids that want to read. How do levels support this, and if they don’t, is it time to start advertising them less in our classrooms? This does not mean that I will never read a levelled text with students, but it does mean, that I will not be discussing the levels with the child or the parents. Instead, I’ll be exploring ways that we can get the child reading and engaging more with books. This seems like a better focus to me. What about you?

Aviva

This year, we were all given Marian Small’s Open Questions For The Three-Part Lesson: Measurement, Patterning & Algebra to read, discuss, and contemplate as we plan for math learning. I started reading it over breakfast the other day, and I shared this photograph just before I began.

My breakfast time reading. Trying to figure out what this looks like within the context of the K Program Document. #ctinquiry #iteachk #teachersofinstagram #engagemath

A post shared by Aviva (@avivaloca) on Sep 21, 2017 at 3:04am PDT

While I’ve only read the Kindergarten section of the book so far, I think that I may have figured out the answer to my wonder. 

In our Kindergarten class, we don’t set-up these questions for our students to answer, but we do purposely place objects around the room and provide items for children to play with that will lend themselves to this kind of math learning. Then my teaching partner, Paula, and I spend our day observing, talking, and playing with kids. It’s as these math learning opportunities happen through play that we insert the kinds of questions or extensions that are suggested in this book. So, for example, we might not start by putting out two different-sized containers and asking how they compare, but when students start to fill one container with sand, we might present another one and ask a similar question. Or, when it comes to patterning, we might not use the same materials, but as students create patterns with the Perler beads, we’ll often ask them to create patterns with the same number of red and blue beads or more red beads than blue beads. This would just extend the learning that’s already being shared using these materials.

For me, Small’s book is not about activities to set-up to do with every child at the same time, but a list of great suggestions to extend the math learning that’s happening through play. By starting with the play, the students understand the context for this learning, and we can then bring the thinking to the next level. I know that this can certainly be true in Kindergarten, but what about in other grades? Do we have to start with the activity, or could we begin with the child instead? One thing that I love about the Kindergarten Program Document is that it’s explicit that we observe the child, determine interests, and link the expectations to what the child is already doing, instead of starting with the expectations and planning the activity to go with them. This was a very backwards approach for me at first, but I think that it speaks to the child being at the heart of the document and the heart of the learning. Shouldn’t this be true in all grades? 

I have never been a fan of math textbooks, and when we use resources as just lists of activities to do, I wonder if we’re truly considering the diversity of our learners, their interests, and the meaning that this math can have for them. But when we use a resource as just that — a resource — and link our observations of learning with the extension questions suggested, does this become more meaningful? I think child-centred, interest-based learning would benefit students well beyond Kindergarten and still allow educators to meet expectations and observe learning. Small’s book makes this possible, but is this how people are using it, and does that matter? For me, this is a case of not just what children are learning, but how they’re do so. What about you?

Aviva

Play. It’s a four-letter word that continues to have a negative connotation, or so it seems. I’m not talking here about teacher-directed play, or contrived play scenarios. I’m talking about free play. Truly free. Letting children do what they love to do, and watching them, talking with them, and trying — when appropriate — to extend this play or make links to other expectations. In Ontario, we have a Kindergarten Program Document, and it’s one that I absolutely love, for play is at the forefront of it. The second sentence on the first page of text makes it clear that this document is about more than expectations, but also pedagogical approaches.And yet, as clear as this message is, as wonderful as it is, and as amazing as this program can be, I find that there are so many of us out there that find the need to justify the value and importance of play. This truly makes me sad, for I wonder what impact these pedagogical approaches would have on ALL learners: not just the ones in Kindergarten. 

Yesterday afternoon, I read this wonderful blog post by Janet Raymond: a fellow Kindergarten educator and one of the terrific people who teaches next door to us. I love Janet’s focus on “building brains,” and the value in open-ended tasks that are beyond just memorized learning. Please don’t get me wrong: I believe in the importance of teaching children how to read, and supporting them in developing their academic skills. I also think that when we teach these skills in context, their ability to remember them and apply them in other situations, increases. The Kindergarten Program Document actually discusses the importance of this contextual learning, and I observe the value of this every single day in the classroom. 

So how can we combine this risk-taking, problem solving, whole body movement, and academic expectations? I can’t help but think back to this example from Friday. While I published this post on our class blog, I’m also going to share it here, for I think that it helps outline how problem solving and gross motor play can also connect with reading, writing, math, and meaningful mini-lessons happening ANYWHERE.

The Bug Graveyard

(Note that the comment that’s in this video happened after the initial comment that I wrote in the PicCollage. I asked Evan to explain it to me again, and his word choice changed slightly.)

Making these links isn’t always easy, and it doesn’t always look the same for each child. But when we teach skills in context, students don’t just learn the rote knowledge, but they understand the importance of these skills and can apply them in different situations. I think of this fantastic conversation that happened a few days earlier as the students made their initial bug graveyard. They had another sign on this graveyard, but then they had to engage in a lot of problem solving to determine where and how to affix the sign. During this discussion, you can hear the concern over other people not being able to “read the words.”

Aviva