Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to hear Dr. Alfred Tatum speak on engaging black males in the area of reading.  He is the author of many books including Reading for their Life, Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males, among others.  Dr. Tatum is a professor at University of Chicago.  I think it's important to share what I learned for those who have not been able to hear him speak before.

• Students read the human text before they will read any other text.  Your body language, attitude toward teaching, and way you treat students is of vital importance.
• Reading and the life context of your students needs to be considered together.  The texts that are selected need to engage readers- you can't simply select books based on their reading level.
• To elaborate on the point above, the text worked on in class should make your students better readers and teach them something.  It's helpful to use nonfiction texts and/or fiction books that expand students' schemas.  Students should think differently after working on a text.
• When presenting text to students, Dr. Tatum always starts with introducing the title of the work, selecting an engaging sentence or paragraph to read aloud, and asking engaging questions that get students thinking on a deep level.
• After completing the above step, Dr. Tatum will introduce vocabulary, work on comprehension through reading the story, and finally extend the story to allow students to process the information at a higher level.
• Dr. Tatum believes in combining fiction and nonfiction texts within lessons.
• Your students should see you reading and writing.  If they are working, they need to see it is something that you value as well.
• Finally, YOU should be transformed by the text you put in front of students.  If the text does not make you think or change your schema, it should not be put in front of students.

Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills

Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills
ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Children exposed to a multi-year programme of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a study published in the journal Psychology of Music.
According to authors Joseph M Piro and Camilo Ortiz from Long Island University, USA, data from this study will help to clarify the role of music study on cognition and shed light on the question of the potential of music to enhance school performance in language and literacy.
Studying children the two US elementary schools, one of which routinely trained children in music and one that did not, Piro and Ortiz aimed to investigate the hypothesis that children who have received keyboard instruction as part of a music curriculum increasing in difficulty over successive years would demonstrate significantly better performance on measures of vocabulary and verbal sequencing than students who did not receive keyboard instruction.
Several studies have reported positive associations between music education and increased abilities in non-musical (eg, linguistic, mathematical, and spatial) domains in children. The authors say there are similarities in the way that individuals interpret music and language and “because neural response to music is a widely distributed system within the brain…. it would not be unreasonable to expect that some processing networks for music and language behaviors, namely reading, located in both hemispheres of the brain would overlap.”
The aim of this study was to look at two specific reading subskills – vocabulary and verbal sequencing – which, according to the authors, are “are cornerstone components in the continuum of literacy development and a window into the subsequent successful acquisition of proficient reading and language skills such as decoding and reading comprehension.”
Using a quasi-experimental design, the investigators selected second-grade children from two school sites located in the same geographic vicinity and with similar demographic characteristics, to ensure the two groups of children were as similar as possible apart from their music experience.
Children in the intervention school (n=46) studied piano formally for a period of three consecutive years as part of a comprehensive instructional intervention program. Children attending the control school (n=57) received no formal musical training on any musical instrument and had never taken music lessons as part of their general school curriculum or in private study. Both schools followed comprehensive balanced literacy programmes that integrate skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.
All participants were individually tested to assess their reading skills at the start and close of a standard 10-month school year using the Structure of Intellect (SOI) measure.
Results analysed at the end of the year showed that the music-learning group had significantly better vocabulary and verbal sequencing scores than did the non-music-learning control group. This finding, conclude the authors, provides evidence to support the increasingly common practice of “educators incorporating a variety of approaches, including music, in their teaching practice in continuing efforts to improve reading achievement in children”.
However, further interpretation of the results revealed some complexity within the overall outcomes. An interesting observation was that when the study began, the music-learning group had already experienced two years of piano lessons yet their reading scores were nearly identical to the control group at the start of the experiment.
So, ask the authors, “If the children receiving piano instruction already had two years of music involvement, why did they not significantly outscore the musically naïve students on both measures at the outset?” Addressing previous findings showing that music instruction has been demonstrated to exert cortical changes in certain cognitive areas such as spatial-temporal performance fairly quickly, Piro and Ortiz propose three factors to explain the lack of evidence of early benefit for music in the present study.
First, children were tested for their baseline reading skills at the beginning of the school year, after an extended holiday period. Perhaps the absence of any music instruction during a lengthy summer recess may have reversed any earlier temporary cortical reorganization experienced by students in the music group, a finding reported in other related research. Another explanation could be that the duration of music study required to improve reading and associated skills is fairly long, so the initial two years were not sufficient.
A third explanation involves the specific developmental time period during which children were receiving the tuition. During the course of their third year of music lessons, the music-learning group was in second grade and approaching the age of seven. There is evidence that there are significant spurts of brain growth and gray matter distribution around this developmental period and, coupled with the increased complexity of the study matter in this year, brain changes that promote reading skills may have been more likely to accrue at this time than in the earlier two years.
“All of this adds a compelling layer of meaning to the experimental outcomes, perhaps signalling that decisions on ‘when’ to teach are at least as important as ‘what’ to teach when probing differential neural pathways and investigating their associative cognitive substrates,” note the authors.
“Study of how music may also assist cognitive development will help education practitioners go beyond the sometimes hazy and ill-defined ‘music makes you smarter’ claims and provide careful and credible instructional approaches that use the rich and complex conceptual structure of music and its transfer to other cognitive areas,” they conclude.

SAGE Publications/Psychology of Music (2009, March 16). Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 21, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/03/090316075843.htm

Can it be? Technology Used for Good?!

Many people bash television, video games, ipods, and computers for creating lazy children who spend less time reading and using their imagination. Is this true? It's my viewpoint that reading will look different in the future than it does right now. Rather than giving up, educators need to use their imagination and think outside the box so that we are creating different readers rather than non-readers.

Children and young adults today (myself included), are digital natives. This means we entered into a world full of computers, video games, and television. Technology was simply part of our lives. Many teachers however are digital immigrants- they grew up in a world without computers, video games, and television and they were slowly introduced throughout the digital immigrant's lifetime. What does this mean? For digital immigrants need to understand that children today are very different today and might even think differently (I'd like to see a study on this, because I think it might be true). We need to create learning opportunities using technology rather than insisting that children learn the same way children have in the United States for hundreds of years.

There are so many ideas on how to use technology to create different readers rather than non readers. Here are some ideas.

Ipod- audiobooks listened to while a student follows along with a print text can increase reading fluency. There are also so many educational podcasts, videos, and songs that can be added to them to increase phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary.

TV- turn on the closed captioning. Having the closed captioning on is research based to increase reading fluency.

Video Games- Video games finetune motor skills and there are many educational video games that can help students improve their reading or math skills.

Computer- I do not even know where to start. The computer/Internet has opened up the world for students. Please see Online Resources for Educators for some ideas. There is so much available though, this list could go on forever!

I hope you now see that we have to change the way we think about educating children and realize that they learn differently today. That does not mean they will be non-readers!

UNDERCOVER READING!!!

Super Rock, Winchell Elementary's reading icon, has been kidnapped. Students must read, read, read to help find out who was behind this evil plot and help rescue Super Rock. For every 1,000 AR points students read a new piece of evidence will be posted. Suspect wanted posters are already displayed in the school as are sketches of what the villains look like. Be on the lookout Winchell R.O.C.K.Stars and READ! 20 minutes a day is the Winchell Way!!!

Texting Can Help Reading Skills

Yes, teachers must instill a love (and hopefully an obsession) with reading in our students however, we must also meet children where they are and challenge them to embrace the reading in their everyday world. From closed captioning on televisions to websites, blogging, and text messaging literacy is everywhere!!!


Study: TMOT, Texting Can Help Reading Skills
By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 3/1/2009 8:20:00 PM
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6640877.html?desc=topstory

The finding sounds 2G2BT, but British researchers say text messaging doesn’t harm literacy. In fact, those who regularly text have better reading skills, despite their frequent use of phonetic spellings, abbreviations, and omission of vowels.
A study published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology looked at 88 U.K. kids ages 10 to12 to examine the impact of texting on their language skills and found that it could actually have a positive effect on the way kids interact with language.
“Children's use of textisms is not only positively associated with word reading ability, but it may be contributing to reading development," the report says.
Lead author Beverley Plester told theBBC that texting doesn’t negatively impact children's spelling ability, either. “What we think of as misspellings, don't really break the rules of language and children have a sophisticated understanding of the appropriate use of words.”
The kids involved in the study were asked to compose text messages for 10 different scenarios. The textisms were split into categories, including shortenings, contractions, acronyms, symbols and unconventional spellings, and analyzed for their use of language alongside more traditional schoolwork. Researchers found that the ratio of textisms to total words used was positively associated with word reading, vocabulary, and phonological awareness.
"When we look for examples of text speak in essays, we don't seem to find very many," says Plester, explaining that "The more exposure you have to the written word the more literate you become and we tend to get better at things that we do for fun."
A 2006 study from the University of Toronto had similar results. It found that teens have a strong comand of grammar in their text messaging.

Building a Reading Brain: I

This is the first of many posts on the brain and reading. There is so much information out there it's overwhelming! Here's what I've learned so far reading Brain Literacy for Educators and Psychologists by Virginia W. Berninger and Todd L. Richards.

First of all, lets start off with why we need to know about the brain. This book brings up an interesting point by saying that teachers educate minds EVERY DAY yet learn nothing about the brain. The viewpoint of the authors is that "educational practice might also become more effective if grounded in a scientifically supported conceptual framework integrating neural, cognitive, linguistic, and developmental science rather than atheoretical pedagogical procedures."

I'd have to agree with them and express my frustration at the fact that the only place in the US to study more on this issue is Harvard which is very expensive and not accessible to all teachers. I feel that at least a very basic overview of cognitive neuroscience should be taught in every teacher prep program throughout the US. I guess the only option for those not able to go to Harvard is to teach themselves which brings me to this blog entry...

Reading and the Brain
With experience, dendrites grow and branch off forming new connections and creating a web of communication in the brain. Early intervention for reading is needed because 1) there is less emotional interference due to repeated failure and 2) it's easier to create new connections in younger children.

Different brain structures are specialized for different tasks however they all interact and have more than one job. When we teach students to read we are using brain structures that already have a purpose and training them for another job. This is great, but students must have the structures already developed and working properly at the first job before they can be cross-trained for another task. Another way to look at this is that teachers "remodel" the brains of their students.

As stated above, different brain structures are specialized for various tasks. During reading the auditory, visual, and vestibular senses interact and are re-trained for reading. Take vision for example; most children are adept at extracting visual features from things they see but when they learn to read they are taking this and creating a new job description- Written Word Visual Extracting Specialist. They now must use their visual skills for a new purpose.

Large print is often used for beginning readers not just to prevent them from being overwhelmed but physically, it helps eyes better track the words on the paper. Blue transparent overlays may also help in this area.

Finally, the most interesting thing I've read so far was the possibility that the vestibular sense may be frequently impaired in students with dyslexia. It was suggested by the book's authors that possibly pairing motion sickness medication with intense reading intervention may help a student's eye movements across a page of print and help with their reading difficulties. How fascinating!

Check back later for more information on reading and the brain. I'm trying to keep myself from being overwhelmed by the amount of information out there!

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Just finished the best book ever! Or, at least the best book I've read in the last 6 months or so... A young boy reads an ad in a newspaper, "Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?". The ad catches his interest and he ends up taking and passing a series of bizarre tests with insane directions. Only 3 others pass and the children, all orphans and all gifted, form the Mysterious Benedict Society. The group is lead by Mr. Benedict, a man with a mission to cause the downfall of a very evil man- a man intending to send messages directly into the minds of the world's citizens and gain control of the world. It's a longer children's novel but is very difficult to put down!

My Brilliant Ideas...

My Two Brilliant Ideas of the Day...

1) Classroom Read Aloud is a must- I don't think anyone will disagree. However, if students each had a copy of the book, yes this would be expensive, read aloud time would also boost fluency. I would alternate days of them following along with days of just listening so perhaps just half a set of classroom books would be needed. Half of the group would follow along while half would just listen- then they'd switch the next day. I think there would be countless benefits from this but perhaps I'll try it out this semester and see what happens.
2) Student Read Aloud You Tube Channel- not sure if this is legal but if a safe classroom youtube account was created. Students could read aloud from the book they are reading and post it on Youtube. Is it legal to read aloud an entire book on youtube?