Page Turners Club Kickoff!

Every teacher's challenge = getting kids to read, read well, and read often. ON THEIR OWN.

The solution = read The Book Whisperer and then start a classroom book club of your own!!! The Book Whisperer  has seriously become my "reading teacher's Bible" and is the number one book I have recommended to colleagues and teacher friends time and time again. Seriously, read it, and then revisit it every year!!!

My experience...

Book reports, monthly reading calendars, reading incentive programs...all ever present and designed to encourage (or politely require) reading at home, something every teacher works hard to promote as we all know this habit is critical to our students' success. Throughout my career I have s.t.r.u.g.g.l.e.d. with these tasks and shied away from them. I want my students to read at home everyday, but I want them to WANT to read everyday...not just do it because they have to record minutes or complete a project. And, to be brutally honest, I hate grading book reports when the involvement of parents can be so drastically different and apparent.

Once again I find myself walking that fine line. What can I "require" to get my students to want to read, read often, and openly share about what they are reading in order to gain evidence of their thinking and growth as a reader so that I know they are applying everything we learn about in class? My students this year do love to read already. Their previous teachers and our librarian have done a fabulous job introducing them to a wide variety of literature and carefully, expertly, choosing read alouds they still rave about. My task is to craft an engaging, rigorous program that meets the challenge of Common Core while still fostering students who can't wait to crack open that crisp new hardcover, smooth fresh pages open, and settle into their favorite reading nook to hide from the "real world" for an indefinite period of time.

I believe that the key to being an effective teacher is being passionate about your teaching, the topics you are studying with your students, the activities you engage in, and learning in general. My students are engaged and excited because I'm engaged and excited. As I shared with a group of teachers this summer, it's not about getting students to do their work...it's getting them excited about their learning so that they want to do their work. This year one of my students told our special education teacher that he wanted to come to her room during social studies because he didn't like social studies. I laughed and told her that might change, because he hadn't had social studies with me yet. I didn't say that to be cocky, but I do absolutely love teaching social studies and incorporate project-based learning often, which students LOVE. Well, guess what Mrs. A. came to tell me today? "Mr. ___ just told me that he doesn't want to come to my room during social studies anymore because now he likes it!" LOL!

So why am I explaining this to you in a post about getting students to read? Because I haven't found many at-home reading projects or incentive programs that truly get kids to internalize a long-term LOVE of reading so that they continue reading even after they've met their goal or finished the program. I want my students to collect a pile of books to curl up with, love making trips to Barnes & Noble (or whatever bookstore is nearby), and race to get to class because they can't wait to see what we are reading next. I want them to run up to me exclaiming that I just have to read the book they finished last night, or turn to a friend in the library as they are all browsing around to recommend title after title. I want them to be well read with quality literature. Not a short order by any means, nor an easy problem to solve since I've been mulling over it for 12 years and teachers and educational (and non-educational) companies have spent thousands of dollars year after year encouraging kids to read.

My solution...begin a book club. Not in the style of most adult book clubs, though, since having everyone reading the same book whether they love it or not defeats my purpose. My book club is quite simple. Eliminate all the recording of minutes or pages read everyday and just read! How many adults that you know check the clock or write down the page they start on so that they know exactly how much they've done? None! Why? They just want to relax and get lost in their book. If we are investing our time with students helping them make good reading choices, validating their responses and thinking, and maintaining on-going conversations about books, then many students will grab book after book without any incentive or prodding from us.

But how will I know they've read, then, you ask? By exposing students to a variety of genres through book talks, encouraging self-selected reading from each, introducing meaningful reading responses and conversations, introducing them to a TBR (to be read) List, challenging them o set a goal for the year (my suggestion is the 40 Book Challenge), AND...the best part...holding monthly book club meetings to validate their thinking about their reading!!! Add a few adult volunteers, refreshments, and a special project or craft? Bam! That just sucked in the last disinterested, on-the-fence kiddo left debating whether or not they should join (did I mention the club is "optional?") How could we not pull in the perks of a book club?!

Since goals need to be tracked, my students need a place to take notes during mini-lessons, and they need a place to record their reading responses, we use a composition notebook to create a reading notebook during the first days of school each year. Our Page Turners Club handbook pages are glued in the front, our mini-lessons are recorded just behind, and they flip the notebook over to record responses from the back. The handbook is available in my TPT store (click here) in both full-page versions that can be copied and bound and also in interactive notebook size (composition notebook size) if you prefer to cut them down to see and glue in as needed. I've done both ways!

I'll leave you with a sneak peak of a few pages from my Page Turners Handbook. As this post has already become a novel, I'll post more later about Page Turners meetings...happy reading!

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Mission and Vision

Are you officially "back to school" with students yet? We are! My brain is whirling after the first three days of school. My students this year are sweet, adorable, eager to learn and eager to please. The excitement for the upcoming year on their part (and mine) is so evident already. Like y'all, we spend tons of time during the first days, especially, in community building to set the tone for the year. Last year I was inspired to introduce and create mission and vision statements with my class to add additional "connective tissue" between our classroom rules / expectations and our learning. WOW! So powerful!!!

I began our Morning Meeting by introducing the concept of "mission" to my fourth graders. "Do you know a mission is?" (blank stares...) "Have you ever heard the phrase, I'm on a mission?" 

[Faces instantly light up..."Oh yeah! Like we want to do something!"]

"Yes! Well, we are on a mission this year. To do what?" 

[Super excited students..."To learn!"] 

"You got it! So how should we put that into a statement that we can use all year?"

[Serious thinking faces on...one peanut raises her hand and tentatively yet eagerly says, "Everyone learns?"]

"Absolutely! Now...how often?"

[Another kiddo..."Every month?"]

LOL! "You mean you only want to learn every month?"

[Giggles...a third student..."Every week?"]

LOL again! "You mean you only want to learn every week?"

[Almost everyone..."Every day!!!"]

"NOW you're talking! How about...Everyone learns everyday?"

["Yeah!!!!!]

"Great! Now our vision statement. A vision is something that inspires us to achieve our goal. So I want you to close your eyes and picture how you see everyone working together this year to make everyone learn. What do you see? What kind of qualities do we have that allow us to learn and work together so that everyone is comfortable?"

And I'll end our dialogue there. I'm sure you can already hear them suggesting different traits and qualities, and of course a picture of their completed statements was at the top of the post. The only contribution I made to that list was the word "critical." I was careful to explain that I didn't mean we would focus on the negative connotation of that word, or look for faults in one another. I explained that critical thinkers are students who think through their answers, opinions, or comments carefully, and who can state their opinion and back it up with evidence. I explained that this might mean that we need to learn to disagree respectfully during class discussions. You all know that Common Core is rich in evidence-based learning, critical thinking, and supporting students to explain their thinking both orally and through writing. Introducing this mission and vision last year and including that word CRITICAL allowed me to begin the year with the immediate expectation that my students needed to always know the "why" behind their thinking. 

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Student Checklists

Every year for as long as I can remember I have created some type of student checklist that I can grab to quickly check in anything I'm collecting, pass to specialists or an event coordinator, keep with my id badge for quick access during a fire drill, etc. You get the idea...a basic check sheet with everyone's name that you can use for anything and everything under the sun. These things are a total must have in every classroom!!!

Over the years I've created several variations of the same basic table, but this year I feel I've totally nailed it on the head. Ahhhhhhh.....perfection. Here it is...

So what makes this one that much better than before? Well...one day as I was perusing my way around Pinterest I came across this teacher's blog showing something very similar, only after cutting her lists apart she had affixed them into a narrow spiral bound book. LOVE the binding idea, but totally not going to cut them apart by hand and glue individually into a book. #1...I don't have time, and #2...writing on paper that has been glued down drives me crazy...paper needs to be crisp, not wrinkled. (Yes, I'm picky!)

So I changed my table to include 4 per page and aligned them perfectly for back to back printing. I also used grey text and lines in the interior to reduce the shadow of the ink from the backside appearing too much on the other side detracting from the writing space. I just ran a test copy and absolutely love how simple and clean they look. 

So how will I bind? Well, after I use my paper cutter (no scissors for this lady!) to cut the lists apart (just make one cut halfway between each list...no need to cut on every side), I plan to grab one of my brightly colored pieces of cardstock, cut front and back covers of the same dimensions as the checklists, and bind everything together on our book binder at school. No more random piles of checklists to keep track of!!!

Oh, and the best part? I made a blank one for you and put it as a freebie in my TPT store. Enjoy!!!

Update...here's my process for turning these into a bound book. Cut, stack, bind, DONE!

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True Confessions from the First Day of Back to School

So today was my first day back for the second time at my "new" school, and I find myself so unbelievably excited, humbled, grateful, and blessed to be part of such an amazing school family. Last night for the first time in I don't know how many years I felt absolutely no desire to prolong summer and delay the start of school. Maybe that makes me a crazy person instead of a normal teacher, but I am totally amazed at how at peace I am about heading into another school year (maybe even more unbelievable considering that not only am I going back to work, but my one and only baby is beginning kindergarten this year).

Now you're probably thinking...big deal, so she's ready so go back, so what? Well, if you don't know me personally, then you don't know that a year ago I resigned from a district, school, and team that I loved and accepted a new position in the district that I lived in to work closer to home. Was making the change easy? No. Was it the right decision? Absolutely! There were many times last year when I felt like a brand new teacher and questioned my decision to move, but the bottom line was that I needed a change. WOW, did I need a change, and I can see that so clearly now. Moving grade levels and districts forced me to reevaluate all the trainings and resources I've had, the decisions I make as a teacher on a daily basis, and the techniques I choose to manage my classroom and instruction. I've relearned to trust my professional judgement and have awakened an energy and creativity in myself that I haven't felt in years.

So this morning heading back to my "new" school I thought back to a year ago when I first joined this staff, to a year spent feeling slightly displaced, and ahead to the upcoming year. Then during our initial staff meeting I found myself looking around at all the faces of colleagues who I now call friends, who I can't wait to continue to get to know better both personally and professionally, and who I admire as an amazing group of individuals who want to do what's best for our kids, bottom line. And what amazes me most is that I feel so assured that this is without a doubt where I am intended to be right now.

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Back to school time!

Well...I haven't quit, I haven't taken a two month vacation overseas, and I haven't died, but I have been a teacher on summer break who needed to clean out her entire house after 10 months of living and breathing fourth grade. My summer to-do list is far from complete, but I am SO excited to be prepping my classroom for another fantastic year and to welcome a new batch of kiddos. I've been in and out of my classroom since mid-July rearranging furniture and cleaning out filing cabinets (yikes! that is a seemingly endless job...), painting a fabulous rocking chair I nabbed at a garage sale robin's egg teal, and sewing curtains for my windows. Can you say classroom makeover? Have I remembered to take pictures of any of those things? Nope! (I promise I'll try to remember to take a few this week...)

But I do have a new goodie to share with you from over at my TPT store! My hubby and son are off fishing, and I'm enjoying a few quiet minutes to myself to recreate the student info form I always ask parents to complete at our fall Back to School Night. My goal? Condense two different forms into one to minimize the number of forms parents need to complete, and create a form that can be copied on cardstock and cut to a half-sheet. No more messy stack of forms! These little guys will be three-hole punched and stored neatly in my sweet little (half-sheet sized) binder!

Grab your FREE copy just until school begins! 

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Advanced Fluency for "Fluent Readers"

It's my first week of summer, and I'm already immersed in a PD class on Jan Richardson's The Next Step in Guided Reading. LOVE starting my summer with food for thought as I reflect on the past year and all the things I want to revamp, revise, or totally redo. Also super convenient that the book was one of the ones on my summer reading list. :)

During a breakout time the topic of fluency came up on many fronts as we reflected on a portion of the text stating that running records may not be needed for fluent readers. In upper elementary many of our students are "fluent readers," so do we need to teach and monitor fluency? We debated and mulled over needing data or evidence to show growth to parents, how to use fluency data, how to define what being a fluent reader is, etc... Our district uses AIMSWeb to monitor fluency, and several teachers expressed that there are times when, according to AIMS norms, a student hasn't achieved "fluent reader status" based on the number of words they read correctly in a minute, even though the teacher would consider this student to be fluent. One strategist shared the story of a teacher who had asked for her to listen to and give her opinion on a "non fluent" student's reading. After listening to the student, the strategist she agreed that he was fluent...so fluent, in fact, that he would probably be narrating TV commercials one day. Is speed everything? No.

Let me share another story from my experience. Enter student A...let's name him Aaron. According to AIMSWeb, Aaron is fluent. He reads in the range of 240-280 wpm, which ranks him in the highest category of proficiency according to AIMS. So did I mark him as proficient in the area of fluency when communicating home? Nope! Did this surprise parents? YES! Aaron is a gifted student, and I'm sure that he has probably always been noted as being proficient. So why did I not grant him this achievement? When Aaron reads aloud he has one pace. Fast. So fast that he slurs and omits words, mumbles, and can barely be understood by his peers. He may have the ability to read every word perfectly, but his technique prevents us from grasping even a basic idea of what he is reading about. Is speed everything? No.

Fluency is so often defined as speed and accuracy, but as students become "fluent readers" its meaning MUST become more in depth. Our shift in thinking about and teaching fluency must gradually move from speed and accuracy to phrasing, intonation, and expression. Or, as I verbalize to my students, using your voice as a tool to interpret and bring a story to life. The ability to do this is SO POWERFUL, as it not only reflects fluency, but also reflects a reader's level of understanding. They way readers read shows us they are considering the emotions, personalities, and relationships of characters, and the pace and energy of certain events or segments in stories. Fluency not only shows us a students ability to decode words, but, more importantly, their ability to uncover the many layers of a story or text. So back to the two readers I described above...from our observation of his reading, is our future commercial voice comprehending what he is reading? Yes, and probably at a higher level. Is my Aaron comprehending? Yes, but typically only the gist of the story. As you might have guessed, there were many elements of texts we read in class that went unnoticed to him.

As students get older we often see a discrepancy between a student's fluency (number of words read correctly in a minute) and overall comprehension. Why is that? I believe that it is because we as teachers so often discontinue working on fluency once our students decode accurately. I have been guilty of this. Not because I wasn't teaching my students to read or think about the way their voice sounded as they read aloud, but because up until recently I haven't really considered what is advanced fluency. How do I go more in depth with students and create more rigorous learning experiences? How do we model close reading and guide our students to become analytical readers? How do they peel off layers of a story like an onion to digest character relationships, struggles and conflicts, point of view, etc, and to engage in meaningful discussion and reflection? By becoming truly proficient, fluent readers, who can bring a text to life no matter if they are reading aloud or on their own.

So to go back to the question raised by our group of teachers this morning...do we need to continue to teach and monitor fluency once students are "fluent readers?" Yes, I believe we do.

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Absentee Work - Freebie!!!

Over the years I have created many versions of a form to send with students when they are absent from class. Some have been tables, one had different speech bubbles (my first attempt at making something cute), some had very specific sub-headings for subject areas that I didn't often end up using. Despite recreating it at least 5 times I was never happy with the functionality, until now!!!

Get ready...ooooohhhhhh, aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!! Wait for it...

Seriously.the.best.version.ever. LOVE the big boxes vs. skinny lines in the tables I used to use. More room to write, and the more "squarish" rectangle allows for more usable space. I'm thinking lists for kids who are gone more than one day, sketches of graphic organizers, sample problems in math. etc. LOVE that my students also think it's "cute" and are happy to carry it away from my table to use (and show to their parents). It's amazing how much more eager they are to plan out their work when I whip this baby out!!! Last but not least...LOVE the colored boxes, off-set columns, and my first commercial-use font from Kimberly Geswein. (There...my overly visual self fessed up.) 

CLICK HERE to download it for FREE at my TPT store!

Please share this post or the TPT link with any teacher friends who could use this!!!

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Hello world!

OMG I am so excited to be writing this! After my persistent husband said for the forty-seventh (or eight hundredth) time, "You know, Laura, you spend all this time online reading from other teachers who are just like you. You really should start putting some of your work online." Sigh...I supposed he was right, and after weeks of brainstorming, planning, designing, and organizing, I am finally launching The Contemporary Classroom. 

So what will you find here? A growing cache of everything that is great for kids. Not only what and how I teach and manage my classroom, but how I create a rich culture of readers, thinkers, and collaborators. I'm passionate about the resources I'm creating and using, book reviews, Common Core based lessons, close reading, math workshop, small group instruction, 21st Century Skills, links to other teacher bloggers who I read regularly for my own learning, things to organize, classroom management strategies...pretty much anything and everything my students and I are working on or learning about!

I hope you find something here to inspire you, make your life as a teacher easier and more meaningful, and many many resources you can grab and apply right away. Happy teaching!!!

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