Secret Ways : Character Building

I still remember the overwhelmed feeling of my first year of teaching.  At that time, I distinctly remember telling myself to hang in there as surely by year three I'd have it figured out.  HA!  Here I am at year twenty something, and I'm still always working to figure it out.  The challenge, I believe, becomes that teaching is a people profession.  Children are always different, and different children have different needs.

"We have found that when our students have lots of ways and reasons to connect, their stance as learners begins to change (p. 72)." Sibberson & Bass 

When the school year ended I had good intentions to stay connected with my students.  I had brought parents in for a discussion around keeping students reading across the summer, updated our reading hub, and talked with students about summer reading plans.  As the calendar turned from June to July, I was struggling to connect with readers I had served in intervention.  My students are too young to have their own accounts so all correspondence goes through their parents.  They don't see my updates on Twitter.  They don't read my emails.  The only way I stand a chance is if they stop by our hub, but that didn't seem to be happening.

Where did I go wrong?

As the calendar turns from July to August, I'm still finding it difficult to connect with these readers.  I'm hoping they're still reading, but I miss hearing about the books they are discovering.  I miss hearing them make recommendations to one another.  When I had my own classroom we spent time together in digital spaces across our year.  We had a class Shelfari account.  We posted together in our class blog space.  We continually visited our Kidblog account to write, read, and respond.  We posted together using our class Twitter account.  We used our Symbaloo spaces to connect to sites for our learning.  Digital tools were embedded in the learning we did across our day.

Building Digital Habits
In thinking back to my last year working as an intervention teacher, I hadn't really developed those same digital habits in my students.  I had tried to incorporate greater use of digital tools.  We responded to reading using Pixie, Educreations, and Explain Everything.  We set goals and talked about our reading lives in Evernote.  We participated in the global read aloud.  We commented on the reading hub blog periodically.  The problem, as I think back, was that we didn't do anything regularly or in routine.  We didn't really talk through the purposes of digital work.  Digital work wasn't consistently an option for my students.  Limited time added to the challenge.  I found it easier to work with students digitally if their classrooms had set digital spaces and digital work was just part of the way they learned.

Having just finished Digital Reading:  What's Essential by Franki Sibberson and Bill Bass, I'm finding myself thinking more and more about the work I do supporting readers in classrooms.  As I step back into my role in August I know I want to be building habits that will help my students to grow as readers, both in traditional and digital ways.  I know that I want to find ways to make digital opportunities an intentional part of our lessons.  I know I want to grow their connectedness with their reading communities, books, and authors.  Most of all, I know I want to find ways for parents and students to be [digital] readers TOGETHER.

What changes will I make?

• Build My Awareness:  Instead of creating new spaces, I want to work within classroom systems where they exist.  I want to be more aware of digital spaces students are using in their classrooms and weave these spaces into the work we are doing.  Students don't always need to respond in their notebooks.  I'm going to need to be more intentional about helping them to find times they want to share their response/thinking with others beyond our group.  If students have digital space to collect important work, I want to utilize this space more as a part of our normal routine.
• Use Digital Spaces:  When students do not have digital opportunities in their classrooms, I need to be ready to grow spaces we can use.  Finding opportunities to use our community blog space, create spaces for personal blogging/response for students who do not have them, and taking them back to our hub to connect/link to spaces that support our learning as part of our routine will be essential.
• Connect Parents to Our Learning:  I've spent a lot of time building our community hub. I need to find ways to bring parents into this space with greater intention.  I'm not sure yet how I will accomplish this. I think it will be combination of working to improve the content so parents want to go there, continually updating and reminding parents of information here through emails or consistent posting, and getting students to help guide parents into this space may be a start.  
• Intentionally Embed Digital Possibilities:  Last year I had some students who would light up when digital tools/reading sites were used during our lessons.  I need to figure out who those students are early and provide them with opportunities that might help grow their interest in literacy.  I also need to make more of an effort to balance digital possibilities with traditional print possibilities in both reading and writing.  
• Document Our Reading Stories:  Right now, I use Evernote to document our reading stories.  I'd like to find ways to turn this over to students.  One place I'd like to begin is in keeping track of the books we read (more on this in an upcoming post).  I'm also playing around with Seesaw, Google, and our new Canvas LMS to figure out how to make this work.  

Last year was my first year in reading intervention for quite some time.  It was the first time I had been completely out of my classroom and devoting my entire day to supporting readers.  My time is spent with primary students needing additional reading support.  I don't consider my readers to be struggling or deficit, but to be a different place than most of their peers.  My role, as I see it, is to help them to build bridges and make connections so they can be a part of their reading communities.  I still find myself thinking between my role as a classroom teacher and my role as someone providing reading support.  Both roles provide different advantages and challenges in supporting readers.

To support readers I prefer situations in which I am able to go into classrooms (some advantages here).  I'm not a big fan of the word push-in.  It sounds controlling.  It sounds forceful.  For me, I think of it more as working alongside.  There's something that feels more accommodating about going into a classroom.  I feel like it sends the message that the student is most important.  It seems to say, "I'll meet you where you are."  I also find that it helps me to make stronger connections to classroom instruction and help students with transitions between lessons and the work they do in their classrooms.

I am continually reminded of how lucky I am to have teachers who are willing to set up communities that make coming into their classrooms to support readers work.  Of course, for this type of situation to work classroom teachers and support staff must be willing to work together in the best interest of the children.  Communication has to be open and honest.  Time has to be respected on a daily basis.  These are some of the characteristics I find conducive to success:

• Long Literacy Blocks:  Recently I was talking to a few friends who work in the same role I have in other districts.  They were asking how I managed to get into classrooms with schedules being the way they are.  As we talked I realized some of what makes my situation work is that teachers dedicate 120-150 minutes in literacy instruction.  In grade levels where teachers run similar schedules, it is also possible for me to flexibly move students between classrooms to better match lessons to student need without shaking up everyone's schedules.   
• Consistent Routines and Schedules:  It's easier to go into classrooms that have consistent routines and schedules.  In these classrooms students know their role across learning times and teachers are freed up to meet with small groups and individuals.  Coming into classrooms works best in classrooms that are using a workshop model.  There's much flexibility within the structure of a workshop to meet with students.  
• Timeliness:  Both teachers and support staff have to work to respect time.  If I say I am going to be in someone's classroom for a certain period of time it is important that I am there every day at that time.  Because the time of support staff is also limited, it is helpful when classroom teachers are keeping the class on schedule to help utilize the time available for specialists.  
• Cooperative Learning Environment:  I find the best inclusive intervention happens when the tone in the room is one where everyone works together, problems are solved as a community, and each member is seen for the strengths they bring the others.  In these rooms the group understands they're stronger together.  The teacher isn't the only one solving problems, and students are connected to others beyond their classroom.  
• Students Engaged in Self-Selected Work:  I have found I've had the most success in classrooms where students have choice and ownership in their work.  In these situations, students know they have time during workshops to complete projects as learning carries across days and isn't as full of deadlines.  Stepping away from their work for a bit doesn't mean they won't be able to finish.  Students given tasks to complete by the end of a literacy block worry they won't be able to finish on time.  Additionally, it is easier for me to connect our learning to the work they are doing when they are working on authentic tasks related to learning.  
• Students Are Responsible for Their Time:  When all students in the classroom are responsible for their time and have ownership in their learning they are more likely to use their time effectively.  Interruptions are much less in these types of classrooms.  
• A Hum of Learning Fills the Room:  Silence isn't necessary for me to go into a classroom.  As a matter of fact, our small group can sometimes be a distraction in a room expected to be silent.  However, in rooms where everyone respects the learning space it is much easier to meet.  In these rooms students and teachers move to one another to talk.  Voices are kept at a whisper and conversations are about learning.  There's conversation in these rooms, but it is purposeful conversation.  
• Thoughtful Movement:  It isn't necessary for everyone to stay in their seats for small group work to happen, but it is easier when movement is limited to purpose.  In classrooms where students collect books, tools, and other items needed before finding a space to begin there is less movement during the time we work together.  

As the calendar turns to August I'm busy thinking of ways I can better support students in the coming year.  What worked?  What needs to change?  I know I couldn't do any of this without the help of the classroom teachers that support these students across the day.  I'm fortunate to be part of a community that believes in the power of literacy and putting students first.