The Summer Slide

This summer I have a looping class which means that the children I taught in kindergarten will loop up with me to first grade. Although there is always some natural attrition- parents separate and divorce and move away, parents are transferred, families move back home- about two-thirds of the class end up staying for the second year. I've looped classes before and one of the things that I have seen over and over is what is now being described by Richard Allington as the "summer slide."  It's simple. Children that don't read over the summer most often fall back a reading level when they are tested at the beginning of the new school year and those that read regularly, often visiting the public library weekly, move ahead a level. As you can imagine, the students that fall back are often those that are already behind.

So this year our Leadership Team thought they'd try to do something about it. Reading Allington's research is all it really took to light a fire under this Team. . Before I knew it, our media specialist had met with the Scholastic rep and designed an online summer reading program. She met with teachers and encouraged them to get kids logging in the last week of school. Several of our children were on the computer logging in the minutes they had read that very night. Of course, as you might expect, the students that were first to log on are also the ones that are already ahead and whose families  already furnish a rich language experience in their daily lives.

The challenge has always been how to encourage the others. Fortunately this program offered handouts in Spanish which helped many of my second language learners understand the expectation.  It even provided a paper version that the students could hand in at the end of the summer for those that don't have computer access. We were fortunate to have the Principal's support so she has offered a "prize" to any student that logs in 1500 minutes during the summer. We have pushed summer school teachers at our school and the two camp leaders that meet at our school to become involved.

Now I need to take responsibility for inspiring my own students and keep them reading throughout the summer.  My goal is to have 100% of the students log in at least once during the summer or to bring me a list of minutes at the end of the summer - no small task. This week I sent a personal post card to every student who has already logged in to congratulate them on their summer reading.  I am hoping to start an exchange with those students to encourage them to not only read, but to write.

I sent a letter to those that haven't logged on yet, urging them to give the program a try and sending them their user name and password again and a log sheet just in case they haven't logged in because they don't have computer access.  Now this will be the third time I have sent this information on how to log in, but I figure if their parents keep seeing it, they might decide that it's important.  And besides most of these students (and their parents) will have to face me again in the fall! I don't know if this extra effort will really pay off but I certainly believe it will. In two weeks I will be sending encouraging emails - instead of using the postal service - and then two weeks after that I thought I'd start sending selfies of me reading at home, in the car, at the beach, to my grand kids, and every other way I can think to read.  I'd do a headstand while reading but I can't do a headstand! I  am hoping the children will begin to send me selfies back of them reading!  Can't wait to see if this eliminates the summer slide in my returning students!

Summer School Concerns

Wow-I just looked through the Benchmark Assessment that my students have to pass to pass their grade in Summer School! I can't help but be concerned about what I see as a disconnect. The students that I am teaching took at Pre-test and then have been taught 6 units in 6 weeks with a unit test after each unit taught. They then take a post-test - all of which is curriculum-based. The pre-and post-tests don't count toward their grade, but the six unit tests make up their summer school grade. They must pass summer school to be promoted. They must also pass a benchmark assessment. Passing both of those parts enables a child to be promoted.
Passing Summer School + Passing Grade Level Benchmark = Promotion

Concern #1
The pre-test could have been used for planning - could have been - however, we didn't receive the results from the pre-test until we were giving the post-test (!), so we never had the pre-test results during the time we taught the units. The pre-test information came as a single number -e.g., 68 - so we couldn't even use it to analyze which questions students had missed to know which types of questions, which units, should be emphasized while teaching. The pre-test information could have been helpful and useful if the results had not been received so late and in such an unusable form. The pre-test was actually in the teacher's manual, so had we known we were going to receive the information so late, we could have hand-scored the tests before sending them off to get what we needed for planning. Too little information, too late.

Concern#2
Each unit test was one story long with 12 questions at the end. Such a short assessment didn't really require reading/testing stamina. However, both the pre- and post-tests are two stories long, requiring a little more stamina. Stamina, especially with third graders who have failed reading, is a huge problem. They begin to loose focus, if they have not practiced reading intensely for longer lengths of time. They get tired, sleepy if they are forced to read for longer that they usually read.

Concern #3
I have taught students to underline and number their responses - requiring them to go back and prove their answers - which has been fine for the unit tests and the pre and post-tests, but when we get to the benchmark, the directions clearly state that students may not write in the test booklet! Ouch! How are they going to be able to prove their answers? Every time we practice and they don't go back and prove, they take the easy way out and just try to remember the answer - a proven road to failure. Would have been nice to know.

Concern #4
The benchmark assessment uses a scan sheet with the questions numbered and then choices A, B, C, D. however in the test booklet, the answer choices are alternately A, B, C, D, and then E,F, G, and H. While this might not cause confusion for an older, more experienced test taker, for 3rd graders who have already failed reading, this can cause a problem. They get easily confused and off the correct number. These students need every possible chance to succeed.

Concern #5
The unit tests that we have been giving throughout the summer are not timed. Many of these students suffer with fluency issues (they are slow readers) so this has been to their benefit. However, now, all of sudden, the benchmark assessment, that must be passed to move on to the next grade, is timed! For students that suffer with fluency issues - and that often relates to comprehension difficulty as students read so slowly that they are unable to remember what they've read at the end of the text - this can be disastrous!

It almost seems as if Summer School is an afterthought instead of a well thought-through remediation for students who are truly struggling. Administrators, who are so loosely connected to the students probably had to make quick decisions for large groups of students in different grades and situations. I'm sure their decisions had to be based on global needs. But these are the students who deserve our sincerest effort. They need curriculum individually designed for them. They have already proved that they can't function in a regular situation by failing. They need the most experienced, most thoughtful teachers who are truly experts in their fields. I wonder if the summer program would have been any different if it had been designed by the very teachers who are making the decisions on who is passing and who is failing and who needs to go to summer school - teachers who are in the trenches, who have relationships with children, who have cared so deeply for these students during the year, who have their own blood, sweat, and tears in every detail of each student's learning. If they had designed a summer school experience, would my concerns be the same? I wonder...

Overheard in a first grade Summer School class...

The teacher was trying to access background knowledge for a small guided reading group as an introduction to a story about Thomas Jefferson.

Teacher: Who was our first President?

Child: O'rock Obama.

Teacher: No, Barack Obama is our President now. Does anyone remember who our first President was?

Another child: I know. It was George Lincoln.

Child: No, George Lincoln was our fifth President. I know because my mother showed me his picture in the Bible.

Another child: That's not right. It was George Washington. He fought in the Silver War. Both the teams had boats with B-I-I-I-G cannons and one of the teams won.

Child: Oh yeah, I know him. He lives in Washington,D.C., right beside the Statue of Liberty.
Believe it or not, every line is true!  Oh my! A little more background knowledge might be needed so this group can understand what they are about to read! Thank goodness for Summer School!

Who goes to Summer School?

Children go to Summer School for all different reasons? Sometimes it's for enrichment. Many of our second language students are here this summer listening to English every day - singing, laughing, learning. What a difference it makes when they've had that extra enrichment when they come back for the new year. Some students that come are really strugglers and need the extra time to master the grade level skills. Some have actually missed skills and have holes that need to be filled.

But the students that I am teaching this summer are here for other reasons. They all made a 2 or 3 on the Reading FCAT but they all failed Reading! They are here for grade recovery. How does that happen? What do these children have in common?

They each came with story. Ronnie (names changed) blows up like a frog every time he's corrected. You can tell he has trouble with authority - any kind of authority! His mom came with him the first day to tell me that he didn't get along with his teacher last year (no surprise there!). Jamie openly admits he simply hated his teacher and refused to work for her (I just had to ask him how that worked for him since he's the one in Summer School and she's enjoying her vacation!) Sammie is passive aggressive and simply doesn't do what she doesn't want to do. She's not openly defiant, just doesn't do. Tries to slip around when the teacher's no watching to do what she wants. Trouble is this class is too small for her to get away with it! Her mother came with her the first day too to tell me how unfair her last teacher was and how Sammie shouldn't have failed. According to her mom, it was ALL the teacher's fault. Chris makes up for his insecurities in reading by being the class clown ("Is pooproom a compound word?" he asked recently). Ian came the Friday before FCAT and just hadn't had time to assimilate to the new school and expectations before he got his first grades.

Most of these children openly admit - even with false bravado - that they did not do homework last year. A little sullenly they also admit that there was no one at home that worked with them daily - no one seemed to really care until the Fs came on the report card.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, each one in this group comes from a broken home. Some are living with a single parent. Others are living with a parent and step parent. Some are shuffled between families. This became apparent as we made connections to an early story we were reading and each of the children in turn talked about his or her life situation! I was surprised to find that it was true for every single child in this class. That is certainly not to say that every child of divorce is doomed to Summer School, but it was a hard fact in each of these children's lives.

Almost all of the kids have difficulty raising their hands before they speak and most of them have plenty they want to say - they really like being the center of attention - and don't really mind if it's negative attention! When I first walked into this group of angry,sullen kids who didn't want to be here and came with a truckload of bad habits, I wondered how in the world I could turn any of them around in six weeks. In a normal year, it takes six weeks just to establish rituals and routines, but with this group I needed to work fast if we were going to make a difference. After some trial and error and some pretty tough days, we are, three weeks in, finally working more as a team. That's not to say that bad habits don't rear their ugly heads every single day with at least one student. I've had to seek out every single parent to help make this work and I've had to have many individual conferences with each child quietly in a corner of the room to let each one know that I care and that I am willing to do whatever it takes to make this experience different. We are almost through with class clowns and angry huffing and fabricated boasting ("I was in Alaska yesterday." "I go skydiving after school every day.") Finally, we are beginning to function as a team. The children (and even in 3rd and 4th grade, they are still children) are beginning to laugh naturally and ask for help when they don't know the answer instead of pretending that they are too smart to ask. They have finally realized that they are all in the same boat and that we will all be better off if we pull together instead of all pulling in a different direction and going nowhere. They have learned that it is safe to take a risk within these four walls. Just as it always is, it's first about relationships. You cannot teach a child until he knows that you care and are interested. That never changes - no matter the age.

So now... let's see if we can get some more reading strategies into these children so they can quit faking it and go back to their home schools as stronger and more confident readers!

Summer School

I'm not really happy about teaching summer school, but my daughter is getting married next Spring and the money is good... Hmmmm.... The children I will be teaching this summer really deserve better than that. If I am going to commit to teaching summer school for 6 weeks - teaching children who are needy or they wouldn't be there - then they deserve my best. And so... as I closed out one year and begin summer teaching the very next day, I know it will have to be with an improved attitude.

On my first day I am assigned to third grade!!! Whoever thinks I can teach 3rd grade has more confidence in me than I might deserve! I have NEVER taught 3rd grade - the first year of high stakes testing - and haven't taught anything above 1st grade in over 25 years - but it is here that I find myself. As I look down my very short list of students I recognized one of the names on the list. The 3rd grader was a child that I heard lots about last year because she was a bright child, who really suffered from focus issues. The child had documented ADHD and the teacher had worked so very hard with her and with her family. I remember observing in the classroom and the child sat right in front of the teacher and all through the lesson the teacher gently touched the child to bring her back on task. The teacher's management system was constant redirection. Somehow the child eeked out a 2 on the FCAT but failed Reading for the year. She simply could not consistently pass the comprehension assessments in the classroom that mirrored the high stakes test. Now she sits in Summer School hoping to pass a final benchmark test at 70% so she can go on to 4th grade next year.

As I picked her up on that first day it was obvious she had been crying. I guess no one really enjoys the idea of coming to summer school. As I have had this child for the first few days I have learned that she reads well, even with expression, but when asked about what she has just read, cannot answer questions with any depth. Actually she even struggles with literal questions. Her writing is much the same. Her thoughts are jumbled and repetitive. It must be difficult for this child who has so much going on inside her busy head to organize her thoughts and to stay with any topic for any length of time. In thinking about different ways to help this youngster, I contacted her 3rd grade teacher and asked her if she would be willing to write back and forth through e-mail, thinking this might be an incentive. The child talked lovingly about her teacher. The teacher was delighted. The child mailed this first e-mail:

hey Mrs.T it's K, i'm in summer school and i made 2 new friends there names are Kaitlyn and Joe. My 2 friends and i met your friend our teacher.I am going to do so good in reading summer school i might go to 4th grade. since i am going to anew school next year but it's going to be to far away from my house and how can i stay in Chets Creek even when i am going to be rezoned to the new school since Chets Creek is not so far? please write back.

The teacher wrote back this delightful message.

Inside of a cool, dimly lit living room sits a relaxed teacher. Mrs. T is what most of her students call her, mommy is what she is called at home, and Randi is her name to her family and friends. Musical notes flow, dance, and swirl out of the radio on this special day as Mrs. T sits down at her computer. Ding, da, ding, da, ding... her computer wakes up from it's sleep and says hello in only the way a computer can. Light flashes from the screen as her computer stretches and yawns to prepare for a little work. A soft clicking sound can be heard as Mrs. T's fingers strike the keys, her email opens, signing in... hold one moment please... oh okay there we are. A puzzling look crosses over her face??? There is an email in her inbox that is from a teacher friend and it says K. K??? Mrs. T only knows one K. Questions popcorn around inside Mrs. T's brain. Is this my sweet, brilliant K? How does K know her teacher friend? What is going on? She is as curious as a newborn kitten. "Double click on the email and see for yourself," thinks Mrs. T. "Oh my goodness!!!" she exclaims. "IT IS MY K!" Mrs. T is so incredibly delighted to hear from K that she jumps up from her chair and does a leap and a twirl in the middle of that cool, dimly lit living room. Quickly she plops back down in front of the screen, pauses for a moment to think, and begins to type a story about a time she met the loveliest girl in all the land.

There was once a beautiful girl named Princess K...To be continued... your turn...

K was so excited to hear back from her teacher that she grinned all day long. Now I have to admit that the story K started as a response about Princess K needs lots of work, but I certainly had no trouble getting her to start writing! She couldn't wait to get started. Maybe this summer school thing might be fun after all!