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Teachers working to engage students in complex thinking
Bourbon County Coalition members learned of a recent teaching initiative in Fort Scott Wednesday at the monthly meeting.
Literacy First is a USD 234 district-wide teaching initiative implemented in the 2013-14 school year, according to Melissa Tatro, district instructional coach.
Tatro is preschool through 2nd grade instructional coach.
Jane Campbell, who also spoke of the initiative, is the high school level instructional coach for USD 234, two of four district instructional coaches.
"The purpose of Literacy First is to encourage engaging, student-centered instruction in all areas of the curriculum, not just reading," Tatro said.
Teacher training
"All district employees have gone through Literacy First training," Tatro said. "This is an instructional framework for teaching. It's child-centered focused on where the child is developmentally. Where are they academically? What we need to do as a teacher to get them to the next level, so they are eventually on grade level. It's not a curriculum. It's not a book that we are going to put in front of the kids. It's a philosophy and a way of teaching."
Literacy First was purchased by the district.
"We are paying for the training," Tatro said. "We are bringing in two consultants from the company. They are here about six to eight times a year to work with the coaches individually. We (the coaches) meet with the teachers. We do walk-throughs, also do professional development training with the teachers."
On President's Day, Fort Scott teachers are sitting down with a consultant and doing some very specific training.
"We are not Literacy First coaches," Tatro said. "We are instructional coaches. Our position stays indefinitely to support the teachers with any form of instruction."
Young children
"Our main focus in the three-to-eight-year-olds is to get them reading on grade level," Tatro said. "So when they make that transition across town to Eugene Ware, they can read for learning, instead of learning to read."
At the preschool level, book skills are the focus, she said.
"Can they hold the book correctly?" Tatro said. "Do they (read) sweep left to right? Can they tell the difference between a word and a letter? Can they hear the number of words in a sentence? We start very basic, then we move to can they hear the syllables, then we move to can they hear the sounds in the word. Then we go on to letter identification and sounds."
The goal for a child coming into kindergarten is to be able to recognize 14 upper case and 14 lower case letters, she said.
"A lot of that is using their names, using signs in the world around them, helping them find those letters," Tatro said. "Our goal is to meet each child where they are and bring them up or push them forward."
There is a progression in what is taught, Tatro said.
Phonic skills, then multi-syllable words are taught, then fluency.
"It's not how fast they can read," Tatro said. "Are they reading clearly and understanding? From kindergarten on there is a comprehension, the who, what, when, where and why of story?"
At the third through fifth grade level, the focus changes.
"That's where how you present the lesson comes into play," Tatro said.
Older students
"What I want the public to know is that Fort Scott kids are just as smart, if not more, than kids in other towns," Campbell told the Tribune. "We just need to have higher expectations for our kids when it comes to reading, writing and actually thinking. We need to provide the support and encouragement to them to be truly literate people."
Teachers of younger students are using this initiative, Campbell said.
Teachers of older students are slightly more reluctant, she said.
"When we first started talking to teachers about doing this, they said 'We have been doing this for a really long time,'" Campbell said.
Literacy First is not new, but a more coherent package, she said.
"One of the first concepts is academic learning time," Campbell said. "Which means are the kids actually learning in the class period and do you have any clue that they are or not? Do you have an objective to your lesson? Is it clear to you? Does it fit into your broad plan and have you communicated that objective to the kids? Is it an objective the kids can see any relevance to? That's challenging. It makes us look at our objectives."
Campbell said that current school populations have changed over time.
"From the time I started teaching 30-something years ago, there are significantly more at-risk kids. That's not just in Bourbon County, that is everywhere," she said.
That means the teacher isn't up talking for 60 percent of the time.
"That's a big shift for some teachers, Campbell said. "Let them dig into the text themselves. Because ultimately that's what happens as adults. You have to take (instructions for a running a clothes dryer for example) and read them. Those skills of reading complex text. They will not get better at reading unless they read. English teachers know that. It's the science and social studies teachers, it drives them nuts. We are trying to devise structures to keep students actively involved."
Next, teachers need to check for understanding.
"If teachers recognize I've either lost their attention or lost their comprehension, am I adjusting," Campbell said. "That drives them nuts, too. They have this beautiful lecture planned and want to be able to deliver it. They are fascinating to themselves and they think the kids are fascinated. We are fighting to get secondary teachers past that. Secondary teachers are bad about 'I taught it, I can't help it if they didn't learn it.' Well, that's your job."
A lesson should entail students knowing what they are supposed to be doing, they are skillfully handling the (lesson) content and are working at a 75-90 percent success rate, Campbell said.
The teacher needs to periodically check for understanding to determine this, she said.
Education science
Education is a science, Campbell said.
"We have been studying this for generations," Campbell said. "We've studied the best way of delivering information to kids. If it wasn't, why would they keep sending us (teachers) back to college to certify?"
"We want to try to help (teachers) with things that work with the changing population," Campbell said.
Campbell said the classroom should be active.
"It should be noisy, the kids should be doing stuff, three to four kids sitting together at a table," Campbell said. "Doing things with the text. What the teacher is doing is walking around monitoring. You walk around, you look around, you talk around. Commenting if they are getting off subject."
Assessments should be on-going, she said.
This is the first step in actively engaging kids in complex thinking, speaking, and writing, Campbell said.
Our goal is relevance, rigor, relationship and reflection.
"We ask teachers to reflect on their teaching," Tatro said. "What went well? What went wrong? What are you going to do different? That's a huge piece to getting to know yourself better and your students."
Instructional coaches
Each USD 234 building has an instructional coach. Tatro is the preschool and Winfield Scott instructional coach; Tami Lawrence is at Eugene Ware Elementary School; Stephanie Witt is at Fort Scott Middle School, and Campbell is at Fort Scott High School.
"Literacy First was just the first program we are helping to implement; our support of this program and others will be ongoing," Campbell said.