Reading Instruction That Works: Responsive Teaching

Feb 22, 2017
Yesterday I felt like shouting from the rooftops!  I knew I was seeing gains.  I could tell that the change in my reading instruction was really impacting my students.  And yesterday, my assessment data backed it up!  I did my progress monitoring and got my third and fourth data points for the new interventions I implemented.  I have 6 students that were reading significantly below grade level.  Considering running record information, fluency, sight words, MAPS scores, etc, I created a plan to focus on increasing their accuracy.  The progress monitoring passages are level J which is the end of the year expectation for first grade.  Below are the results.

"Student K" started the year reading below a level A and was up to a C by mid-December.  Here are her accuracy levels for a level J for the last four weeks:
Week 1 76%
Week 2: 86%
Week 3: 91%
Week 4: 92%

"Student I"  started the year reading at a level B and was up to a D by mid-December.  Here are the level J scores for the last 4 weeks:
Week 1: 86%
Week 2: 88%
Week 3: 91%
Week 4: 97%

"Student P"started the year reading at a level B and was up to a D by mid-December.  Here are the level J scores for the last 4 weeks:
Week 1: 89%
Week 2: 91%
Week 3: 93%
Week 4: 93%

"Student C" started the year at a level B and in December was still a level B.  Here are his results for the last 3 weeks for level J:
Week 1: 43%
Week 2: 61%
Week 3: 63%

"Student B"started the year reading at a level B and was up to a D by mid-December.  Here are the level J scores for the last 3 weeks:
Week 1: 88%
Week 2: 90%
Week 3: 94%

"Student J" started the year reading at a level C and was a D by mid-December.  Here are the level J scores for the last 3 weeks:
Week 1: 84%
Week 2: (no data point)
Week 3: 94%

So here I have 5 students who were reading at a level D in December and by mid-February can read a level J book with low 90s for accuracy levels!  This is AMAZING!!!  The student that hadn't budged from a level B ALL YEAR gained 20 percentage points!  Two months ago, he would not have been able to read more than a sentence in a level J book.  Something is working!  And I can tell you exactly what it is.  I made a very deliberate shift in my reading instruction toward the end of December.

I am doing what I call "Responsive Teaching."  All I mean by that term is that my instruction is all "in response" to the individual student I am currently working with.  I am allowing the student and their unique profile to lead my instruction.  I respond to the student I am teaching.
Each student in my classroom has a reading goal and strategies to help them reach their goal.  I have made individual reading conferences a top priority in my day.  During a reading conference I meet with a student and listen to them read and we focus on their specific reading goal and strategies.   This is what has made the difference!

Over the summer I picked up a copy of Jennifer Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book.  The book includes 300 reading strategies supporting 13 reading goals.  I began slowly implementing these strategies into my instruction right from the beginning of the year.

I started incorporating more strategy groups and individual reading conferences into my small group reading block instead of always following the traditional guided reading model.  Guided reading and direct phonics instruction still have their place in my classroom, but I believe the time given to individual reading conferences with clear goals and strategies has made a tremendous impact of my students' growth.

I created bookmarks for each of my students with their reading goal and strategies.  At first I was just handwriting these in and drawing a visual to help the students remember.  I sometimes even had the students create their own drawing on the bookmark.  But it was fairly time-consuming.  Then I had an idea.  I created labels with the reading strategies.  This has been a game-changer!!!  Having the labels makes it so efficient and the students love them!  I love that the students are not only setting goals, but that they have an easily accessible visual representation of their goals and strategies.  It is meaningful to them and I see evidence of this when conferring with my individual readers.

The students have their bookmarks out whenever they are reading-whether that's with me in a conference/small group, during independent reading, book club or during tutoring with another staff member or volunteer.  Many of my students are working on the goal of reading more words correctly.  And it is so powerful to have so many strategies from Jennifer Serravallo's book to give them as tools.

My colleagues tease me because I alway have The Reading Strategies Book in my hands.  I'm constantly referring to it.  Many of the strategies are things I was already doing with my students.  Some of them I hadn't thought of.  But what makes this such a valuable resource is that it gives us a common language as teachers.  All of the strategies are in one place to refer to.  This book is incredible and has inspired me to reconsider reading instruction in my classroom.  And I'm seeing results like I have never seen before!

UPDATE: March 20, 2017
So now it is a month later and I'm still seeing incredible progress with my students!  I'm headed to Jennifer Serravallo's reading workshop in Columbus this Wednesday, March 22, 2017 and I cannot wait to learn even more!!!  Maybe I'll get a selfie with her and put it on my next post!  Ha!!