LitBlog

Creating better schools.

Paul Ahrens — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:22:14 -0500

For 20 years I faced the challenge of how to make schools more successful. I continue to hear the same answers I use to hear 20 years ago - increase funding, involve parents, higher accountability, etc. To some extent, they are all correct. But to make a real difference requires a simple clear understanding of the relationship between teaching, learning, and achievement.

Basically, there are two dimensions to all learning. The time spent doing the thing being learned and the quality of teaching/learning experience. In general, the more time we spend doing something the better we get at that thing. Especially when the time spent includes feedback, variations, increasing levels of challenge, and other elements that increase the quality of the learning time.

After school programs can offer students increased high quality learning time by making the most of the after school hours. To do that means to go beyond simply repeating the practices of the regular school day.

We can do it if we really want to.

Paul Ahrens — Mon, 02 May 2011 10:31:48 -0500

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html?ref=education

Rethinking Homework and Study Skills

Paul Ahrens — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:51:51 -0500

Mr. Carey, a psychologist, correctly points out that the common advice about homework and study habits (e.g., using one specific place to study and focusing one skill area at a time) are plain wrong and contradict what we know to be true about learning. Although the article is more about learning and less about homework per se, it may be worthwhile to mention that there is no evidence that homework has any positive impact on academic achievement. We would do well to reexamine the ways we seek to aid learning through studying and homework.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=learning&st=cse

Pay Kindergarten Teachers $320,000

Paul Ahrens — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:58:54 -0500

I have always believed good teaching matter. I believe teacher quality is the single greatest predictor of school effectiveness. Of course, when I say "school effectiveness" I mean what a school does to promote learning and healthy development. (So, a school that has high student achievement simply because it happens to be in a high income neighborhood does not warrant brownie points.) No matter what else you do, in the end, it is the daily interactions between teachers and students that make-up the educational experiences.

The educational experience is made up of a variety of other factors that either help the teacher perform better (e.g., good curriculum, ample materials, small class sizes, safe schools, adequate learning time) or worse (poor curriculum, limited materials, large class sizes, unsafe schools, truncated learning time).

Other factors are simply not within the realm of the school and therefore should not be mixed up with the school quality debate. Things like poverty, school size, parent involvement and other contextual factors matter, of course, and poverty is highly predictive or student performance. Yet, we tend to mush everything together and forget that there are many things under the control of teachers that can be done effectively and when done well, will have a notable positive long term impact of the lives of students.

The new study is further testimony to this.

7 Keys for Making a Difference After School

Paul Ahrens — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:13:21 -0500

LitART and the City of Downey have partnered for over six years. The goals have not changed - build reading and writing skills, increase homework quality, support social and emotional development- but the strategies have evolved considerably based on what we have discovered during the last several years. Through observations and assessment data, we have gained valuable insights into what makes an after school staff person effective and how to support all staff to maximize their effectiveness.

1. Provide explicit written expectations that serve as assessment criteria and describe how they relate to the program goals.

2. Conduct regular observations of staff in action using the criteria and share the feedback with staff.

3. Offer multiple forms of staff support including observation feedback, demonstrations, meetings, and coaching.

4. Recognize that meaningful behavioral change take place over time. Establish short term (next observation) and long term (one year) goals for staff performance.

5. Make sure the program schedule and activities are directly aligned with the program goals.

6. Encourage staff to use professional judgment about what to do and how to do it.

7. Measure student progress and use it to promote staff engagement in how best to support students.

When these strategies are used as a mutually supporting professional development model, after school staff develop quickly and consistently. To learn more about the process just drop us an email.

LitART Training Q and A

Paul Ahrens — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:29:58 -0500

Q. How do you fit all of the LitART Components into 60 minutes?

A. You don't. The LitART curriculum provides up to 3 hours a day of activities. Choose a subset of activities that reflect your program goals. Each component takes between 5 and 10 minutes.

Q. When we pair up students for reading, should they be at the same reading level?

A. Not necessarily. The key to enhancing reading growth is to pair students so that each pair spends the greatest amount of time reading text. So, rather than worry too much about whether student's are at the same reading level, see how quickly you can get students into pairs and reading.

Q. In LitART, you read one novel each month. What if you don't finish by the end of the month?

A. Don't let this happen. Plan carefully to make sure you do finish the novel by the end of the month. This may mean adjusting how much you read each week or even skipping chapters, if necessary.

Q. Can we LitART outside?

Yes. LitART was designed especially for use in unusual settings such as outdoors, cafeterias, gyms, and music rooms.

Q. What are the five sharing strategies for journals?

A. Sharing Museum. Sharing Party. Sharing Circle. Back Fence. Three Stars, Three Questions.

Club Z and LitART and SES Success

Paul Ahrens — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:45:00 -0500

Our New Jersey tutoring company (Club Z!) piloted the Learn program this year with our SES clients. It was a great success! Parents, students, tutors and districts all raved about the program. I have attached our data analysis of student improvement...perhaps you can use it for promotional purposes (this includes 3 districts and 478 students based on the statistical mean at each grade level using the norm referenced GRADE assessment from Pearson). If you need a testimonial we would love to do one for you.

Supporting English Learners: LitART Sharing Strategies

Paul Ahrens — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:35:46 -0500

LitART uses five sharing strategies to provide oral language opportunities in different contexts that are connected to learning projects. Each strategy using a different grouping technique.

Sharing Museum
• Arrange studnet's completed products (e.g., writing samples, art) on the wall or on desks.
• Say, "the museum is open" and nvite students to silently walk around and look at the results.

•    After two minutes say, "the museum is closing."

Sharing Party
•    Students take their final product with them.
•    Students walk around and share their result with at least five other students.
•    Two minutes.

Circle of Friends
•    Students share their result in small groups.
•    One at a time, each student has 30 seconds to tell about what they did.
•    Two minutes.

Back Fence
•    Students share their result with the person behind them (over the back fence).
•    One at a time, each student has one minute to tell about what they did.
•    Two minutes.

Three Stars/Three Questions
•    Select three student works you want to feature.
•    One at a time, the three selected students describe their work to the class.
•    The class may ask each presenter up to three questions.
•    Five minutes

LitART Reading Fluency Strategies

Paul Ahrens — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:45:48 -0500

Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately and quickly.
When fluent readers read silently, they recognize words automatically. They group words quickly to help them gain meaning from what they read. Fluent readers read aloud effortlessly and with expression. Their reading sounds natural, as if they are speaking. Readers who have not yet developed fluency read slowly, word by word. Their oral reading is choppy and plodding.

Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. Because fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding the words, they can focus their attention on what the text means. They can make connections among the ideas in the text and between the text and their background knowledge.

•    More fluent readers recognize words and comprehend at the same time.

•    Less fluent readers, however, must focus their attention on figuring out the words, leaving them little attention for understanding the text.

Research Supported Fluency Strategies in LitART
1.    Model fluent reading and have students reread the text on their own.
2.    Conduct guided reading (provide feedback and guidance during reading.)
3.    Use repeated oral readings of the same text to increase accuracy and rate.
4.    Facilitate partner reading to increase oral reading opportunities
5.    Employ reader’s theatre to allow for a performed reading.

The Tyranny of Video

Paul Ahrens — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:16:26 -0500

Teachers and parents always ask me how to get their children to want to read when television, video games, and the internet are ready and waiting everywhere. There is no single easy answer. Here are a five ideas that can help connect kids to reading.

Discuss books and stories with children. Whenever a student starts to tell me about a television show, movie, or video game, I find a way to connect the conversation to a book. Sometimes this is easy because so many television shows, movies, and video games are based on books. At other times, it is a skillful redirection. Every once in a while, I will even offer a critique of the media as lacking something compared to a book I am reading.
Remind students that before the video version can be made, the story/script must be written. I tell my students over and over that the best entertainment begins with a writer who is very good at telling a story. The writer has to imagine all of the things that will happen. They need to describe what the viewer will see.
Facilitate activities that connect literacy to visual media. Choose a book, folktales are perfect for this, and adapt it into a script. Perform the script as a play or even make a video. Or, watch a television show or movie and write down the scene changes and characters. Analyze the show like you would a book.
Read like a performer. Make clear that the author has done his or her best to dramatize the events of the story. Read the dialogue with the right energy and expression. Point out how italics and punctuation tells the reader how to read and, as a result, what is happening in the story.
Be flexible about what student's choose to read. It is easy to reject graphic novels, comic books, the Internet, and other "non-standard" forms. The forms of writing and "creating meaning" are rapidly evolving and now include blogs, tweets, texts, Facebook messages, Myspace pages, and other multimedia communication formats that may well constitute the literacies of the future. I suggest embracing all forms of literacy as a way to keep kids connected to print.

I want to hear your ideas. Send them to paul@litart.com.

After School Literacy Success

Paul Ahrens — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:10:00 -0500

It happens in my reading training sessions all the time. Someone asks if LitART’s picture books are used with the older kids. The answer is, of course, yes. There are many good reasons to use picture books with older students but the best reason may be that it can boost their reading skills.

First, many picture books have surprisingly high reading levels. Take, for example, Chato's Kitchen. It includes descriptive vocabulary, uses English and Spanish, and, to get the humor, the reader must infer quite a bit. It is clever and sophisticated storytelling made accessible through rich illustrations.

Second, struggling readers turned off by big blocks of text in novels, may be more willing to explore a picture book. In today's world of video games and graphics, a picture book can serve as a bridge between purely visual story telling and text-based story telling.

Finally, picture books can usually be finished in one session- often in fewer than 10 minutes. This allows for an immediate analysis of text elements, themes, characters and vocabulary. Also, after a few picture books, students can compare books, the styles of different authors or illustrators, and the structures of stories. This is much harder to do with novels. As a result, higher-level thinking skills do not need to be deferred for months until a few novels are finished.

So go ahead, grab a few picture books and get started.

Five Steps to After School Reading Success

Paul Ahrens — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:49:02 -0600

Five Steps to Reading Success

by Paul Ahrens — last modified Feb 20, 2008 11:45 PM

History

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Five simple ideas that make a difference.

One of the most common questions I am asked is, "What can I do to help children become good readers?" Here is the simple fast answer.

1. Read to children.

Choose interesting books.
Find a comfortable place.
Read for at least 10 minutes.

2. Set aside a time and place for reading.

Turn off the television and computer.
Find a quiet space with a good light.
Relax and read.

3. Talk about what is being read.

Ask questions about the story.
Point out important words.
Discuss what you like about the book.

4. Emphasize "getting the message" as the purpose of reading.

Focus on understanding the story.
Preview important words an ideas.
Ask children to describe what is happening in the story.

5. Use simple LitART Reading Strategies to build reading skills.

Try Echo Reading
Try Missing Word Reading
Try Action Reading

Let me know if these ideas made a difference for you!

King of the Hill

Paul Ahrens — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:16:52 -0600

The LitART CHOICES nonfiction curriculum for secondary education provides after school staff the tools they need to assess their students' progress in a variety of areas. For determining the students' literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension LitART employs many exciting and dynamic strategies.

"King of the Hill" is a strategy that uses competition in a constructive, open-ended way to allow students to explore the themes, issues, and facts of the text in an engaging way. Here's how it works:

1. A student comes up to the front: they are the King or Queen.

2. Other students make questions from the reading.

3. Students ask the King—or Queen—their questions.

4. If the King or Queen knows the answer then they stay on the hill.

5. If they don't then the questioner takes the hill.

6. Students see how long they can keep the hill.

Lies Give Way To The Truth

Paul Ahrens — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:31:43 -0600

LitART's CHOICES provides secondary education after school programs with a fun and dynamic nonfiction curriculum. One way to ensure that students get the most out of this active, hand-on material is to use a reading strategy that guarantees the students' involvement. Liar is a fun activity that does just that!

Staff says, "I have a confession to make. I'm a terrible liar, but I want to get better. Please follow along while I read. Whenever I lie I want you to say, 'liar.' Tell me what I said, and then tell me what I should have said."

1. Staff reads as the students follow along with their photocopies.

2. Staff intentionally makes mistakes as they read.

3. Students say "liar" whenever the staff makes a mistake.

4. Students offer the correct answer.

Extension: Once the students get how the game works trade out the staff for a student who will be the new liar.

Photoshop

Paul Ahrens — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:23:34 -0600

Connecting language to objects is an important part of any literacy program. Students need a fun, easy game that sets up the ground rules in a way that makes it so the students don't realize that they're learning. They're too busy having fun! The idea of this activity is that students try to recall objects that were displayed on the table.

1. Ahead of time, collect seven to ten objects.

2. Arrange the objects on the table.

3. Lay fabric on or place a box over the objects.

4. Gather the students around the table and uncover the objects.

5. Allow the students to study the scene for one minute.

6. Recover the objects.

7. Give the students one minute to talk about what they saw.

8. Ask the students to name the objects and where they went.

9. Use the dry erase board to list the objects, make sketches or notes about the scene.

10. Compare the students' version with the original scene.