My blog post a couple of weeks ago shined a light on urgency and the fact that teaching time is a precious commodity.    Resources in public education are scarce but time is one that every teacher has the opportunity to increase…or sadly, waste.  Last time I referenced Doug Lemov’s book, Teach LIKE A CHAMPION.  It’s a book that I can just pick up, open to any page, and read.

Even if I only have a few minutes I close it with at least two or three common-sense, ready-to-use-tomorrow strategies…the author refers to them as “techniques.”   In my first encounter I had only read one or two when I stumbled upon Technique 30…Tight Transitions.  Considering the fact that’s one way in which valuable teaching moments are wasted (I used myself as an example in “March Madness”) this one practically jumped off the page.

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Keeping in mind that the school year is coming to a close, ponder how you might make a significant change in transitions so as not to find yourself saying this to your students in April of next year, “OK, class, this is the 155^th day of school and we STILL don’t know how to walk down the hall, so let’s go back and try it again!”  Sadly, I made this very statement many times!!  Talk about feeling like I was walking in circles and getting nowhere.

I’m getting the distinct picture of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet going in circles thinking they were tracking a Woozle.  Realizing it was their own sets of tracks they were following, they felt very foolish.  Looking back it was me who looked and sounded foolish…at least Pooh and Piglet figured it out!!

Whether our students are in the first grade or junior high, by the end of the first week of school, every student should know and effectively practice how to line up and how to move around in the classroom.  In a well-managed classroom, effective transitions should take less than thirty seconds…and maybe even less!  Here’s one of Doug Lemov’s suggestions:

Map the route.  There’s one correct way to line up, one path each student follows on the way to the reading station, the classroom door, etc.  Your students should follow the same path every time.  Then practice many times a day.  You’ll be tempted to think that you’re wasting time, but you’re actually making an investment.  Save HOURS over the course of your school year by investing an extra few minutes a day for the first few days of school.

Number your steps.  As you scaffold the steps in the transition teach them to follow that route one step at a time.  The author suggests announcing to your class, “When I say one, please stand and push in your chairs.  When I say two, please turn to face the door.  When I say three, please follow your line leader to the place to line up.”  Once that routine is in place, you merely have to call the number for the appropriate step.         Once you’ve done that, you merely have to call the number for the appropriate step.  By calling the number (or not calling it), the teacher controls the pace of the transition, slowing it down as necessary to ensure success and accountability, speeding it up when students are ready.  The return on your investment comes when you merely have to state, “When I say go, please line up,” and smile as you observe your students following the steps.

While you may find yourself thinking that my experiences were at the elementary level, keep in mind that transitions occur at all levels and have an immense effect on the learning that takes place before and after them.  Consider the effect of cutting a minute from ten transitions a day and then sustain that for 180 school days.  You will have created an astonishing thirty additional hours of instructional time.

If we shine a light on quick and routine transitions…then tomorrow may be a different story.

A colleague of mine recommended reading Elizabeth Green’s article, Building a Better Teacher,  in The New York Times.  It introduced, to me, the work of Doug Lemov.  His realization several years ago that he didn’t have answers for schools about the “how” of teaching led to some interesting findings from other education researchers…one in particular:

• William Sanders found that a weak teacher’s three-year impact on a student’s score was an average of 50 percentile points behind a similar student spending the identical amount of time with a strong teacher.

As we consider the impact of all the factors that schools have control of: class size, curriculum, etc., the researchers found that they produced tiny differences.  The greatest impact is the teacher with whom the student spends his year.

The article makes the point that Lemov was not the first to conclude that teachers need better training.  In my work with elementary teachers of reading it saddens me to say that not one has expressed feeling “ready” as a first-year educator to teach children to read.  After more than thirty years of research stating that the greatest gains in student performance in reading occur when we teach phonemic awareness and phonics concurrently, sadly most teachers cannot produce a working definition of phonemic awareness…much less the ability to systematically teach it.  That speaks volumes about our schools of education.

Professional learning is not just the “what” but it should also include the “how.”  Over ten years ago I was fortunate to receive training in a reading model, Pathways to Reading.  Two beliefs underlie the training:

1. Scientists now estimate that 95 percent of all children can be taught to read at a level constrained only by their reasoning and listening comprehension abilities.   (Fletcher and Lyon 1998. Reading: A research-based approach. In W. Evers (ed.), What’s Gone Wrong in America’s Classrooms? Stanford University: Hoover Institution.)
2. The teacher’s expertise is the single greatest variable in achieving that goal.   (Report by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future.)

I say fortunate because the “program” is more a model of staff development than it is a reading program.  It actually taught me how a child developmentally learns to read as well as introduced me to the difference between teaching and learning.  I developed techniques to ensure that a child is learning to read.  I’m anxious to read Doug’s book and his 49 techniques and see if there are correlations.

By the way, thanks, Glenn Wiebe, for the tip to read the  article.  You always lead me in the right direction…

If we shine a light on learning, then tomorrow may be a different story.

What a month! The games, cheering fans, overtimes, thrilling final moments that keep us engaged and watching…marching to the national championship!

A basketball game…40 intense minutes. Not a lot of room for error. If a player makes a mistake another will definitely take advantage, as well he should. I was on the road a few days ago after watching a particularly close game the evening before which gave me the opportunity to reflect on some comments from players on the post-game show. One said, “We read the other team and after the first two minutes we made some adjustments…that’s what you do, man.” There’s a definite urgency…they only have 40 minutes.

My mind is taken to my passion. When we teach children how to read there’s urgency…540 days in grades K-2. 540 “idealized” days because that’s assuming there are zero absences, zero interruptions, zero field trips, and no school assemblies. At the beginning of first grade there are already significant differences in students who are successful and those who are struggling. These differences become greater and more entrenched over time, demonstrating a “Matthew Effect.”

As a former classroom teacher I was prompted to ask myself, “How did I use my students’ learning time?” Were there wasted moments transitioning, waiting in lines in the hallway, spending time in large group instruction for more than a few minutes where children find it difficult to attend and there’s few opportunities to respond to individual errors? I’m willing to admit that in my classroom I discovered that I was allowing morning snack time to begin to take extra time which meant one reading group met for only 20 minutes instead of the usual 30. While it didn’t seem like much when it happened a day here and there, when it became consistent I realized that I robbed the group of 50 minutes that week and 200 minutes that month. If left unchecked it would add up to 1800 minutes for the year. That would translate to 60 sessions of their small group reading instruction!!

Are we maintaining fidelity to instruction? As teachers of reading it’s vital to identify how we spend our time as we only have a finite number of minutes in our teaching day. No doubt we will have to selectively abandon certain activities. In essence we only have “40 minutes.” Reflecting on the basketball player’s comment I’m certain that we, too, must “read” how we use our time and make the necessary “adjustments,” because a child’s reading life depends on it.

If we shine a light on urgency, then tomorrow may be a different story.

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  It goes without saying that William Shakespeare coined this phrase. He contributed more phrases and sayings to the English language than any other individual – and most of them are still in daily use.

Jumping into the world of blogging begins with a name.  Thinking about my own career as an educator I reflect on new learning that becomes so important to me that I use it daily, and once I’m aware of the information it profoundly impacts my teaching and my conversations with others.  I call it the “Lighthouse Principle.”

While the story I’m about to recount is purported to be true, I understand it’s totally bogus and, more than likely, just an old joke.  But like many jokes there’s often a lesson to be learned.  The story begins with a lookout on a battleship reporting to the captain that he sees a steady light ahead which no doubt means they’re on a collision course with an oncoming ship.  The captain barks one order and then another to his signalman to demand that the other ship change course.  When the responses suggest that the battleship should instead change its course, the captain becomes furious.  Again he orders his signalman to send a message, this one coded,  “I am the captain of a battleship…change course immediately!”  Back comes the response, “I am a lighthouse.”  The battleship changed course…

As a teacher of reading I’m convinced that the 30 (or more) years of research speaks volumes about how children learn to read and of the importance of early intervention.  I believe teachers are at a crossroad…we can either learn from the research and lay aside personal beliefs and philosophies or we place children on a collision course with their own destiny.  Dr. Reid Lyon stated in a message to the Committee on Labor and Human Resources in April, 1998, “If you do not learn to read and you live in America, you do not make it in life.”  Research states that 95% of all children can learn to read constrained only by their decoding and listening comprehension abilities.  I’m passionate about the teaching of reading and teaming with teachers to learn the process in order that all children read.   I invite you to join me in conversations as I share my learning.

If we shine a light on research and early intervention, then tomorrow may be a different story.