Reading Instruction (Teacher Rubric)
Teacher and Grade Level: Date:
Check the boxes that apply, then mark an "X" in the top bar to indicate approximate placement on a continuum. A highlighter can be used to mark some or all of the specific descriptors. Use the back for comments.
NOVICE / APPRENTICE / PRACTITIONER / LEADERReading Workshop / My reading instruction may consist of one of the following: whole class lessons with ability grouping, reading assigned throughout the day – same text for all students, basal program; all independent reading with no focus on matching books to readers by level; I read aloud the same books each year and sometimes stop to ask questions; I choose books that I like rarely checking to see if the book is no more than 2 years above the students’ reading level; I may or may not provide a consistent explicit block of time for reading instruction and the time varies from day to day; I often choose or assign books for my students to read and it may be the same book for the entire class so reading material is often not at student’s independent reading level; I may assign book reports and all students complete all work independently / I am beginning to incorporate some components of a reading workshop: (few whole group lessons, some independent reading, occasional conferring, and mostly ability grouped guided reading); I read aloud with some large group discussion and am beginning to model some reading strategies through shared reading; I assign reading in the content areas (3 – 5); I provide daily instructional time for reading (?? 60 min. for 1 – 2) and 40 min. for 3- 5; 20 – 30 min in K and throughout the day in K); I may choose my student’s independent reading material or students may choose and it may or may not be at their independent reading level; students work independently of peers / I have implemented reading workshop: (minilessons – 10 mins., independent reading, some guided reading and some flexible grouping, some book clubs, some conferences, and some sharing within partnerships and whole group); I include read aloud modeling some thinking and begin to attempt accountable talk with peers and shared reading; I include some reading across the curriculum and word study to support literacy; I teach reading with a daily predictable schedule (?? 30 min. for K, 60 – 90 min. for 1 – 2, and 45 – 60 min. for 3- 5); students often choose books at their independent level sometimes genre based within a unit of study; I foster a risk-taking environment in which students are beginning to share their own thinking about their reading / I have implemented reading workshop with clear components (minilessons, sustained independent reading, small flexible group instruction or book clubs, conferences, and sharing within partnerships and whole group); I also teach reading through an interactive read aloud with accountable talk and shared reading making sure the books are no more than 1 – 2 years above the students’ reading level; I include reading across the curriculum and integrate word study to support literacy; I teach reading with a daily, predictable schedule (??? 45 – 60 min. for K, 90 – 120 min. for 1 – 2, and 60 – 75 min. 3 – 5); students choose books at their independent level sometimes genre based within a unit of study; I foster a risk-taking environment in which students are comfortable and skilled in sharing their own thinking and collaborating about their reading
Units of Study / I use a common text or a basal reading series, a teacher’s manual, and worksheets OR I assign reading around my content areas OR I teach from a sequenced phonics program (K) or I create my own list of lessons from my own experience or other resources; if I teach a unit of study it is focused on the content area or the book and culminates in a project like a diorama, book report, or ______/ I teach skills and strategies based on the books that children are reading – novel sets, basal reading series, or guided reading texts which may or may not be sequenced; I teach skills and strategies from the list of grade level benchmarks; if I teach a unit of study it often focuses on the characteristics of a genre rather than on reading strategies / I am beginning to: use a few genre or author based reading units of study with some connected minilessons or organize instruction around one reading strategy a month; I may correlate one unit of study with a writing unit; I allow student choice of books within a unit; I am beginning to read or think about developing a calendar of reading units across the year / I have developed a clearly articulated curriculum calendar and set of well developed units of study (e.g. Calkins, Allyn, ______) by concepts, genre, or author, with a sequence of focused, minilessons that are connected and build upon each other; I correlated units of study for reading and writing to complement each other; the units are based on broad concepts (e.g. building habits of strong readers, or understanding characters or reading books to understand social issues); the units are open ended enough to allow wide student choice; my grade level has developed a calendar with specific units of study within a schoolwide plan; units re aligned to standards and from grade to grade to provide consistency.
Reading Instruction / I provide some instruction on phonics and comprehension OR I assign reading; I provide whole group instruction and/or have students read orally in round robin in ability groups following a teacher’s manual or have students answer questions about the text; if I have follow up, it is based on the students’ work on the worksheets OR on an assessment like the DIBELS or Accuity; my students read silently and complete worksheets or content area assignments; / I provide some instruction about phonics, comprehension, and vocabulary; I provide whole group lessons based on school benchmarks usually focused on accuracy and fluency OR use mandated school assessments and focus on specific skills the students didn’t master on the benchmark assessment OR students read literature independently with random monitoring; I follow a standard guided reading structure and continue in the guided reading series; I may use engagement strategies like post it notes; I either send my ELLs and learners with special needs to specialists or hope they can follow along with the other students in my classroom; my students may keep a book at their table or desks / I provide instruction within the foundational areas of phonemic awareness (K – 2), phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and higher level strategic comprehension; I provide intentional, focused minilessons and read alouds about the five foundational areas; I based my instruction on benchmarks and some on student needs from schoolwide benchmark and yearly assessments and some ongoing assessment; I provide follow up in guided reading groups; I use engagement strategies like modeling, “turn and talk” and post it notes; I am beginning to modify my instruction for ELLs and learners with special needs; my students may keep book bags or choose books as they need and may or may not keep reading logs (2 -5); I provide some explanation of reading instruction and reading workshop to parents at Open House and in newsletters / I provide balanced instruction within the foundational areas of phonemic awareness (K – 2), phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and higher level strategic comprehension ???; I develop and provide intentional, focused minilessons (10 minutes) that connect and build upon one another, and interactive read alouds across the five foundational areas as well as reading habits and genre structure; I base my instruction on my planned curriculum, as well as on student needs from ongoing assessment, and schoolwide benchmark and yearly assessments; I design individual and small group differentiated instruction tailored to student needs; I use engagement strategies like modeling, “turn and talk”, and jotting about reading???; I scaffold instruction and employ research-based strategies for ELLs and learners with special needs; my students keep book bags, reading logs (2 – 5) and reader’s notebooks (3 – 5); I provide clear, ongoing communication with parents about how I teach reading and what they can do to support readers at home.
Conferences / All my monitoring is done through small ability- based groups or student written work rather than on conferences; I may sit at my desk during independent reading or check email as students read / I occasionally confer with individual students usually right before reporting time; my conferences focus on assessing reading proficiency in decoding and sometimes on fluency / I hold individual reading conferences in which I often monitor the reading and sometimes tell the student one thing to improve; I collect data from the conferences and sometimes use it to guide my individual and whole-class instruction; my conferences often focus on decoding, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary; I am beginning to implement reading partnerships; I am beginning to keep a system for conferring notes and records of conferences; I am beginning to share some of my thoughts from those conferences with students; / I hold focused individual reading conferences using Lucy Calkin’s research, decide, teach format; I have a system for keeping conferring notes about when and with whom as well as the essence of the conference; I use the information I gather and record to guide my individual, small group and whole-class instruction; my conferences focus on habits (including stamina), comprehension, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, metacognitive awareness of strategies, and student self-reflection; I share my conferring notes with students to guide their goal setting; I implement effective reading partnerships
Book Clubs – still under construction / I use one novel for the entire class either as a read aloud while the students follow along, or as a read aloud with subsequent chapters assigned for independent reading, or by having students read in round robin fashion; I conduct large group discussion about the text; I have not begun teaching conversational skills; my assessment occurs through an end of the book quiz.
(Still needs language for K – 2) / I am beginning to conduct book clubs using “role sheets”; students are grouped randomly; I usually lead each book club; I have not begun using partnership scaffolded conversation; my book clubs usually occur one to two times a year or right from the beginning of the school year; often book clubs are focused only on content area topics; I have not begun teaching conversational skills; I often assess through written response
(Still needs language for K – 2) / I am beginning to support strong conversational skills of my students through partnerships early in the year; I am beginning to introduce book clubs with some student self selection; my book clubs may occur up to 4 times a year sometimes guided by students and sometimes led by me; I am beginning to notice behaviors in the book clubs that are informing some minilessons around conversational skills and other assessed student needs; one skill I am beginning to focus on is getting students to build in depth on one another’s thoughts; my students jot their thinking on post it notes to engage in book club conversation; / I have supported development of strong conversational skills of my students through partnerships eary in the year; I group my students according to reading level and interests, reading clubs (K – 2) are formed by pairing two partnerships (ability based) together around a tub of books, book clubs (3 – 5) are focused on genre, author, topic, and/or issues; my students have choice of books within a small selection; my book clubs occur a number of times throughout the year and are student led (with no role sheets ); I continuously teach minilessons on conversational skills and other assessed student needs; I continually assess student oral response to plan my instruction; my students engage in written response (from post it notes K -2, through literary essay 3- 5);
Books – still under construction / I have a very limited classroom library (less than 250 books) or none at all; books mostly are not organized and fill a couple of book shelves; I have not had any training in understanding text levels; many books are unappealing or old / I have a limited classroom library (250 – 300 books); books may be sorted into a few categories or just placed on some book shelves; I have a limited range of levels and genres and very few nonfiction titles; I have not been trained or have had very little practice in understanding text levels so have not been able to determine if the levels of the books are appropriate for my students; many titles of my read alouds, guided reading, and classroom library books are older titles with a few recent titles / I have developed an adequate classroom library (500 – 1000 books; books are organized in tubs or baskets by authors, genres, series, read alouds, and content topics; students may help with some of the organization of some categories of books; I am beginning to understand a discrete leveling system so that some of the books are leveled in some baskets; I am fairly knowledgeable about children’s literature and gather information about new books each year for read alouds, and independent reading and some new book club titles for the school book room; I occasionally recommend to and get recommendations from students and colleagues for new books; I use my school book room for instructional books and for book clubs / I have developed an extensive classroom library (1000 books or more; books are organized in tubs or baskets by authors, genres, series, read alouds, kid picks, and content topics; students help with some of the organization, category selection, and maintenance of my classroom library; I have developed my understanding of a discrete leveling system so that around 50% of the books are leveled (1 – 2 leveled books are within designated baskets, 3- 5 leveled books except for a few baskets are dispersed among the topic/author based baskets); I stay current in children’s literature in order to add extensive new titles for read alouds and independent reading as well as research new titles for book club books in the school book room; I rotate books in my classroom library according to theme, growing reading levels, and new titles; I frequently recommend to and get recommendations from students and colleagues for new books; I frequently utilize the library and school book room for enhancing books for instruction and for independent reading; I use my school book room for instructional books based on student needs not just text levels as well as for book clubs.
Carrie Ekey, Literacy Coaches Training, Nov. 2013 Day 4 Page 1
Carrie Ekey, Literacy Coaches Training, Nov. 2013 Day 4 Page 1
Professional Development Backwards Planning Sheet
August / September / October / November / DecemberTime available
Professional Goal
Focus of Learning
Coaching cycle
Professional Development Backwards Planning Sheet
August / September / October / November / DecemberTime available
Professional Goal
Focus of Learning
Coaching cycle
Professional Development Backwards Planning Sheet
January / February / March / April / May/JuneTime available
Professional Goal
Focus of Learning
Coaching cycle
Professional Development Backwards Planning Sheet
January / February / March / April / May/JuneTime available
Professional Goal
Focus of Learning
Coaching cycle
Carrie Ekey, Literacy Coaches Training, Nov. 2013 Day 4 Page 1
Facilitating Teacher Study Groups
Carrie Ekey, Literacy Coaches Training, Nov. 2013 Day 4 Page 1
SharonWalpole,AssociateProfessor,UniversityofDelaware KatherineA.Beauchat,DoctoralCandidate,Universityof Delaware
Whenwasthelasttimeyouidentified agoalthatyou planned to accomplish through self-selected,self-directed commitment, study, and action? Think about a New Year’s resolution you have made for a healthier diet or more exercise.Ifyouarelikeus,experienceswhenweworkalone yield low returns because we are not always motivated to followthrough. Haveyou, likeus,however,beenmore successful when you joined a group?
Now think about the power of shared experiences with texts.J. K. Rowling’s textscause parents to allow young teens to stand in line at bookstores at midnight–and then actuallypurchasemorethanonecopyofthesamehardback book–andthenreadallnight!OprahWinfrey,whosefamous adultbookclubbeganin1996,isnowavirtualrainmaker inthepublishing industry;herselectionsareinstantbest sellers, no matter now dense or obscure. Scores of adults faithfully combine learning with fellowship in monthly book clubs,sometimesreadingnonfiction tomestheywould never have tackled without the support of the group. We hazard a guess that it is the shared experience, rather than the characteristics of the texts themselves, that maintains momentumintheseadultbookclubs.Thatsharedexperience includes respect, choice,voice, andpersonal connections. We are learning to harness those characteristics of shared experienceas we engage with teachersin extended study groups; in thisbrief,wewillsharewhatwehavelearnedin our work and from the work of others.
Although literacy coaching means many different things, all coachinginitiativeshaveonecommoncommitment:thegoalof building teacher expertise.In our work as coaches and withcoaches,wehaverelied on teacherstudygroups asa mainstrategyforaccomplishingthistask.Ourunderstanding of the potential for study groups has expanded over time; our current vision combines ideas from real-world book clubs with ideas from the adult learning and professional developmentliterature,andthenaddsadashofcompassion forthecomplexanddifficult worldofeverydayteaching. Thisrecipeyieldsaflexiblesetofrecommendationsthatcan help coaches launch or refresh teacher study groups.
Respect
Coaches can plan study groups that respectadult learners. There is rich literature on literature circles and book clubs for children (e.g., Daniels, 1994; McMahon Raphael,
1997) and on cooperative learning activities (e.g., Guthrie, etal., 2004; Slavin, 1995). Although literacy coachesmight betemptedtoemploystrategiesfromthatliteratureso thattheymodel literacypracticesthatteachersmight later incorporateintotheirownteaching,wethinkthismoveisa mistake: a truly successful teacher study group must honor principles of adult learning. Adult learning, and specifically teacherlearning, must begrounded and connecteddirectly in real lifeexperience;didactic approaches,witha top- down structure and focus, do not engage adults in deep learning experiences.Rather,previousknowledgeand expertise, internal motivation, self-direction, and problem-solving (Terehoff, 2002) should be at the heart of the study groupplan.