We’ll refine the quality of what we do as we proceed, but for now it is time to get started. The Chicago Reading Framework emerged from work that I have done in schools during the past eight years. Should schools lower grade level benchmark readin... Tim works with various agencies and publishers on a myriad of projects aimed at improving literacy. (b) It was required that studies show the generalizability of each component by demonstrating that improvements in each component led to improved overall reading achievement, at least for some populations. Students need to be taught to understand text independently. We need to ensure that these necessary conditions exist in all Chicago Public Schools. This element does not occur in … Over the past few weeks, I'e fielded many questions about testing – from policymakers and teachers. Chicago children need to do better in reading and the past successes of this framework—and the success of similar efforts elsewhere—holds great promise for our children. Web Development by Dog and Rooster, Inc. Surveys show that the average elementary teacher provides only about 55 minutes per day of direct reading and language arts instruction using activities that research indicates have much possibility of improving reading achievement (Baumann & Hoffman, 1999). He studies the teaching of reading and writing across all ages and abilities. Activities like paired or assisted reading, in which students take turns reading portions of a text aloud to each other, giving each other feedback, and rereading the text multiple times until it can be done well have been found to be effective from the primary grades through high school. The piling up of resources at these points is likely not the best way to build effective programs for children. In R-TFI: “School-Wide Reading Model” • Multi-tiered structures encompassing: (1) systems to address the continuum of reading needs across the student body, Fluency. There is no nobler act than to teach someone to read. Studies clearly show that increases in academic learning time can improve reading achievement (Rosenshine & Stevens, 1984); however, with the exception of Cunningham’s (1991) Four-Block Plan which addresses the needs of beginning readers, teacher education materials have been virtually silent on the use of time in reading instruction. (d) It was required that there be evidence demonstrating the independence, or separability, of each category. He studies reading and writing across all ages and abilities. Literacy expert Timothy Shanahan shares best practices for teaching reading and writing. Literacy expert Timothy Shanahan shares best practices for teaching reading and writing. Students need experience and instruction in dealing with both of these. Timothy Shanahan is one of the world’s premier literacy educators. Word knowledge. Such knowledge will allow the teacher to slow down or speed up or to intensify the effort. He studies the teaching of reading and writing across all ages and abilities. Let’s start using that knowledge immediately to help Chicago children become better readers. The Colorado Literacy Framework issues from the mission of the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) to “provide all Colorado children equal access to quality, thorough, uniform, well-rounded educational opportunities in a safe, civil environment,” and the vision that “all children in Colorado I have used this framework as a consultant when guiding others to improve achievement, and I used it myself as director of reading of the Chicago Public Schools. He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007, and is a former first-grade teacher. Another way to ensure that we have an effective reading program is to provide appropriate assessment. The Chicago Reading Framework should help to establish continuity, or connectedness, across teachers at all grade levels, and from all aspects of a school or district instructional program. Finally, it is essential that all of us remember that students benefit from comprehension instruction—not just practice. The best instructional efforts require students to use the vocabulary in a wide variety of ways (speaking, listening, reading, writing), and they require students to analyze and explore rich definitions of the words and their relationships with other words. Summaries of winning dissertations are published each year in Reading Research Quarterly. The reason is that none of these has been shown by research to improve achievement for children across the grades. The key is teaching children to recognize such word quickly and accurately. (a) It was essential that there exist experimental or quasi-experimental studies that evaluated the teachability of each category. Its conceptual framework draws on research that posits that a dire need exists for a new theory about literacy instruction for bilingual children (Bernhardt, 2003; Grant & Wong, 2003), and that second language literacy acquisition is greatly enhanced if learners are literate in their first language (August & Shanahan, 2006). He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007, and is a former first-grade teacher. Dr. Shanahan is an internationally recognized professor of urban education and reading researcher who has extensive experience with children in inner-city schools and children with special needs. For example, early word instruction centers on phonemic awareness, phonics, and sight vocabulary, but as children accomplish these, the emphasis switches to the study of word meanings throughout the higher grades. It seems there is currently a focus on intervention solely for the word recognition side in the early grades. Disciplinary literacy, as defined by Shanahan and Shanahan (2008), are the “[l]iteracy skills specialized to history, science, mathematics, literature, or other subject matter” (p. 44). Leave me a comment and I would like to have a discussion with you! Literacy expert Timothy Shanahan shares best practices for teaching reading and writing. National Reading Panel. 1. The content in this webinar series is organized around the College, Career, and Civic Live (C3) Framework for State Standards in Social Studies, specifically Dimension 2 and supports inquiry-based teaching and learning as envisioned in the C3 Inquiry Arc.The core disciplines in social studies—Civics, Economics, Geography, and History—provide the overall structure for this webinar series. The idea is to provide all students with the maximum opportunity to learn to read and write while maintaining adequate amounts of time to teach math, science, history/social studies, and other school subjects. He studies the teaching of reading and writing across all ages and abilities. Teacher question: Dissertations on Reading Clinicians, Literacy Specialists, & Literacy Practicums Pontrello, Camille Marie (2011). High frequency words like the, of, was, can, saw, there, to, for, and so on need to be learned to a high level of proficiency. Spelling instruction is an important part of word teaching, too. This premise is not just a wishful hope—principals and teachers, including some in Chicago, already have used this model to improve reading at their schools. 1. Your chance to see Tim talk about literacy—right on your own device. Dr. Shanahan is an internationally recognized professor of urban education and reading researcher who has extensive experience with children in inner-city schools and children with special needs. For example, it is possible to purchase some commercial programs that will provide some consistency of content coverage. Timothy Shanahan is one of the world’s premier literacy educators. Sometimes I am asked why a particular item is not included in this system: formal grammar instruction, language transition work for second language students, free reading time, teacher reading, and so on. All rights reserved. Second, we teach children how text is organized or structured and how to use these organizational plans to remember information from text more effectively. However, such efforts will take time. literacy learning (e.g., phonics, phonological awareness, sight vocabulary) are entailed in virtually all reading tasks (Rayner & Pollatsek, 1994). Comprehension instruction includes three components. Time allotment decisions are especially difficult for upper grade teachers because of departmentalization. The Chicago Reading Framework attempts to address each of these concerns—and over time, we will try to provide assistance to all teachers to help them to do so. A disciplinary literacy approach emphasizes the specialized knowledge and abilities possessed by those who This paper presents a framework and methodology for designing learning goals targeted at what students need to know and be able to do in order to attain high levels of literacy and achievement in three disciplinary areas--literature, science, and history. It has been traditional to focus reading efforts at particular levels such as first grade, primary grades, or grade levels in which retention decisions have to be made. Many teachers give students reading assignments that require the answering of questions, but such practice is insufficient. Teachers should rely on what they already know to begin addressing children’s reading needs, and over time—if appropriate—they will be guided to improve upon their current efforts. Here are links to his partners' sites. Dr. Shanahan: That you can provide young children with supports for their literacy learning from the very beginning. Read more. Principals need to be able to access this type of information as well so that they better support their teachers’ efforts. Many teachers already collect such information on their children and are able to provide feedback to parents and improvements to daily instruction. This is a piece I wrote for my teachers and principals in Chicago awhile back, to give them a sense of the essential direction that instruction needs to take. Children need to be able to write their own texts as well as being able to read what others have written. But not oral language. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Development. These four categories are all equally important across the various grade levels, but the emphasis within categories shifts somewhat over time. What books about literacy does Tim recommend? Timothy Shanahan is one of the world’s premier literacy educators. Reading Research Quarterly. It builds quality upon quality, across classes, grade levels, and schools—and it does so across the complexity of program offerings that most schools provide (Title programs, special education, preschool, after school, etc.). (2000). I am not speaking about formal achievement tests like the ITBS or ISAT here. As children get older, and the reading demands get more challenging and more disciplinary, instruction needs to show them what kinds of information to seek when they are reading history or science or mathematics or literature. Chicago schools have many successes and this framework should support continuation of those things that are already working well in the teaching of reading. Second, this approach tries to build upon and take advantage of our current professional knowledge and strengths. Cunningham, P. M. (1991). Powerful reading instruction is longitudinal. The time is now. They are, likewise, less likely to receive well balanced instruction that addresses all of these key areas of concern, and there are likely to be fewer supports for continuity and ongoing assessment. Dr. Shanahan is an internationally recognized professor of urban education and reading researcher who has extensive experience with children in inner-city schools and children with special needs. First, the Framework is not a program, per se. Engaging in disciplinary literacy learning includes students not only gaining knowledge of a particular The district’s current assessment model pretty much excludes them any assessment of language comprehension. ), Hand­book of Reading Research (vol 2., pp. Dr. Shanahan is an internationally recognized professor of urban education and reading researcher who has extensive experience with children in inner-city schools and children with special needs. However, I would add that many of those also struggle with language comprehension, with language development deficits that are measurable and observationally apparent in conversation with them as preschoolers, kindergartners, and first graders. That means that teachers should devote approximately one-quarter of the instructional time to each of these areas of development. Phonemic awareness instruction (teaching children to hear and manipulate the separable sounds in words) should be part of the focus of reading instruction in the preschool and kindergarten years. Such evidence includes case studies of precocious, learning disabled, or brain-injured subjects who were able to make gains in one component without commensurate or similar development in the others, or who made gains in three of the components without equivalent progress in the remaining one. It is essential that schools offer substantial amounts of reading and writing instruction. All rights reserved. Lets' Be Charitable to Literacy. Feel free to contact him. The explanation is that most students who struggle, struggle with decoding, and I of course agree. The first r revisited: A national survey of educational practices. In the coming days, months, and years, we will be providing resources to help you to use the Framework most effectively. Teaching Disciplinary Literacy to Adolescents . Literacy expert Timothy Shanahan shares best practices for teaching reading and writing. In Kindergarten through third grade, it is imperative that teachers provide children with substantial amounts of word recognition instruction. However, as one moves along the continuum of literacy learning, what is … Similarly, students need to know about various ways that expository texts are organized (such as problem-solution, cause-effect, comparison-contrast), including knowing that particular types of information will be provided in particular texts. Read more These are all 4-star rated programs that are national or multi-regional in scope. Disciplinary literacy refers to the ways of reading, writing, thinking, and reasoning within academic fields (Moje, 2007;Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008. In another example, initial instruction might place greater emphasis on literary (narrative) reading or writing as part of instruction in comprehension or composing, but this emphasis shifts to a greater focus on studying and composing expository or explanatory content texts as students get older. Teachers can use many word lists to guide their focus here including the Dolch list, Fry list, or Cunningham’s word list. Thus, studies had to show that writing instruction not only led to better writing, but to better reading achievement as well. Read more Although this framework does offer some new direction and guidance, it does not try to replace all of what we are already doing. Each year, Shanahan on Literacy identifies the highest ranked charities that support book distribution and other literacy-oriented initiatives. A useful framework for showing the differences between these types of literacy strategies was introduced in Shanahan and Shanahan (2008). Baumann, J., and Hoffman, J. During these early years, there also should be emphasis on teaching children sight vocabulary—that is, words that they can recognize immediately without sounding or any other obvious mediation. In other words, we will strive for greater continuity and consistency in the future, but we will not do this through arbitrary mandates from the top. Dr. Shanahan is an internationally recognized professor of urban education and reading researcher who has extensive experience with children in inner-city schools and children with special needs. They just cannot be counted towards the two hours of required instruction. Any professional in the Chicago Public Schools whose teaching requires the use of written materials or texts are expected to be part of the effort. Teaching students to monitor their reading (to make sure that they are understanding and to ask for help when they are not), to ask their own questions, to summarize, and to translate text into graphic form are just a few of the techniques that can be taught. As teachers and parents we know that the literacy we strive to provide cannot be accomplished alone—we need to work together, and therefore we must be saved by love. Though research supports focusing instruction on the four key elements—words, fluency, comprehension, and writing—each could be argued for on the basis of commonsense alone. For young children, learning what information to pay attention to when they read might be tied to general ideas such as knowing that good readers focus on both literal information that the author explicitly tells you, inferential information that you have to interpret based upon information that the author has provided, and prior knowledge or the information that you bring to a text. However, these kinds of activities can still be used in CPS classrooms. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Tierney, R., and Shanahan, T. (1991). Feel free to contact him. For several years, I have used a basic framework for guiding my action in the public schools. However, research is clear that there is no magic bullet. If a student is fluent with a particular text, the teacher has two choices. Children need to know how to alter their voice and message to meet the needs of an audience, and they need instruction in how to write text for themselves, for others who share much information with them, and for those audiences at a greater distance of time and space and shared knowledge (such as writing for publication). reading. The Framework requires that classroom teachers emphasize equally each of these four aspects in their reading instruction. The description below lays out some of the basics. I vividly remember when “experts” (without data) were claiming that either young children would not be ready to benefit from such teaching or that such teaching would do harm. Each year, Shanahan on Literacy identifies the highest ranked charities that support book distribution and other literacy-oriented initiatives. And yet, in too many schools and classrooms, these basics are sometimes ignored. Those tests have their place, but it is not in improving daily instruction. Dr. Shanahan is an internationally recognized professor of urban education and reading researcher who has extensive experience with children in inner-city schools and children with special needs. He studies the teaching of reading and writing across all ages and abilities. If a teacher is teaching sight vocabulary, she needs to know whether children are learning the words that are being taught. This means that the Framework will fit a wide range of classroom schedules, and that teachers should be able to improvise plans that meet their student needs and the actual instructional circumstances of a particular school. Teachers, for instance, are not expected to provide all of their reading instruction between 9:00AM and 11:00AM each morning. The Common Core State Standards are explicit in requiring teachers to teach the literacy of science, literature, and history, and even states that are not part of Common Core (such as Texas) are making this shift as well. Read Aloud: Rate your current level of implementation for each of the following elements of a Read Aloud lesson. Timothy Shanahan is one of the world’s premier literacy educators. That is why the Chicago Reading Initiative is investing so much in the continued professional development of our teachers. Methods texts and other ancillary publications cite its importance, but say almost nothing about how to use or manage instructional time in reading. Reading Comprehension. That way we can get the resources where they are needed and we will increase our effectiveness with all children. Teachers and principals must be aware of how well their children are learning their lessons so that they can make the appropriate and necessary adjustments along the way. ), and learning to read and write simultaneously can give children an advantage. Of course, some approaches are likely to be more successful than others. He was inducted to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2007, and is a former first-grade teacher. In other words, this is not a 2–3 hour time block, though schools can do this. Comprehension is the third category, and it includes both understanding text and learning from text, emphasizing literary and content (sciences, history, etc.) It is also often in these schools that there is the greatest desire by policymakers to impose a “magic bullet” solution upon the teachers. We know what to do. Before presenting what the Framework is and what it should provide, let’s consider what it is not. Chicago Public School teachers know a lot. Shanahan on Literacy is the blog of literacy expert Timothy Shanahan, where he shares best practices for teaching reading and writing. Sponsored by Timothy and Cynthia Shanahan Submission Timeline • Award opens week of November 15, 2020 New York: Longman. However, until such support is available, there is no reason not to provide children with sufficient amounts of instruction devoted to these key areas of development. Here are a couple of examples:  There are many ways that schools can ensure continuity. Writing should teach children to write for a variety of purposes and audiences, using strategies and actions that will allow them to solve various problems of writing. It should help students to spell in a conventional way, and it can provide them with an opportunity to think systematically about how words are structured. Students who are fluent can usually read a text with only about one mistake per hundred words, and they can read the text smoothly and quickly. Knowing the organizational structures of a story help children to identify key information and to remember the story later. First, we teach children to seek particular types of information. Classroom schedules are complex and reading instruction can be provided throughout the day. Beginning in Kindergarten and continuing for about three years, children should receive daily phonics instruction. This framework is consistent with several syntheses of reading research such as the National Reading Panel Report (2000), the Prevention of Reading Difficulties (1998), and Becoming a Nation of Readers (1984), as well as local school evaluation studies such as those conducted by the Chicago School Research Consortium. Shanahan answer: I feel your pain. Children need to know how to retell events (narrative writing), explain and analyze information (exposition), and argue a position (persuasion), and our instruction should show them how to do these effectively. This award from the International Literacy Association (ILA) is given annually for a dissertation completed in reading or literacy. Instruction in reading within social studies, science, and mathematics can count, too. Students can use this information to think more effectively about how the author is presenting a particular culture or era. These criteria, applied together, suggested Word Knowledge, Fluency, Comprehension, and Writing as four related, yet separable components of literacy growth that are amenable to teaching, and that when taught, are likely to lead to higher reading achievement. Educational research has accumulated over the past 30 years and it has overwhelmingly argued for greater time, greater focus on the essentials of learning, greater continuity, and greater awareness of children’s progress. The report of the National Reading Panel. Web Development by Dog and Rooster, Inc. National Assessment of Educational Progress. The first category, Word Knowledge, includes instruction in sight vocabulary, phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, and word meanings. Should support continuation of those things that are already doing have googled “ the Chicago reading Framework ” I. 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