Literacy Beliefs
Newsletter
This week looks at our expectations of our students during literacy instruction.
Recommended Reading & Resources
Interesting pandemic article (and a nonfiction writing exemplar) that is not all doom-and-gloom: Your Old Radiator Is a Pandemic-Fighting Weapon (Bloomberg CityLab). The radiator was developed to allow people to open up their windows in the winter time with the heat on to fight airborne illnesses.
Lots of helpful tips here by Carl Anderson on using mentor texts to support students in writers workshop (CCIRA Blog).
Debbie Diller offers five tips for literacy stations in a virtual or hybrid classroom that support student independence (Corwin Connects).
I have hopped on a lot of Zooms this fall, watching virtual instruction in action. Below is a screenshot of my visit to 4th grade, a content-literacy lesson.
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My Thoughts: Beliefs matter, no matter where
When we transitioned to virtual teaching, some educators’ primary worry was around how to fit all of our curriculum into a smaller instructional day.
I have noticed that when teachers let some of these expectations go, and we remember that we teach readers and writers first, we were able to relax more.
That worry is not simply around fitting the curriculum into the school year. We associate loss instructional time with students falling behind. But behind who? We are all experiencing this same loss.
Worried about limited time in-person contains an underlying belief: virtual instruction is not effective. “If students are not in school, they are at risk of major learning gaps.”
These beliefs can have an impact if we carry them forward in our instruction. If so, then it does not matter where instruction takes place. Online or in-person, lowered expectations and deficit mindsets matter.
So why not believe that students can be successful regardless of the learning environment or the time given to us? Even if we fall short, our positive attitude will likely shore up a lot of ground.
As an example, a teacher recently shared with me how much growth one of her students has made as a reader. She has been meeting with her on Zoom, regularly providing personalized instruction. The student is blossoming, in spite of the majority of teaching being virtual this year.
Similarly, our library media specialist shared a story about kindergarten students becoming readers:
During the last two Wednesdays we've been doing booktalks with partners in breakout rooms. Today as I was visiting each breakout room, the students were completely engaged in booktalks. Many of them were taking turns reading to each other. It was wonderful. I called them back to the main room hoping to review, but they were begging to continue their reading. Back to the rooms they went and read well past their class time.
She acknowledged our classroom teachers modeling themselves as readers as the reason for this success.
As I noted in the above tweet, authentic literacy practices are effective regardless of environment. Yes, the situation has changed because of the pandemic. It does not mean our beliefs about what works for readers and writers have to change, too.