Change is a Good Thing

"One hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful. Subduing the other's military without battle is the most skillful." - Sun Tzu
That is the quote at the beginning of the chapter titled 'Rapport,' in Teach Like a Pirate. That is the purpose of PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports). We don't want to have to manage misbehaviors. We want to be so good with our management tactics that we prevent misbehaviors from happening.

I am in the process of training for a half-marathon that I will be running at the end of October. During the school week, I run when everything is still dark and all is still quiet. One of the things that I love about training for half-marathons, as a result of the peace and quiet of the early morning,  is the time that I have to reflect and think. It was during a run this past week that the content for this blog was drafted.

At the beginning of the school year, our PBIS team (Rebeca Yoder, Janelle Sulhoff, Mallory DeLacy, Jordan Jaspering, and Anna Burns - kudos to you five for the work that you are responsible for with this) decided to create a new system for recognizing students who show the Huskie Way of being caring, respectful, and responsible. Out (for now) were the Huskie Paws, as they were replaced with a ticket system. There are different colored tickets that students receive for being caring, respectful, and responsible; each ticket is labeled with one of those three words. When an adult in the building catches a student being caring, respectful, or responsible that particular student is given a ticket. The student then signs a sheet in his/her classroom that shows all of the students who have earned tickets, and they put their ticket into a drawing. At the end of each week, the drawing takes place and one student from each classroom is recognized for showing the Huskie Way of being caring, respectful, and responsible.

The feedback so far is positive. I am told that while I am announcing the winning students' names, the anticipation in the classrooms is worth seeing. Validating that point is the fact that before I am even finished on the intercom, there is a line of students that have made it to the office to claim their certificate and prize.

Change gets people energized and excited. It keeps things fresh, and it keeps people on their toes. If this was a fable, it would end with a moral. The moral of this story would be that change is a good thing.

PALS and PD

Last winter, Heather Feuerhelm, our former Grant Wood Area Education Agency (AEA) literacy consultant, introduced our fifth grade teachers and students to a literacy strategy named PALS. As word spread regarding our fifth grade team's implementation of PALS, our fourth grade teachers became interested to learn how it works/what it looks like so they, too, could implement PALS into their classrooms.

PALS is an acronym for Peer Assisted Learning Strategies, which pairs two students with the same text. A round of PALS gives each student an opportunity to read to their partner for five minutes. After each student has had their turn to read, both students alternate retelling facts pertaining to what was just read for two minutes. Each student then has five minutes to continue to read, and retell/summarize what they are reading; students finish with reading and making predictions for another five minutes apiece. PALS provides clear structure and purpose for our students and coincides nicely with the 'Read to Someone' rotation of the Daily 5.

Last year, our Iowa Assessment scores, which tests students in grades three through five, for students proficient in the area of Reading increased to 79%. This is an increase from our scores of 67% of students proficient in 2012. PALS is one inference that we have made in regards to these improved test scores.

Another indicator is our DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) benchmark testing, which all students take in the fall, winter, and spring. One component of DIBELS assesses how well students are able to retell what they read, a major emphasis of PALS. Last year during fall testing, 17% of our fourth graders had meet their spring expectancy for proficiency in retell. By the spring, we had 74% of students proficient in retell; a 57% increase! Also impressive is the improvement that our fifth grade scores showed, last year. Only 1% of our fifth grade was proficient, based off of the spring expectancy in retell, last fall. By the spring, we had 65% of students proficient in retell; a 64% increase! This year, the fifth grade group that received the PALS instruction last year as fourth graders is beginning the year with 61% of students already having met their spring expectancy for proficiency in retell from their DIBELS tests.

Earlier this month, Misty Forbes, our returning fifth grade teacher, led our teaching staff in some professional development regarding PALS. Misty talked about what PALS is, and gave our teachers an opportunity to go through a round of PALS as students. As a result of this new learning for staff, third grade is now doing PALS and our younger grades have some ideas for how they could alter PALS to make it work for their students. We are also starting to work with Rich McGrath, our new Grant Wood AEA literacy consultant, to see how we can keep the momentum of PALS going and build upon it.

We have monthly learning sessions like this scheduled for throughout the school year. The framework for this idea was adopted from a Bettendorf High School PowerPoint that I saw on Twitter via Bettendorf's High School Principal. Thanks @casas_jimmy. Anyways, aside from Misty's PALS session, we've also already had a session regarding social media as a communication and a learning tool.  Some of the other topics that are initially planned are: Sharon Walpole literacy strategies, the implementation of data binders for our students, and using iPads in the classroom.

The fact that we have data to celebrate that correlates with our implementation of PALS is exciting! However, equally exciting are all of the teacher leaders within our building that are willing to lead professional development for our teachers.

The more you read...

I listened to Freeman Hrabowski, at the School Administrators of Iowa conference in Des Moines, last month, when he spoke a powerful message about how the more his mother read the better she was at reading. The better reader she became at reading the more she enjoyed reading. The more that she enjoyed reading the more she read. This is our goal; that our students will acquire the skills that will allow them to develop a lifetime love of reading and writing. 

While conducting classroom walkthroughs over the course of the first week of school, I became excited as I kept seeing a lot of the same language and procedures being used throughout the building. The language and procedures that caught my attention were in regards to our teachers' implementation of the Daily 5 and CAFE, which originated from the work of Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, better known as The 2 Sisters. 

The Daily 5 is a literacy structure for the classroom that allows students to learn and practice certain routines and procedures. It consists of five tasks that are introduced individually with modeling and practice so that eventually the students can engage in the task independently. While introducing a task, students gradually work on building their stamina to the point where they can be successful at being independent while doing that task. The five tasks, which are the same from kindergarten through fifth grade (although they, obviously, look a little different at each grade level), are: read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, work on writing, and word work. Once all tasks are introduced and implemented to a level where students are independent, the teacher is able to work with small groups (guided reading) and conference with students one-on-one.

CAFE is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding vocabulary. The CAFÉ is a system that compliments The Daily 5 by utilizing the above mentioned reading skills to facilitate setting goals and then establishing both small group and whole group instruction.

During the 2011-12 school year, a group of 13 teachers voluntarily participated in a teacher-led book study of The Daily 5 with implementation beginning in the spring ('12). By the fall ('12), all K-5 classrooms had made The Daily 5 a part of their classroom practice. This summer ('13), Riverside Elementary was fortunate to send seven staff to the Iowa Reading Association Conference in Ames, Iowa where the authors,The 2 Sisters, were presenting. As a result of the success that our teachers are experiencing with The Daily Five and the learning that staff received over the summer, a portion of our teachers have taken the initiative and started to implement CAFÉ. 

There are multiple reasons that this had me smiling as I walked up and down the hallways, in-and-out of classrooms. The students have familiarity with this; for example, this year students are being re-introduced to this language and these procedures instead of being introduced for the first time. The teachers have had a year of using this structure in their classroom, and they have had a year to reflect on what has worked well and what can be improved upon. This is a system that really emphasizes both collaboration and independence amongst our students, which are two vital skills for the 21st century; students are also provided with both choice and purpose, which prove to be motivating. Finally, most importantly, it gives our students 1) opportunities to read and write and 2) opportunities to work directly with the classroom teacher.

So, please, ask your child about The Daily 5 (and for some students CAFE, too) and see what he/she has to say!