Reading as an Exercise in Stamina

Ms. Giudici's SLA Anchor Chart

 We know from the work of our hero Richard Allington that reading volume is the primary (dare I say, essential) driver of reading growth, so we have been working hard this year to create more opportunities for students to read more. One theme that inevitably comes up when we discuss reading volume is our kids' reading stamina -- and how we can develop the level of focus they need to sustain their reading for at least 30 minutes during Readers Workshop and ideally much longer on their own.

We've been experimenting with different angles on this, and like everything else in school communities, we've found it effective to investigate the question with the students themselves.  In Ms. Giudici's Spanish Language Arts class in the 6th grade, students compiled a list of actions and environmental cues that help or hurt their vigor -- and then practiced reading while being attentive to those cues.  In Ms. Hefty's 7th Grade ELA class, students embarked upon a similar project, testing their stamina repeatedly over several days and tracking their growth.

Ms. Hefty's Class Anchor Chart

Over Spring Break (now three weeks ago), we created a school-wide goal to track reading stamina at home, and then students posted their highest achievement in the hallways on the "stamina thermometers" we created.  Check out the 8th grade poster here:


 Some of our students' stamina is RED HOT, while of course we have many who need more support to get there.  With the summer break just five weeks away now, we're feeling urgency on this one.  Stay tuned for more on how we're working to increase our students' stamina before we release them to the wide world of vacation reading!

Another kind of student data

Today I'm pasting the contents of an email sent by Lauren Ponti, one of our ELD teachers, to the staff.  This thoughtful note is a testament to the collaborative spirit and mutual respect on our team; it is also proof that we are beginning to expand our notion of what it means to look at student data. Yes, we value test results and analyze them thoroughly, using them to adjust our instruction in meaningful ways, but we also look at other (less conventional) data sources to help us get a robust picture of our students' growth.  Questions we now want to ask are:  

• How many of our students can articulate their favorite authors and preferred genres?  
• How many of our students already have their next "someday" book picked out?
• How many of our students have at least one friend whom they can count on to recommend them great books?
• When we take field trips, how many students pull out a book to read on the bus?

Read Ms. Ponti's email after the jump.