An Educator Shifts Her Thinking In Three Key Areas

“Comprehension strategies are more important now than ever,” says instructional coach/author/consultant Debbie Miller in this article in The Reading Teacher. “They help children get smarter about big, important topics that are relevant to them and help them become powerful and thoughtful human beings.” Common Core State Standards give teachers clear guidance on what those strategies are. But how teachers reach those goals is determined classroom by classroom and school by school based on accumulated – and evolving – instructional wisdom. Miller describes how she’s changed her mind about three core instructional strategies:

• Gradual release of responsibility – She used to follow the traditional sequence: modeling in a mini-lesson, guided practice, independent practice, application. She now believes that it’s sometimes better to quickly model and then have students try it on their own. “It’s messier,” says Miller, “– nurturing creativity and independence always is – but now children are the ones digging in, figuring out, and working hard to read words and make sense of stories, content, skills and strategies, and big ideas. And I get to be the one listening in, conferring with children, and supporting them as needed – all the while finding just where they are, and just what they need to move forward.” 

• Objectives – Miller used to believe that big ideas (for example, making connections, asking questions, and determining importance) were her guiding stars. Now she combines big ideas with content, saying for example, “We’re synthesizing our learning about life cycles” or “We’re building background knowledge about people in other parts of the world” or “We’re learning how thoughtful readers ask and answer questions, determine importance, and synthesize information to help them access, remember, and understand nonfiction texts and materials.” 

• Assessment – Miller used to state her objectives, observe where students were in the learning process, and decide what was needed to help them close the gap. “Now I think I was only half right,” she says. “Learning is a process that teachers and children engage in together. Both of us need to be able to answer and understand: 

• Where am I going?
• Where am I now?
• What do I need to do to move forward? 

“When children and teachers have a clear vision about where they are going, when teachers offer children regular, descriptive feedback and teach students to self-reflect, keep track of, and share what they’ve learned (both content-wise and about themselves as learners), we motivate them and help them understand that they have control over their learning.” An important part of this is checking for understanding along the way – for example, listening in on turn-and-talk sessions, conferring, exit tickets, anchor charts, and real-time response sheets. 

“I Can Create Mental Images to Retell and Infer Big Ideas” by Debbie Miller in The Reading Teacher, February 2013 (Vol. 66, #5, p. 360-364), 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/TRTR.01135/abstract; Miller can be reached at d.d.miller@earthlink.net. 

From the Marshall Memo #475