Campus-Wide+Reading+Time

Leadership Team Committee Minutes

 * [[file:8.28.2013.docx]][[image:SignIn_8.28.jpg width="320" height="259" caption="Sign In Sheet"]]

=Leadership Team Research= //Add links, attach docs, write info below under each research question.//


 * //Keys to Successfully Sustaining an SSR Program//
 * A page of comprehensive research
 * //Setting the 'opportunity to read' standard: Resuscitating the SSR program in an urban high school.//

**Question 1: To what extent does free reading time impact student achievement?** (L. Barnett) > **Question 2: What different free reading programs are other schools doing? Which have had measurable success? How will we measure the success of our program and our students' reading growth?** (D. Rowell & Z. Harber)
 * Douglas Fisher: "Researchers and teachers have argued that scheduling specific time for students to read can increase reading skills and have a positive impact on students' attitudes toward reading (Akmal, 2002; Dwyer & Reed, 1989). Perhaps the staunchest supporter of independent reading time is Krashen (1993), who maintained that free voluntary reading is the most effective tool available for increasing a child's ability to read, write, spell, and comprehend."

(Harber) [] I was not able to find any measurable success for the link above. It has some interesting, but very basic ideas.

I found several sources that suggested that teachers choose a book and read it to the class aloud; however assessing may be difficult or inconsistent if every teacher were to read a different book. As a suggestion, what if the faculty was to provide a select number of books for the students to choose from? (OR ANY OTHER METHOD OF SELECTION) Then provide all faculty members with a copy of the chosen book to read each day during DEAR time. Faculty could then collaborate to develop an assessment of comprehension. Teachers would have the ability to facilitate discussion regarding what was read...possibly have scheduled reading guides to keep all classes on pace to help prevent falling behind or moving ahead. I'm sure this idea could be tweak to fit our wants and needs!

High Schools That Work says the silent reading time is only one part of a larger system of literacy goals.

**Question 3: What role does incentive play? How do we motivate high school kids to read?** (K. Walter, C. James) > One way that motivation and engagement are instilled and maintained is to provide students with opportunities to select for themselves the materials they read and topics they research. One of the easiest ways to build some choice into the students' school day is to incorporate independent reading time in which they can read whatever they choose. Yet this piece of the curriculum is often dropped after the primary grades, (p. 16)"
 * Book Talks to promote reading: [|http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=36a3163a-1b80-4331-af27-f61bfe6d4dc7%40sessionmgr104&vid=1&hid=108&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=afh&AN=77053487]
 * Student Choice:"Several reports, including Reading Next -- A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006), advocate for voluntary reading time because of the link to student motivation:
 * Nonaccountability

Tim Shanahan says(way down in comments)... "One of the hardest factors to implement was avoiding using traditional teaching practices to hold students accountable for reading. Pilgreen (2000) reports that successful SSR programs, "Omit any activity that gives students the message that they are responsible for completing a task, comprehending a particular portion of their reading, or showing that they have made improvement in some way" (p. 15). Traditional practices include book reports, page requirements, and points per day. > My concern was that if students were not held accountable by earning grades for SSR, then they would not read. Fisher (2004) found that in one high school's attempt to implement a school wide SSR program, teachers struggled most often with the lack of accountability measures they were accustomed to. Fisher provides examples of alternative accountability options for teachers: > Students advocate reading a particular book, sharing their favorite parts of books with the whole class, making rap songs about their books, creating posters advertising specific books, and holding partner conversations about their books during the last few minutes of SSR. The hope is that by focusing on the types of things a teacher can do to encourage follow-up conversations and activities, fewer teachers will focus on accountability and grading concerns relative to SSR time. (p. 148) > My students found it refreshing that they would not have to fill out study guides, mark their text with sticky notes, keep book logs, and especially, would not have to write book reports, or other "school" practices. While some students found ways to avoid reading, talking to others, and making noises, this became an opportunity for me to conference with the students to investigate why. Most of the time, these students were displaying avoidance strategies they had finely honed through the years to mask issues related to reading: lack of interest, problems reading, unsure of where to find text, and so on. Once again, mentoring became the key to hold students accountable, and I was able to help individual students improve comprehension while reading. > The only information students filled out ahead of time was a sheet for recording reading goals and a place for them to keep track of text they read and text they abandoned (Figure 1). In this way, students learned what readers do, which includes abandoning a book they did not find interesting and selecting something new. Students were surprised that a teacher was giving them permission to stop reading something if it was not what they expected. Students who continually abandoned their books were readers who needed further mentoring in finding the right text."

**Question 4: How do we match students with "just right" texts? How do we determine and monitor our students' reading levels?** (T. Gillmore, M. Baker)

Gillmore >>
 * Assessment Tools
 * San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability
 * [|Tim Shanahan] said...That's a good question, Mark. I think book leveling can be useful both for instructional materials and for independent reading (though not necessarily how we have used them in the past). In a classroom it is useful because it can give a teacher a better sense of how much scaffolding and support is likely to be needed, while for independent reading it can help a teacher guide students to something that may be easy enough to read on one's own--the harder the text, the more motivated and/or supported the student will likely need to be. The problem with this latter recommendation is that it often turns into a prohibition (kids only being allowed to read books at particular levels). Studies show that when students are particularly interested in a book or have a lot of knowledge about what they are reading, their ability to comprehend goes up (in other words "their level" changes). I think such guidance or advice can be helpful, but its limitations can be summarized easily in two words: Harry Potter (a book that was way too hard for many of the kids who read it anyway because they wanted to).

**Question 5: What should the purpose of the BHS reading program be? What should the role of the teacher be?** (Lisa--create survey to get faculty input)


 * Source:"Pilgreen's (2000) The SSR Handbook. In her book, Pilgreen provides eight factors for success in an SSR program: (1) access, (2) appeal, (3) conducive environment, (4) encouragement, (5) staff training, (6) nonaccount-ability, (7) follow-up activities, and (8) distributed time to read. These factors come from an analysis of data from 32 free reading programs found in the literature on the effective SSR programs. Pilgreen found these eight factors as prevalent in SSR programs in which students improved in comprehension or motivation. Pilgreen (2000) also provides support for SSR through the study she conducted in her own classroom of mostly Hispanic students of lower socioeconomic status, much like the students in my junior English class."
 * PDF explaining Pilgreen's 8 factors of SSR [[file:ssr.pdf]]
 * What should teacher do? Source:"As Pilgreen (2000) found, one way to undermine an SSR program is for the teacher to grade papers, work on the computer, and answer phone calls. While it was tempting to do these things in order to catch up on my work, I used SSR time to read alongside students, to mentor them, to conference with someone experiencing difficulties, to read aloud and book talk for students, to ask students for suggestions for what I could read next, and more. Basically, I modeled for my students what engaged readers do."
 * Quoted by Douglas Fisher:[[image:8FactorsSSR.png width="640" height="530"]]