A new way to read in class Jake Nagy, William Penn High School Jake is a literacy coach for William Penn High School in Delaware where he does his best to get students to read anything and everything. Before becoming a coach, he taught English for seven years. He came to work with Sharon and Mike after trying out their strategies with a pilot team in his building. He has only authored one book, which sold almost no copies and isn't really worth looking up. Also, judging from his picture, he is a snappy dresser. You can contact Jake at jacob.nagy@colonial.k12.de.us PALS A new way to read in class

Literature and writing Dual Nature ELA Literature and writing Reading

Our school Our students weren’t reading on grade level As a result, many of our teachers had, “textless classrooms” The logic: if they can’t read well, I shouldn’t use text in class This created a spiral effect

If there was reading… Popcorn Row reading Reading as homework Silent reading Listening to the audio version Simplified text What do you notice about these things?

What role does text currently play in your school? How is it currently implemented?

CCSS changes this Integrated text approach Reading to learn Emphasis on increased text complexity

Easy to say… Non-ELA teachers don’t want to be reading teachers Non-ELA don’t know how to teach reading Why should they?

Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS)

PALS is a simple way to incorporate text The students can’t hide. Improves fluency, predicting, and summarizing Allows students to learn from text

Off the ground PALS: can be implemented almost immediately if teachers have text takes only 32 minutes for full implementation can be adapted for shorter pieces can be used as part of a tier 2 intervention

Let’s do this!

A question… How many of you have read every word of a text and not remembered much of what you read when you got to the end?

There are 4 steps to PALS Coach and read Review Paragraph shrinking Prediction relay

First things first: You need a partner!

Notes on pairings Lexile data is important for selecting groups. Rank order your class and split the list in half. Put the lists next to each other and—voila—you have your pairs. Don’t group high-high, low-low, or high-low.

On the Board OR you can use slides from this presentation

Step 1:Coach and Read (5 min per partner) Partner A (Stronger) Partner B (Weaker) Begin reading out loud for 5 minutes. Follow along silently as your partner reads out loud. If partner struggles with words/sentences, help. Start over and read out loud for 5 minutes.

Step 1: Coach and Read

Step 2: Retelling (2 Minutes) check Partner A (Stronger) Partner B (Weaker)   Ask partner: “Tell me about the first part of what we just read.” Tell your partner what happened first. Then ask your partner: “What happened next?” Continue to swap roles until you’re told to stop.

Step 3: Paragraph Shrinking (5 minutes per partner) check Partner A Partner B   For the next five minutes, continue reading from where you both left off, but only read 1 paragraph out loud at a time. Follow along silently. Help your partner if he or she struggles with words/sentences. At the end of each paragraph ask: “Who or what was the paragraph about?” After the answer, ask your partner: “What is the most important thing you have learned about that who or what?” Finally, say, “Tell the main idea in 10 words or less.” Count to help your partner keep track. Ask your partner to shrink it if necessary. Switch roles after 5 minutes, and continue until you’re told to stop.

Step 3: Summarizing Activity

Step 4: Prediction Relay (5 minutes per partner) check Partner A Partner B   Your job is almost the same as last time. Only now you predict what the next paragraph is about before beginning to read. Your job is almost the same as before. Now the first step is to stop your partner at the end of the paragraph and ask: “How correct was your prediction?” Then ask: “Who or what was the paragraph about?” After the answer, ask your partner: “What is the most important thing you have learned about that who or what?” Finally, say, “Tell the main idea in 10 words or less.” Count to help your partner keep track. Ask your partner to shrink it if necessary. Switch roles when told to do so, and continue until you’re told to stop.

Teacher’s jobs Move among the pairs and monitor their efforts Ask them for their predictions or summaries to check Answer questions that naturally arise when reading (after using the partner as a resource) Reinforce procedures

PALS must lead to a task Discussion Writing Organizing information

Magnet Card-on your own Other Important word Most Important Word Other important word

Your application task? Answer the following question. Now that you have read/reread the introductory section of the ELA CCSS, identify the strengths and weaknesses of how you use text in your content compared to CSS

Troubleshooting Now that we have done a round of PALS what problems do you anticipate with implementation?

Common Problems Noise Student compliance Text doesn’t fit the 32 minute length

Noise Space groups (really?) Have everyone face the same direction Demonstrate appropriate volumes

Student Compliance Reflect on improved comprehension and improved assignment grades Use a monitoring sheet for initial implementation

Text Length Text is too long Text is too short Repeat entire procedure Repeat only Prediction relay and switch off every paragraph Text is too short Use Prediction Relay or Paragraph Shrinking and chunk the text

Questions?

Resources www.comprehensivereadingsolutions.com Full PALS Module http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/pals/ PALS developer website