Brain-Building for Third Grade Reading Proficiency

• October 2, 2012 by PC Munoz

“One in six children who are not reading proficiently in third grade do not
graduate from high school on time, (which is) four times greater than that for
proficient readers.”

A major finding in "Double Jeopardy: How Third Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation", by Donald J. Hernandez (Professor, Hunter College and Graduate Center, City University of New York) and The Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The sobering statistics related to third grade reading proficiency and high school graduation are expertly laid out in the 2011 study quoted above, and the subject has subsequently become a hot topic in education circles ever since.

Dr. Martha Burns' latest free webinar for Scientific Learning, Read by Third Grade, directly confronts the facts related to this issue and offers tips and tools for educators to reverse this statistic.  By identifying reading difficulties early and implementing proven solutions, educators can put students back on track to reading proficiency.

Using neuroscience research and relevant data from a wide range of sources to illustrate her points, Dr. Burns first reminds us of the enormous power classroom teachers possess as "brain-changers": adults who have the ability to increase, enhance, and upregulate the capacity of young people's brains on a daily basis. She then takes viewers step-by-step through the nuts and bolts of "brain-building" for reading proficiency and includes a thoroughly scientific but completely accessible primer on "brain architecture". She also offers a wealth of information about English Language Learners, provides easy-to-implement classroom tips, and reviews compelling statistics on how Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant products specifically target the skills that prevent so many struggling readers from reaching proficiency.

 

 

For further reading:

Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation

Related reading:

Reading to Learn: Meeting the Challenge of Third Grade Reading Proficiency

What Makes a Good Reader? The Foundations of Reading Proficiency

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Brain Research, Education Trends, English Language Learners, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant

Tags: academic problems, academic proficiency, child reading development, intervention, learning to read, reading intervention, struggling readers, technology in education

Characteristics of Rapidly Improving Schools with Bill Daggett

• June 19, 2012 by PC Munoz

In one of my favorite Scientific Learning webinars, "Our Changing Education Landscape", Dr. Bill (Willard) Daggett outlines a proven, step-by-step blueprint for successful change in the rapidly evolving education landscape. Dr. Daggett shares the results of a study conducted jointly by the organization he leads—the International Center for Leadership in Education—which locates and evaluates the most rapidly improving elementary, middle, and high schools in the United States—and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

The findings were encouraging and inspiring: Dr. Daggett asserts that contrary to popular opinion, schools are actually improving, especially those that are adjusting well to the deeper needs and transitioning priorities of 21st century education. In the webinar, Daggett presents the three stages (Why, What and How) these schools go through when undertaking their evolution into successful 21st century schools.

WHY

Educators at the nation's most rapidly improving schools first come to the realization that they have the power to change things.  They actively decide to take responsibility for problems in the education system and identify themselves as the solution. Once that breakthrough is made, they begin to foster a culture to support change...and success follows.  Coupled with other, practical motivations (e.g., the accelerated pace of technological developments, globalization, etc.), this shift in perspective gives school leaders plenty of incentive (WHY) to make the necessary changes to survive and thrive in the changing education landscape.

WHAT

Schools that are rapidly improving have taken the time to identify exactly WHAT it is they need to change, and then decisively put into place innovative methods to make those changes. This requires a frank look at current and often antiquated models of teaching and evaluation, as well as the development of forward-looking models, which focus on interdisciplinary collaboration, significant real world application, and an embrace of technology (by both students and teachers).

HOW

Daggett suggests a three-year transition plan for schools considering HOW to re-imagine themselves in the changing landscape. It takes time to make the full transition to the Common Core State Standards, and to switch from old to new paradigms that focus on rigorous academic standards. Daggett also touches on the need for educators  at all levels and in all subjects to prioritize reading proficiency, and uses the  Lexile Framework  (a system for measuring reading skills) to illuminate relevant statistics on how schools fall short.

 

 

About the presenter: Willard R. Daggett, Ed.D., CEO of the International Center for Leadership in Education, is recognized worldwide for his proven ability to move preK-12 education systems towards more rigorous and relevant skills and knowledge for all students. He has assisted a number of states and hundreds of school districts with their school improvement initiatives. He serves on several advisory boards, including the NASA Education Advisory Board and USA Today's Education Advisory Board.

Related Reading:

Blended Learning Implementation Strategies for the K-12 Classroom

The Role of the Teacher in Blended Learning: Data, Management, and Student Support

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: creativity, curriculum, effort, how children learn, innovation, learning environment, school leader effectiveness, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, technology in education, webinar

Disrupting K-12 Education: Innovating Learning with Michael Horn

• June 5, 2012 by PC Munoz

Disruptive innovation—that which "disrupts" existing markets with superior, more accessible, and ultimately less expensive offerings—has been occurring in the commercial marketplace for years. Innosight Institute executive director Michael B. Horn's recent Scientific Learning webinar, “Disrupting Class,” focuses on the ways disruptive innovation is already changing 21st century K-12 education for the better.

In the webinar, Horn identifies three prominent gains made possible by the disruptive innovation of online learning:

1) Blended Learning

Horn defines blended learning as "a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of instruction and content with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace, AND at least in part in a supervised brick and mortar place away from home". He is careful to point out the difference between authentic blended learning, which implies a calibrated balance between the disruptive innovation of online learning and more traditional brick and mortar learning experiences, and the simple application of advanced technology in the classroom, which is not necessarily "blended learning."

2) Communication Capacity

New technologies enable educators and students to communicate, collaborate, and initiate projects with fellow educators and students, literally the world over. Communicating and collaborating worldwide is now as easy as launching your Skype application, and currently unimagined communication vehicles will have great impact on future online learning. Says Horn, "In the next ten years, I can't even imagine where this going to go!"

3) Improved Content

The actual content of online learning is much improved from the "early days" in the 90’s; current content is much more engaging. As software continues to evolve into platforms that allow the creation of user generated content, learning modules, and tools that enable the distribution of very specific content, educators will be able to find material that meets their needs at any particular time.  Khan Academy is perhaps the best known example of this type of user generated content for learners, and appears to represent the emergence of a growing network of content modules that will connect to create a fuller, richer learning experience.

Click here to listen to the entire Disrupting Class webinar—disruption free.

Michael B. Horn is the co-founder and executive director of the education practice of Innosight Institute, a non-profit think tank devoted to applying the theories of disruptive innovation to solve problems in the social sector. In 2008, Horn co-authored the book “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen, the father of disruptive innovation theory, and Curtis W. Johnson, president of the Citistates Group.  BusinessWeek named the book one of the 10 Best Innovation & Design Books of 2008.

Related Reading:

Blended Learning Implementation Strategies for the K-12 Classroom

The Making of a 21st Century Educator: 5 Ways to be a Better Teacher in Today’s Classroom

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: creativity, curriculum, digital natives, Disrupting Class, innovation, learning environment, Michael Horn, motivating students, technology in education, webinar

Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning with Alan November

• May 10, 2012 by PC Munoz

"Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning" is a Scientific Learning webinar presented by Alan November, proposing that educators make the most of today's "small world" by turning classrooms into global communication centers and collaborating with fellow teachers and students from all over the world.

November's ideas about a new culture of teaching and learning are plentiful, as are his suggestions for further research. In this webinar, November proposes a pathway to a 21st century educational paradigm that is centered around information, collaboration, and empathy.  Here are just a few of his thoughts on the subject:

Information

Schools ought to abolish their "technology planning committees," which focus on "stuff" (wires, boxes, hardware).  Alternatively, educational institutions should simply understand technology as the "digital plumbing" that works hand in hand with what November calls the "real revolution": the large amounts of information that flow through technology.

Collaboration

The educational experience can and should be supercharged with true collaboration. Collaboration can take place in the classroom itself, such as when certain students are tasked with the daily documentation of classroom activities via collaborative note taking, videography, and photography. Or, collaboration can take place across thousands of miles if teachers take the time to find classrooms in other parts of the world that are willing to work with a partner classroom on a given project. For example, a classroom in the US studying the American Revolution partnering with a classroom in the UK studying the same thing could help learners understand and respect differing perspectives.

Empathy

When he asked the CEO of HSBC Bank in England what the most important "21st century skill" is, November received the surprising reply, "empathy." Empathy, the ability to identify with others and value their perspectives, is a crucial life skill in today's small world, for both students and teachers. Empathy helps teachers build relationships with educators in various parts of the world and encourages young people to become fearless global communicators who are able to work with anyone.

More than once during his presentation, November states that he hopes his ideas are "good enough to critique."  He clearly sees the ideas he proposes as a jumping-off point for further exploration and conversation about how to make the most of our era's hyperconnectivity.

No matter where you are in today's small, small world, you’ll want to check out the entire webinar…and you can.  Click here.

Alan November is an international leader in education technology known for his compelling thought leadership.  He passionately challenges teachers and administrators to harness 21st century technology and create learning opportunities to prepare young people for an open, connected, and engaged future.

Related Reading:

How to Motivate Students: The Psychology of Success

5 Reasons Why Your Students Should Write Every Day

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: digital natives, emotions in learning, innovation, learning environment, motivating students, school leader effectiveness, student growth, teacher impact, technology in education

Using Poetry to Teach Reading: Rhythm, Rhyme, and Choral Reading

• April 5, 2012 by PC Munoz

Poetry is a powerful vehicle to teach children to learn and love language, reading, and writing. In some ways, using poetry to teach reading is analogous to sneaking highly nutritious (and occasionally child-repellent) vegetables into otherwise kid-friendly dishes. By making use of creative devices like rhythm, rhyme and choral reading, educators can help students learn about phonemes, morphemes, grammar, and other language-based skills, all while having a great time with poetry.

RHYTHM
Many poems written for children have some sort of meter, or basic rhythmic structure, that is catchy and relatively easy for kids to copy orally. This provides a great opportunity for classroom teachers (particularly at the primary-grade level) to go line by line through a poem and focus on the number of syllables (or "beats") in a given word, and demonstrate how each sound and word plays a part in maintaining the meter of the poem. Asking students to swap out one of the words in a highly rhythmic poem for an appropriate new word (which has the same number of beats and a similar sound as the original) is a fun activity that exercises phoneme awareness, vocabulary, and creative writing skills. Haiku and its established structural confines, which require detailed syllable counting on the part of students, is a favorite for students of all ages to read and write.

RHYME
Rhyming poems are ripe with abundant classroom activities. Students can examine the sounds in each rhyming line, identifying the rhyming sounds and coming up with alternate rhyming words that could work in the poem. As an oral activity, creating "silly" substitute rhymes that have the correct matching sound but make absolutely no sense within the poem can also be a lot of fun for students of all ages, while flexing their phoneme awareness and vocabulary skills.

CHORAL READING
Choral reading of a poem (reading aloud in unison with a group of students or whole class) gets students to use their voices, collaborate with their classmates, gain an understanding of the potential dramatic power of the written word, and strengthen their understanding of punctuation. Leading students through a choral reading session can include a significant emphasis on punctuation and how it affects oral reading (pausing when there's a period, inflecting upwards in pitch when there's a question mark, etc.) and affords opportunity to work on enunciation skills as well. Breaking up a choral reading poem so all students have a chance to read a line or phrase on their own can also get the whole class to participate and feel positive about their relationship to the written word.

Using poetry to teach reading is a fun way to inspire students of all skill levels to engage with the subtle beauty and nuances of a language, encourage expression and creativity, and become excited about words, reading, and writing. The possibilities for using poetry in the classroom to teach valuable concepts and skills are almost as boundless as the potential combinations of words in a poem.

*I am the author of the haiku in this post. Though I didn’t know it at the time, my second grade teachers, Tina McCarter and Sharon Kamimoto, helped kick-start a lifelong love of words...for which I am grateful.

Related Reading:

Using Fiction Writing Activities to Develop Creative Thinking in the Classroom

5 Reasons Why Your Students Should Write Every Day

 

About the author:  PC Muñoz is a San Francisco-based writer, recording artist, and educator. Information on his past and future projects can be found at http://www.pcmunoz.com

Subscribe to this blog to get new blog posts right in your inbox and stay up to date on the science of learning!

Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Reading & Learning

Tags: arts, child reading development, creativity, language learning, learning to read, literacy, motivating students, oral language skills, phonemic awareness, phonics, play, reading comprehension, teacher impact, writing