Recommended Reading: "Reading Reasons" by Kelly Gallagher

Why do you read? Why is reading important to you as a teacher and as a person? What benefits have you gained in life because of your ability to read fluently and to understand a variety of different text structures? Exactly where would you be without reading?

Reading has opened many doors for me. College was made easier because the difficult text presented was easily understood. I've been able to advance in my career partly due to my public speaking and writing abilities. Those skills come naturally to anyone having so many waking hours in a book, immersed in language.

To be sure, the reasons for reading are numerous. You can probably give many as well —but are they apparent to your students? Can your students answer why they read, or do they read simply because they have to? Do they itch to complete book reviews and to participate in literature circles, or are they going through the motions, satisfying the requirements of your class?

Reading is as essential to your students as it has been for you, but almost none of them know why. Many have lost (or never had to begin with) the joy that good books can provide, and they do not understand how great a loss that is. What's more, the majority of the adults in their lives have never fully explained the benefits of reading. It is as if the importance of reading is a secret.

If reading is going to be presented as a worthwhile activity in your classroom, this secrecy has to end! It is your job as a teacher to help your children recognize the role that reading plays in their lives, and Kelly Gallagher's book Reading Reasons can help you to do that.

Gallagher, a long-time high school English teacher in California, realized one day that few of his students could fully explain the role that reading plays in their lives. Together, he and his students began to outline specific reasons that reading matters. What they came up with was the following list of nine reading reasons:

1. Reading is rewarding.
2. Reading builds a mature vocabulary.
3. Reading makes you a better writer.
4. Reading is hard, and "hard" is necessary.
5. Reading makes you smarter.
6. Reading prepares you for the world of work.
7. Reading well is financially rewarding.
8. Reading opens the door to college and beyond.
9. Reading arms you against oppression.

Gallagher then took these ideas and created 40 motivational mini-lessons designed to convince middle and high school students of the importance of reading in their lives. Those mini-lessons have become the core of Reading Reasons.

Each lesson is designed to take between 5 and 20 minutes to teach. They share convincing information about each reading reason and can be implemented in classrooms across the curriculum. Complete with specific directions and all related materials, these reading "booster shots" (as Gallagher describes them) are approachable and easy to use.

Reading Reasons also includes a collection of valuable documents in its appendix. Lists of books appropriate for middle and high school students, samples of letters that can be sent to parents, and reading records that Gallagher has used in his career are all provided for teachers interested in making reading a central part of their classrooms.

In the end, no matter what we teach, each of us wants to instill an appreciation for reading in our students. Reading Reasons helps to make that possible. It is an essential resource that teachers of all levels will find immediately rewarding!

It's August, Teachers, Happy New Year!

That’s right, Happy New Year! One of the best things about our professions is that we get not one, but two New Years celebrations! New Year’s Day is the most celebrated holiday on the planet, though we don’t all celebrate it on the same day.

In Asia, New Year’s Day is tied to the lunar calendar, so the date is not constant. It is recognized as a period between the harvest, and the next planting season, and a time for fresh beginnings. In the West, New Year’s Day is tied to the Gregorian calendar and of course takes place on January 1st. In both cases, it is a time to look back and to look forward. Even the month of January, when Westerners celebrate
the New Year, is named after the Ancient Roman god, Janus, the god of gates, doorways, beginnings and endings.

Then there’s the Educator’s New Year which will be taking place as your students arrive for classes soon. This August, there will be little champagne or fireworks, but as always there will be the promise that accompanies new beginnings. For many of us this time of year is one to take serious stock and plan new courses of action to improve our professional lives. An old European New Years custom says that “What one does on the first day of the year, one will do for the rest of the year.”

With this philosophy in mind, it might be a good time to reexamine your personal and professional values if it’s been a while since you’ve done so. This exercise might also include the planning of new courses of action, or resolutions. This August could be just the time to start some new habits. Perhaps you want to work on being more patient with your students, to become more consistent in providing differentiated to your students, to improve yourself as a professional by going back to school, or to work more closely with your team. Whichever you choose for yourself, these resolutions are an expression of your aspirations.

Making resolutions implies that you are in control of your self and that you are NOT a victim controlled by the stars, guided by fate, or led around by luck. You are an individual who can make choices and changes in your life. Your professional and personal lives are in your own hands.
So fill that glass to the brim with your values and drink up. Happy New Year!

Some Thoughts on Obtacles

What is an obstacle? Webster’s Dictionary defines an obstacle as ‘that which impedes or hinders progress, motion, activity, or effect’.

The definition might imply to some that obstacles are always negative things, but not always. Traffic laws could be considered obstacles. They restrict the freedom of lead foot or otherwise irresponsible drivers from affecting the safety of the public. Traffic laws are good obstacles.

Obstacles however, more often than not, negatively affect us. Obstacles can be internal,such as shyness. They can also be external, like the obstacle of poverty. I see drivers everyday (sometimes blatantly) overcome the obstacles of traffic laws, and this leads me to wonder; what percentage of obstacles can be overcome? 20%? 50% 90%? The longer I think about it, the more I tend to think that a high percentage of obstacles CAN be overcome if an individual is willing to do what it takes to overcome the obstacle.

Many of our students face obstacles, some are serious and some rather benign. Poverty, physical impairments, the learning of a second language, a dysfunctional home life are just some of the serious obstacles that our students face.

I believe that one of my primary jobs as an educator is to encourage my students to deal effectively with their obstacles. Whenever possible, I try and share my belief that most obstacles can be overcome. I’ve seen art painted by the blind that is beautiful, I’ve seen a man climb a mountain with no arms or legs. I want my students to understand that it is ATTITUDE that can knock down obstacles.

Check out this video. It features a 14 year old named Aaron Fotheringham who can do amazing things in his wheelchair. Born with spina bifida, Aaron has been confined to a wheelchair for most of his life. He has the kind of attitude that has allowed him to overcome an obstacle that many would think insurmountable.

A Matter of Time

Time. We are all prisoners of it. That fact is especially evident in the classroom. We try to make more of it (think Saturday school, extended day, homework). The fact is, the way we look at time and how we use it is a major factor in determining student success.

Up until now, everything I knew about time, I learned from watching “The Twilight Zone” and “Star Trek,” so I was eager to find out about a new way of looking at time from D.C. Berliner's work, Simple Views of Effective Teaching and a Simple Theory of Classroom Instruction.. Time is, of course, a limited resource, and it is often looked at metaphorically as something ‘that runs out’. Time can be looked on in other ways as well, something we can affect.

Berliner tells us that time at school can be divided into 4 different categories: Allocated, instructional, engaged, and academic learning time.

The largest category of time, making up 100%, is allocated time. Allocated time is the amount of time set aside by the legislature. It’s our 180 days from 8:00 a.m. until 3:10 p.m. We all make efforts to increase allocated time with extended day, after-school tutoring, Saturday school, and of course homework. Allocated time can also be further broken down by subject area. Scheduling affects the allocated time to various subjects throughout the day.

The next category of time is called instructional time. Research shows that instructional time represents about 90% of allocated time. Instructional time is the time that a teacher can be observed teaching. It can be whole group, small group, or individual instruction. Instructional time can be increased by good classroom management and the minimization of outside distractions.

Engaged time, which represents about 75% of allocated time, is the time that students spend actually engaged in a task. The concept of engaged time does NOT take student success into account. Therefore, while engaged, students may be bored, or they may be struggling or frustrated. Motivating students, scaffolding instruction, and tapping into prior knowledge all serve to increase engaged time.

The final type of time, and the most valuable, is referred to by researchers as academic learning time. It is the time the learner is engaged in appropriate activities that are closely related to improved academic performance. Unfortunately, academic learning time only makes up about 35% of allocated time. Educators can seek to increase this precious type of time by giving effective feedback, helping students recognize success, attributing success to effort, and creating self-directed learners.

It is true that we can’t make more time, and even without supporting research, it seems fairly obvious that the more time we spend on a task, the more we learn. Research has verified that this relationship exists for academic activities. But simply assigning more study time to a topic will not automatically increase the student's learning. There are strategies to reallocate, or reshape the kinds of time that we are using during the day. Research shows a positive relationship between the amount of academic learning time and student achievement so the idea here is to increase the desirable academic learning time to the maximum amount possible. This, while at the same time decreasing unproductive portions of the other, less desirable types of time.

Berliner's research has shown that successful teachers who maximize academic learning time spend a great deal of time actively instructing their students through interactive lessons that feature teacher-student discourse and relatively little time working without guidance. They stimulate their students to react to the curriculum in a thoughtful and successful manner. For the most successful teachers, instruction occurs during interactive discourse with students rather than during extended lectures, presentations, or demonstrations. It is this combination of quantity and quality that defines effective academic learning time.