Drop Everything and Read

They have spoken. After an experiment in my class, where I allotted a substantial amount of time every day for sustained silent reading, my kids have given their opinions.

• I used to hate reading but now I don’t. I mean, coming to this class full of readers inspired me to read.

• This class changed my opinion of reading because it has so many interesting books, and my attitude toward reading is that I like books and I’m going to keep on reading until there’s no more books.

• Well before people tried to convince me to read but I said no. But you have convinced me because you show that you read a lot. Thanks to Richard and Manny, they have persuaded me to read.

I’ve mentioned before that my son’s sixth grade teacher gave me a new attitude toward teaching reading. An avid reader herself, she used her love for books, plus strategies from The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, to create life-long readers in her students.

Late in the school year I adopted some of her strategies. I gave my kids plenty of “D.E.A.R.” time every day. That’s an acronym for Drop Everything And Read. We spent at least a half hour a day reading in silence—sometimes 45 minutes, and toward the end of the year, an hour.

During DEAR time, I conducted two main activities: conferencing with students, and reading my own books. Our best times were when I read along with them. For some reason, it brought an already quiet class to a silent class. How can I teach my kids the value of reading if I don’t respect that time myself? DEAR time gave me an opportunity to read more of the books that they’re interested in.

Anyway, they loved it when I would chuckle at a funny part or gasp at a shocking part. They would always ask, “What happened?” And I would fill them in without giving away the plot. Invariably any book I was reading during DEAR time became one of the most popular books in our classroom library.

My other activity during DEAR time was one-on-one conferences with my students. We would discuss their reading goals, what books they wanted to read, what they were having difficulty with, and what their successes were. Our school uses an online reading quiz program called Accelerated Reader that tests students on reading comprehension. During our conferences, we would assess their progress toward their Accelerated Reader goals and revise their strategies to meet those goals. The Accelerated Reader quiz reports gave us a data-driven springboard for conferencing.

One of the most significant factors in developing an enthusiastic reading crowd was giving my students book-talk time and a chance to give oral book reviews. They discussed what books they liked and what they wanted to add to our library. With every wish list came a new box of books, infusing their enthusiasm with a shot of energy. It started with the day that the Magic Treehouse books arrived—everyone read them. The next month, a box of Goosebumps books came—and then everyone was reading Goosebumps. And with the coming of Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy Kid—my students were hooked for life. Their enthusiasm and desire to read was validated by my effort to get the books they wanted into our classroom.

Last week, I gave them an end-of-year questionnaire asking them to evaluate our reading program. The response was overwhelming. Kids who didn't like to read became readers. Kids who already liked to read were grateful for the focus on their favorite activity. We learned that when you drop everything and read, the classroom becomes quiet, and the kids care about what they're doing. And here is one final opinion from my student Peter, who I mentioned in a previous post:

• Reading is fun. Last year I didn’t like reading. Now I love to read.

Are You Done Yet?

If you love to read, there’s nothing better than sharing a book. Love for a particular book spreads like a virus in my classroom. When one kid loves a book, everyone else wants to read it. This year, I learned how to use the reading virus to inspire my latent readers.

Let’s look at the case of Peter (not his real name). Peter was an under-achiever and a shy, lackluster kind of kid. I wasn’t surprised that he was in the gifted program, but I was surprised when I found out his third grade test scores were below proficient.

I talked to Peter's mother early in the school year. She was concerned because during third grade, he had lost his desire to read. Indeed, as we came to the end of our first reading session, he had not met his reading goals and had only read a few short books.

Desperate, I said to Peter, “Tell me what you like to read, and I’ll get it for you.” He shrugged--funny, he always shrugged at everything. I started calling out book titles. Harry Potter? No. Lemony Snicket? No. How about Encyclopedia Brown. Shrug. Aha! A shrug means maybe. He read the two Encyclopedia Brown books in my library and then asked for more—sadly, I had none.

So, I wrote a grant for a box of books, many of them Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, A-Z Mysteries, and Goosebumps. Peter read about four of them, and then he gave up again. What could I do?

Then I figured it out when I was reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Peter kept asking “Are you done with that yet?” Annoyed by his nagging, I finished the book and gave it to him—Here, have it! But then I realized the trick. Peter just wanted to read what I was reading. I needed to sell him on each book.

The Schwa Was Here. I read it during our silent reading time—often chuckling at the funny parts. Someone would invariably say, “What’s happening now?” I wouldn’t tell them, just give them sketchy plot lines. Every day I read this book, Peter would ask me, “Are you done with that yet?” I promised him I would finish it over the weekend and kept my promise. He read it in a few short days.

It happened again with Schooled. “Done with that?” he would ask me daily. Finally on a Friday, I promised him I’d finish it over the weekend. Giving it to him on Monday, he was done by Thursday.

Finally, I had found a way to hook Peter on reading. But more importantly, my kids took up the same philosophy. We had sign-up sheets for the popular books, and kids would promise to finish books over the weekend so the next kid on the list could start reading it on Monday.

This has evolved into the way we read everything. We share our books, make recommendations, sign up for the next one. The kids are excited. They know they’re a part of something big—they are a part of a literary world where the biggest commodities are great characters and great stories. I can hardly wait for the next kid to say, “Are you done with that yet?”

Client Meetings

Do you work in the corporate world? Imagine working in a firm like this:

Every day you have six hours of client meetings. You only get paid for those six hours. You spend the rest of the day preparing for tomorrow’s meetings.

You hold your client meetings with 30 clients in the same room. Each client has different abilities and different needs. However, each client is also required to achieve the exact same goals. In the span of 180 days, your clients must master over 120 goals.

Twice a year you have a week of meetings with 30 different corporate executives. You give each executive a status report on the client they have signed with the firm and whether they have achieved their goals. The basis of your success depends on the activities and cooperation of your clients, who do not always follow your recommendations.  The hours you spend meeting with these corporate executives are not billable--it's all off the clock.

When your clients don’t follow your recommendations and their portfolio underperforms, everyone blames you. Corporate blames you. The CEO blames you. And everyone in the country blames you, even though they have never met you or your client.

You may only go to the bathroom at 10:00 am and 12:30 pm.

If you need to miss work because you’re sick or have an urgent personal need, your client meeting with your 30 clients still goes on without you. You have to prepare detailed notes for the person who is handling your meeting. They must get your notes before the meeting begins at 8:00 am.

Instead of generating financial revenue, you are generating intellectual revenue. Your success determines the ability of the voting public to make rational and informed decisions.

The workplace I am describing is a school, and the job is a teacher. Your clients are the kids you teach, and the corporate executives who signed them with the firm are their parents.

I am always amazed at corporate people who are critical of teachers.

You see, for two years I worked in a high profile accounting firm. The corporate division measured success by acquisition of clients and billable hours. Every year they determined your compensation based on your worth to the company, i.e. the bottom line. How many clients did you bring in, and how many hours did you bill?

In our personal tax division with approximately 30 employees, the managers and assistants worked quietly in their cubicles attending to the needs of their clients and the firm at large. I remember whenever a manager had to prepare for a client meeting. They would be very focused and stressed for a couple of weeks, and working overtime. On the day of the meeting they would come prepared with their best business suits, handouts, and PowerPoint presentations. After the client meeting, they would breathe a sigh of relief that they could return to their “normal” work activities.

People of the corporate world, I walked a couple of miles in your shoes. Now it’s your turn to walk in ours. You know those stressful client meetings you had a few times a year? Imagine doing that every day you’re on the job. That’s what it’s like being a teacher.

You spend six hours of the day engaging and instructing your clients—who happen to be 30 ten-year-olds. They don't necessarily want to be there, and you must create a tool kit of tricks to maintain order in your boardroom (ahem, classroom).  Even though you give them recommendations for improvement, they don't always act on it. Sometimes they need bribes or coersion.

After six hours of these meetings, you spend 3-4 hours prepping for your next “client” meeting the next day. Go to bed, wake up, back to those same clients. Are you tired yet?

I guess the reason I’m ranting on this is because teaching is a high profile profession, always in the news, and something about which everyone has an opinion. People think they know what it’s like to be a teacher because they’ve been in school, or they have children in school. Well—just because you’ve been to a doctor, does that make you qualified to assess the medical profession?

“Fire the bad teachers,” some people say. Others remark, “Let’s give them merit pay and that will improve education.” To all of you I say, go ahead! Take my job! Spend six hours with 30 ten-year-olds and see what you can do. Oh—by the way, three of them have a parent or other close relative in jail, so they might be a little distracted. One of them is getting abused at home—I hope you can identify the kid with that problem. Oh yeah—four of them are pulled out every day for 45 minutes for targeted special education services, so don’t forget to get them up to speed on what they missed while they were gone. Three in your class have family members in a gang and are chock full of attitude. Twelve of them speak only Spanish at home, and parents of nine of those kids aren’t even literate in Spanish. Three of your kids are gifted, so that means they need to be meaningfully engaged while you’re trying to bring the rest of the class up to grade level standards.

And while this is going on, accountability, accountability, accountability. Our yearly test scores are made public on websites and are treated as the only evidence of our success. And then the finger-pointing starts, along with threats to the profession.

I’d like to rant some more, but it’s a school night and I have to prepare for my client meetings tomorrow.