I would love to see this as a controlled experiment: What if we traded the three hours total of small group centers rotations for reading and math for 1.5 hours of PE games/recess + 1.5 hours of direct instruction in phonics and math?
You could instantly cut the teachers’ class size in half by sending half the kids out to play, supervised by the omnipresent para-professionals for the first period, and then switching for the second half!
I have been thinking a lot about the structure of reading lessons and what contributes most to successful learning. In his book, "How We Learn"*, Stanislas Dehaene, a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist, describes the BIG four contributors. He calls them "The Four Pillars of Learning":
1. Attention
2. Active Engagement
3. Error Feedback
4. Consolidation
Noise certainly disrupts all four of these pillars! But it's not just about noise.
We know from research that mastering complex skills like reading and writing requires a lot of PRACTICE. The amount of practice provided is sometimes referred to as "dosage". Dosage is typically measured in lesson frequency and duration. Lesson frequency and duration are a really bad proxies for the amount of practice.
But suppose instead of measuring it in lesson frequency and duration, suppose dosage was measured in response opportunities, similar to shots attempted in a basketball game. Directed to specific students, response opportunities facilitate attention and active engagement, provide opportunities for error feedback, and are the raw material for consolidation in memory.
It's interesting to think about how a teacher might best facilitate response opportunities and manage "The Four Pillars of Learning" using different methods of classroom organization. For example, how might the "pillars" work in small group "stations" compared to in a whole-class lesson with the teacher reading aloud and leading discussion?
I'd say that these "four pillars" COULD be addressed in small group centers, but to me a threshold question is what kids are supposed to be "actively engaged" in. If it's phonics or math, it's certainly possible to have them engaged in independent practice that could boost learning -- although if there's no teacher supervising the center, I'm not sure kids would get the kind of "error feedback" they need.
But a lot of what goes on in centers, in my observation, is work on decontextualized reading comprehension skills and strategies, which are largely meaningless. No amount of "dosage" will help if what students are engaged in doesn't make sense.
Of course, they could be engaged in activities that reinforce the substantive knowledge they've just acquired during, say, a whole-group read-aloud of complex text and discussion of its content. But that assumes that the curriculum includes that kind of content and discussion, which unfortunately is still not the case in most elementary classrooms.
AGREE! --> "No amount of "dosage" will help if what students are engaged in doesn't make sense."
As a guide to deciding what to teach, to which students and when, it would help enormously if teachers understood and used the Simple View of Reading (Tunmer & Hoover, 2019).
The Simple View of Reading says that knowledge and accurate word identification (decoding) are both necessary for reading comprehension. Effective teaching of the knowledge "side" is always going to require HOURS each day. Using best-practice methods, the decoding "side" should take more like MINUTES each day.
A big point that is easy to miss is how tightly interconnected the two "sides" (knowledge & word identification) are. Oral language is the basis for written word identification. Having heard words spoken in meaningful (knowledge rich) contexts makes them way easier to identify in print. An adult example might be the word "triturate". Having heard this word spoken in a meaningful context would likely help you understand its meaning (to pulverize) but also it would give you its pronunciation. The 2nd -t- in "triturate" is pronounced "ch", as in "future".
Some children need to spend much more time with decoding skills. I'm thinking of children with neurological damage as in dyslexia. That brings me back to wanting an individualized approach to some of the skills.
Explicitly teaching prefixes, roots, and suffixes helps readers decode those types of words as well. Both -ate and -ture are common suffixes with reliable pronunciations.
I am a retired educator with experience ranging from preschoolers with multiple disabilities to teaching preservice teachers at the university level. Looking back, I've probably tried most systems of teaching reading. Today, I still struggle to identify a more successful and sensible way to teach children to read. I wonder, with the assistance of technology, if we could individualize the instruction of basic reading. There will always be a few children who do not fit into any reading group or system. Most systems have values. If we could take the best of each and form a new whole, we might find some answers.
I would love to see this as a controlled experiment: What if we traded the three hours total of small group centers rotations for reading and math for 1.5 hours of PE games/recess + 1.5 hours of direct instruction in phonics and math?
You could instantly cut the teachers’ class size in half by sending half the kids out to play, supervised by the omnipresent para-professionals for the first period, and then switching for the second half!
Good thinking. Children learn better after they move. Running and exercising seem essential.
So many good points in this article!
I have been thinking a lot about the structure of reading lessons and what contributes most to successful learning. In his book, "How We Learn"*, Stanislas Dehaene, a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist, describes the BIG four contributors. He calls them "The Four Pillars of Learning":
1. Attention
2. Active Engagement
3. Error Feedback
4. Consolidation
Noise certainly disrupts all four of these pillars! But it's not just about noise.
We know from research that mastering complex skills like reading and writing requires a lot of PRACTICE. The amount of practice provided is sometimes referred to as "dosage". Dosage is typically measured in lesson frequency and duration. Lesson frequency and duration are a really bad proxies for the amount of practice.
But suppose instead of measuring it in lesson frequency and duration, suppose dosage was measured in response opportunities, similar to shots attempted in a basketball game. Directed to specific students, response opportunities facilitate attention and active engagement, provide opportunities for error feedback, and are the raw material for consolidation in memory.
It's interesting to think about how a teacher might best facilitate response opportunities and manage "The Four Pillars of Learning" using different methods of classroom organization. For example, how might the "pillars" work in small group "stations" compared to in a whole-class lesson with the teacher reading aloud and leading discussion?
* https://cogscisci.wordpress.com/2021/08/22/cogscisci-book-review-how-we-learn-the-new-science-of-education-and-the-brain-by-stanislas-dehaene/
I'd say that these "four pillars" COULD be addressed in small group centers, but to me a threshold question is what kids are supposed to be "actively engaged" in. If it's phonics or math, it's certainly possible to have them engaged in independent practice that could boost learning -- although if there's no teacher supervising the center, I'm not sure kids would get the kind of "error feedback" they need.
But a lot of what goes on in centers, in my observation, is work on decontextualized reading comprehension skills and strategies, which are largely meaningless. No amount of "dosage" will help if what students are engaged in doesn't make sense.
Of course, they could be engaged in activities that reinforce the substantive knowledge they've just acquired during, say, a whole-group read-aloud of complex text and discussion of its content. But that assumes that the curriculum includes that kind of content and discussion, which unfortunately is still not the case in most elementary classrooms.
AGREE! --> "No amount of "dosage" will help if what students are engaged in doesn't make sense."
As a guide to deciding what to teach, to which students and when, it would help enormously if teachers understood and used the Simple View of Reading (Tunmer & Hoover, 2019).
The Simple View of Reading says that knowledge and accurate word identification (decoding) are both necessary for reading comprehension. Effective teaching of the knowledge "side" is always going to require HOURS each day. Using best-practice methods, the decoding "side" should take more like MINUTES each day.
A big point that is easy to miss is how tightly interconnected the two "sides" (knowledge & word identification) are. Oral language is the basis for written word identification. Having heard words spoken in meaningful (knowledge rich) contexts makes them way easier to identify in print. An adult example might be the word "triturate". Having heard this word spoken in a meaningful context would likely help you understand its meaning (to pulverize) but also it would give you its pronunciation. The 2nd -t- in "triturate" is pronounced "ch", as in "future".
Some children need to spend much more time with decoding skills. I'm thinking of children with neurological damage as in dyslexia. That brings me back to wanting an individualized approach to some of the skills.
Explicitly teaching prefixes, roots, and suffixes helps readers decode those types of words as well. Both -ate and -ture are common suffixes with reliable pronunciations.
I am a retired educator with experience ranging from preschoolers with multiple disabilities to teaching preservice teachers at the university level. Looking back, I've probably tried most systems of teaching reading. Today, I still struggle to identify a more successful and sensible way to teach children to read. I wonder, with the assistance of technology, if we could individualize the instruction of basic reading. There will always be a few children who do not fit into any reading group or system. Most systems have values. If we could take the best of each and form a new whole, we might find some answers.