Kids are resilient. No matter what is thrown their way, they continue to show up. Calvin (pseudonym) was one of those students. He always showed up. At thirteen and the oldest fifth grader in our school, he kept showing up every morning. In January he showed up in an old brown sweater. Monday through Friday he showed up in dingy worn shoes. Today Calvin showed up, sweater in hand, at the door of my office with his usual referral slip
These frequent visits to my office were becoming a problem. Calvin was spending more time here than in his classroom. And with his low reading abilities, he needed class time! With a heavy sigh, I took Calvin’s slip and I thought to myself, “What can be done to help this child?”
As a fairly new principal, I thought assigning Calvin to Mrs. Cap (pseudonym), our Superstar teacher, was the right thing to do. I truly believed he could be saved and she was just the person to do it! There was only one problem: Calvin didn’t want to be saved. He pushed back at every turn. He blew kisses at the girls and talked uncontrollably. Never willing to listen or follow directions, Calvin made the classroom difficult and learning impossible for the rest of his peers. He drove her crazy! Nevertheless, rain or shine, Calvin showed up to school. Despite lack of money, food, and appropriate clothing, the Calvin’s of our world continue to show up daily.
How Can We Help?
Over the past 20 years I have worked in various schools to assist teachers like Mrs. Cap in helping their students overcome hurdles that often get in the way of their learning. As a former academic coach and reading specialist, I have found that using interactive read alouds as a comprehension strategy can help students like Calvin become active participants in their reading process, even when their reading skills are far below those of their peers. Interactive read alouds can make a huge impact in our elementary, middle, and secondary classrooms. Moreover, reading aloud to teenagers can stimulate their imagination and emotions, enrich their vocabulary and understanding of sophisticated language patterns, make difficult text understandable, and encourage a lifelong enjoyment of reading (Anderson, 2007).
According to Fountas & Pinnell (2006), reading aloud to students should include think-aloud or interactive elements and focus intentionally on the meaning “within the text,” “about the text,” and “beyond the text”. As our coaching sessions began, I explained that reading aloud would afford her the opportunity to model her own comprehension by adding voice to the thinking process. Furthermore, I reminded her that by adding reading aloud to her classroom reading routine, she will give voice to our traditionally underrepresented students who show up to our classrooms daily.
Choosing Books for
Interactive Read Alouds
For her first lesson, we began by rigorously evaluating pre-selected titles that were of high interest to her students. I cautioned her on how careful consideration must be given to read-aloud selections that could be used to support a particular unit, or improve her students' ability, to derive meaning from text. Keeping this in mind, we decided that since it was the 50th anniversary of the March on Selma, she would share the book Boycott Blues: How Rosa Parks Inspired a Nation by Andrea Davis Pinkney. We choose this book because it was a great tie in to her social studies unit, “Our Ever Changing America: 1950-1970.” Furthermore, the poetic language used throughout the book would address skills such as narrative poetry, alliteration, and cultural awareness of the African American struggle for equal rights during the Montgomery bus boycott. (See list in box for other titles that are strongly recommended for Interactive Read Alouds.)
Resourceful Research
Valerie Maclin
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