Building Success Through Questioning

Josie invited us to join her in reimagining our work.  Thank you, Josie.  I read the beginning of Life Reimagined online.  Can I borrow your book?  I’m loving the positive outlook on this next adventure in life.  So here’s what I’m seeing for the next school year.

As I get ready for my second year of teaching reading recovery, I am looking forward to building on what was accomplished this year.

But in order to do that, I need to recognize what strengths came out of my training and also what was missing.

Strengths

·      I really enjoyed the time that I was able to spend digging deeper into each child’s reading skills.

·      The support of the other reading recovery teachers in my training class was invaluable and it to have others to problem solve the typical issues with doing something new.

·      I felt like things really worked when the child and I were both excited about the book.  The reading seemed both easier and more enjoyable at the same time.

What was missing?

·      I’m not sure that I always saw my students as readers, especially when reading was difficult for them.  I could also see that even the children themselves and their classroom teachers had trouble seeing the readers inside.  Could helping our children to build a reading life where they have reasons to read and share their ideas help themselves and others to recognize them as readers?

·      Sometimes it seemed like I was the only one building reading connections with my child and in a reading recovery lesson it was more like a teacher and a student.  Who could they build a less formal reading connection with?  Is there a more capable other outside of the classroom and tutoring relationship that could be supportive in this role?  For some that might be home support, for others that might be an older buddy within the school.  Can I help to make introductions and time to make these connections for every student?

·      The greatest challenge seemed to be in having the children build independence and confidence in their own literacy accomplishments. Can this be done through goal setting?

So I am left with these three questions to work on solving this year:

• 1.     How can I help my students build a reading life with purpose?
• 2.     Can I help my student build reading connections with a more capable buddy outside of the classroom experience?
• 3.     Can goal setting be used to build independence and confidence with reading?

            It often seems to be questions that move life’s progress forward.  When I was younger, I would bombard my dad with questions.  I learned that he was most open to my wonderings when he was doing something he loved.  In his case, it was gardening.

            One of my friends and colleagues, Mary Lee Hahn has got me gardening again.  It will be fun to see how these ideas and the garden grows this year.

I know there are more questions than answers in this post, so I invite you to frame your reimagining into three big questions that you can explore this school year.  Let’s collaborate this school year.  Josie and I will look for questions to highlight in future posts during the upcoming school year.  We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

This tree frog joins in saying, "Happy Summer!"  It's not over yet, let's keep collaborating.