TLN Teacher Voices

Once again, the Elephant

Becoming a Great High School: Six Strategies and One Attitude that Make a Difference
By Tim R. Westerberg
ASCD (2009)

Reviewed by Mary Tedrow, NBCT
High School English/journalism (N. Va.)

Becoming a Great High School: Six Strategies and One Attitude that Make a Difference is full of familiar information since, as a classroom teacher, I have been on the receiving end of many of the innovations cited by Tim Westerberg as means to move a high school from “good to great.”
 
Westerberg’s thin text (i.e., “a quick read for busy administrators”) outlines methods to change the attitude of the professionals in the building to a we-can-do-it mindset as the professional team moves schools from okay to wowser. Westerberg leans heavily on the business management text Good to Great that was making the rounds in my system in 2000. Westerberg’s text is essentially a roadmap for where to drive the building-level bus of reform, in Jim Collins' Good to Great terminology.

Citing Robert Marzano as the wellspring of his ideas, Westerberg employs another education buzz-term, the writing standards mnemonic 6+1, to outline what a school can and should do to move a high school to greatness: Follow the six strategies and couple them with a can-do attitude, the plus-one aspect of the formula.

Many of Marzano’s points are incorporated here:  Too many standards are taught. Focus on the Power Standards. Administer frequent common formative assessments to assess student learning.  Encourage collaborative work among the professionals to create standards of teaching and learning.  Define rigorous teaching to encourage a culture of success and foster the mood that “what we do here is important” to the student body at large.

What about the elephant?

There is little to argue with in this text as it sets clear guidelines for professional improvement in a building where the success of each child is paramount — also my classroom goal. I agree we need alignment from top to bottom.

The book outlines the role of administrators in this framework. Rather than just read it, I can imagine an administrator referring to it from time to time to check in on where and how the strategizing is going.

I’ve no beef with the content.

I do have a beef with the elephant in the room.

Westerberg gives only a nod to the need for the professionalization of teachers in his afterward, where he references the work of the Center for Teaching Quality and its 2008 TeacherSolutions report about the teachers’ role in improving the nation’s schools (Measuring what Matters: The effects of National Board Certification on advancing 21st Century teaching and learning) on page 112 of 114 pages.  He acknowledges that teacher leadership is the next step in reform.

It should be the first.

The outline for effective teaching and learning ignores two essentials that would make such a plan truly great: empowerment of both students and teachers through ownership of goal setting and self-evaluation and assessment, along with the time to do so.

A bulleted list on pages 57-58 outlines eight ways to find time for teachers to do the essential work of collaboration.  Many items on the list have been promised to those of us who yearn for collaboration with peers (but never considered in my working experience is bullet #1, a huge insult to professionalism: eliminate duty periods). Only one suggestion has been acted upon in my workplace: provide substitutes so teachers can work together.

This has happened twice in the past year.

Meanwhile, directives based on Marzano have added a burden to already burdened teachers who must delay their “own work,” in the form of lesson planning and assessment, to do the work of the building.  This creates a resentment that places any improvement program at risk. 

Unwillingness to comply with change is often dealt with in high school reform books in a chapter titled “Dealing with Difficult Teachers.” (Though, thankfully, Westerberg has not included that chapter.) Yet, as each new directive comes from above, teachers are tasked with building the plane while flying it, and recently this has been occurring in shorter and shorter time frames.
 
It is exhausting.

Veterans get good at fending off the change-du-jour. Teachers learn to shrug, shut the door, or risk getting worked to death over every new initiative.

Great schools will be a fact of life when great working conditions are standard and teachers are provided with time and resources to enact deep and lasting reform. Piling more work on already over-worked teachers continues to thwart the best intentions.
  
Westerberg’s plus-one attitude adjustment at the building level comes from celebrating success. But whose success is being celebrated?  No matter how noble, celebrating your goals is not the same as setting and reaching my own. Neither is it the same as the sense of pride and self-satisfaction when the self-identified work achieves measurable change.

Thus does corporate partying make cynics of us all.

Both Marzano and Westerberg would do much for the education field if they first wrote the book on acknowledging and providing space and time for teacher knowledge and growth, rather than on how to manage change in a non-conducive environment.
 
That would be revolutionary.

A Long Journey to a Balanced Life

The Well Balanced Teacher
by Mike Anderson
(ASCD, 2010)

Reviewed by Kristen Sluiter
Fifth Grade Teacher (WA)

New Millennium Network

In the spirit of full disclosure, it took me months to finally finish Mike Anderson's The Well Balanced Teacher: How to Work Smarter and Stay Sane Inside the Classroom and Out. Anderson taught for 15 years and shared that around his 5th year he realized he was working more than in his first year. In my fourth year of teaching, Anderson’s observation was one I’d recently happened upon, too.

One of the main reasons it took me months to finish this book was that, frankly, the first chapters did not resonate with me. I was looking for advice on how to set up a weekly schedule to balance my needs as a person and my needs as a teacher.

Each chapter takes on a new topic about how to create balance in one’s teaching career. By chapter 3 entitled "Belonging: Becoming an Integral Part of a Community," I was fed up. The previous two chapters were about the importance of managing stress and meeting my most basic needs like sleep and nutrition. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t need any more ho-hum reminders that eating well, keeping an exercise log, feeling safe at school, finding a way to disconnect from school, and getting enough sleep were key.

I dismissed the book for months as I struggled to find my own routine for balance. After discovering for myself that it takes small steps to create balance (and sometimes in the most unexpected ways), I picked The Well-Balanced Teacher back up again to give it another try.

As I neared the end of the book, I finally engaged. It was in the very last chapter, "Balance: The Importance of Balancing Our Time and Energy," that I found what I needed. It had sample schedules of two different teachers with varying needs/lifestyles. And it offered solid advice that anyone who might be struggling could get behind.

To paraphrase, it acknowledged that there isn’t enough real time for all we need to do but that if we carve out time for nonnegotiables, figure out what to eliminate, learn to say no, work more efficiently and leverage the strictness of our schedules, we might just have it made.

And there in the Afterword, was a note from the author that validated what I’d figured out in the months away from the book: Take small steps and start now.

RTI: It's about Instruction, Not Just Intervention

Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction & Intervention
By Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
(ASCD, 2010)

Reviewed by Elizabeth Stein, NBCT
Special Education Teacher (NY)
Teacher Leaders Network

It's easy to get lured into Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction and Intervention, by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey.

Within the first few pages, the reader is asked to “choose an adventure” that begins with a brief profile of Adam, “a fifth grader in a public school somewhere in the United States.” His educational experience is put in the hands of the reader, as we decide which learning conditions will serve Adam best. It isn’t too difficult to figure out — so long as the reader has moved beyond the traditional teacher-centered, “students as passive learners”, mentality.

Authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey combine their expertise to share knowledge and practical ways teachers can plan the learning experience within positive cycles of instruction. “This cycle—from assessment to instruction—enables teachers to observe students’ responsiveness to the targeted interventions and to proceed with instruction that is supported by ever-evolving performance data.”

Throughout Enhancing RTI, the authors make a clear and comprehensive case for the value and necessity of not only adopting an RTI mindset, but a strengthened model of RTI, so students can succeed. And their backgrounds and in-depth experience in the area of literacy add to the book's practical approach.

One of the many valuable points the authors make clear is the distinction between intervention and instruction. As I read, I was reminded of the many discussions I’ve had with colleagues who have felt that RTI is all about providing interventions to those students who struggle. This book reminds teachers that the thrust of RTI is really all about high quality core instruction at the whole class level before students struggle.

The authors introduce readers to a powered up model of RTI that shines a spotlight on formative assessment and high quality core instruction. The focus is on effective whole-class instruction that can minimize the tendency to fall back on various layers of intervention. The authors call this more unambiguous model of RTI, "Response to Instruction and Intervention."

They suggest that teachers should not wait to see if students will eventually respond to intervention; they must first become aware if students are responding to everyday classroon instruction. I think this distinction is critical for teachers who may not have a clear understanding of the premise of RTI. The authors include the following components for their strengthened model of RTI:

• Making sure that the core instruction (at the Tier 1 level) is responsive, standards-based, and data-driven;

• Making sure that Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions provide a continuous flow of instruction that is aligned to the core instruction;

• Analyzing instruction around a three-way feedback loop that incorporates formative assessment results that inform the teacher and the students;

• Making sure that collaborative efforts are established so educators and families work together successfully.

Each of the eight chapters is like a rung in a ladder leading to complete awareness of the RTI framework. Some chapter topics include:

Defining and refining the RTI process
Quality core instruction (Tier 1)
Supplemental Interventions (Tier 2)
Intensive Interventions for high risk learners (Tier 3)
The role of sssessment and necessity of progress monitoring
Progress monitoring in action

Each chapter ends with a summary, or what the authors call “the takeaway.” This takeaway allows the reader to validate his or her reading of the text and begin to build a deeper understanding of what it takes to apply the comprehensive cycle of instruction described here.

After reading this book, the reader is ready to implement RTI with a clear focus and understanding that high quality core instruction is at the center of it all. The authors provide instructional planning tools, assessment rubrics, and pacing guides that are sure to make readers confident and ready to apply concepts right away. This book is perfect for those with and without a prior understanding of RTI. It will deepen any reader’s understanding and ability to implement the instructional cycles that define the RTI process.

The close of the book also brings to a close the particular adventure the authors have encouraged their readers to take. Adam, now entering 6th grade, has developed into a confident student. Adam's story serves as an apt metaphor for the deep learning that can take place for every student when a school’s mission becomes aligning instruction, assessment and intervention to drive the learning process.

A Book of Clever, Relevant Strategies to Inspire More Reading

Igniting a Passion for Reading: Successful Strategies for Building Lifetime Readers
by Steve Layne
(Stenhouse, 2009)

Reviewed by Vicky Gilpin
High School English and Drama (IL)

Teacher Leaders Network
 
With standardized testing, core curricular standards, and increased accountability urging administrators or pressing teachers to examine pedagogical minutae in multiple areas, some scholarly works tend to the anxious and pedantic. Steven L. Layne's Igniting a Passion for Reading is a fast-paced, interesting, and — most important — relevant burst of fresh air.

Cleverly written and saturated with snippets about inspiring educators and students inspired by reading, the book can be enjoyably devoured in one sitting. When was the last time you read a "strategy book," with a smile on your face and ideas for your classroom, in one sitting?
 
Unlike some works, Layne's conversational style, academic anecdotes, and use of humor are not intended to disguise a lack of scholarship. Instead, they highlight the many excellent ideas within the book with reminders that strategies cannot be successful without an emphasis on students as individuals with needs specific to their situations.

Why is this book so revolutionary? Does it espouse some new program, training, or method based on an educational trend of the minute? No! Instead, Layne focuses the reader's attention on the issue of aliteracy: that students may have the skills to read but not the will: "It's not necessarily that students can't read, it's that many of them don't.”
 
Even though policy makers may focus on the reading skills which are more easily assessed, such as phonetics, fluency, comprehension, semantics, and syntax, an emphasis on interest, attitude, motivation, and engagement will positively influence the student as a whole reader. Therefore, Layne argues, teachers must use strategies to encourage students to become recreational and lifelong readers. Some of the strategies discussed include the teacher’s use of the magical phrase "I thought of you," book chats, modeling reading, author visits, reading aloud, and others.
 
Organized into easily accessible sections, each chapter opens with a memory from a current leader in the field of reading and education, explores a strategy, and ends with a section called In the Trenches, containing relevant anecdotes. The information is provided with various examples, friendly for elementary through the high school classroom and easily adapted to individual situations.

The book not only offers an excellent writing style and a plethora of strategies, it includes useful charts, rubrics, and appendices. In addition, Layne created quarterly and weekly schedules to assist teachers in their incorporation of strategies. With these elements, teachers can avoid a common worry of professional development: that they will start off strong with new strategies but neglect the follow-through. The book allows for a strong foundation that teachers can craft to their own classrooms and the needs of their students.
 
Although hopeful about the contents, I originally (and jadedly) feared another retread of various party lines or advice from someone who had forgotten that some students choose not to read. Instead, I found within the covers a kindred spirit who believes that every child can be encouraged to read interesting books and who understands how encouraging recreational reading can positively influence the child's life, not only through test scores, but through lifetime achievement.

Aliteracy — Steven L. Layne has your number. And thanks to Igniting a Passion for Reading, I'm starting to as well.

I cannot say enough about this book; it contained so many amusing, heartfelt, and — most important again — relevant quotations I would like to reiterate. However, I must resist and, in the tradition of one of the best youth-based book chat models, Reading Rainbow, I remind the reader that "to find out more, you've got to get the book!"

Vicky Gilpin is an English teacher at Cerro Gordo High School and Richland Community College, in Illinois, and was chosen as a Phi Delta Kappa national Emerging Leader in 2009. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership.

A Collection of Cohesive Teaching Techniques

Teach Like A Champion: 49 Techniques That Put Students On The Path To College
by Doug Lemov
(Jossey Bass, 2010)

Reviewed by Patrick Vernon, NBCT
MS Social Studies & Language Arts (NC)
Teacher Leaders Network

The ‘art of teaching’ is a term that often makes the successes of teaching seem special or allusive to some. In Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov seeks to draw in the reader by sharing a collection of teaching tools available to the novice and veteran alike.

Lemov draws in the reader in the Introduction by explaining that the most valuable asset these techniques give to the classroom is one resource teachers are always longing for: time.  By employing techniques like Tight Transitions (#30), the teacher can more efficiently manage classroom procedures such as the passing out and collecting of classroom papers. These routine activities occur often and with increased precision can add time back to instruction in the form of several days over the course of the school year.

Other techniques emphasize classroom and student behavior management, like No Warnings (#38): If you're angry with your students, it usually means you should be angry with yourself. This technique shows how to effectively address misbehaviors in your classroom.

In addition to the numbered techniques, Lemov includes bonus chapters on improving pacing, getting students to think critically, and recognizing that all teachers have methods through which they can strengthen students reading, vocabulary development and comprehension.

Teach Like a Champion is well organized so that the reader will find it easy to pick up long after the first reading to gain more insight on the practices detailed in the text. The author’s style of writing succinctly presents the techniques for readers to follow, but an accompanying DVD provides readers the opportunity to see the method in action.

This reviewer found the text solid enough to stand on its own without the DVD, so the inclusion of the video clips only strengthens the tools shared by Lemov. The DVD’s sound quality sometimes makes it difficult to hear the students in various classrooms, but as the clips seek to show the teacher’s modeling of techniques, this can largely be overlooked.  The clips do continue in a ‘continuous play’ fashion, so readers should be prepared to pause the DVD if they are only planning to view clips as they are discussed in the text.

Doug Lemov, co-founder of the Uncommon Schools charter school network, has put together a collection of cohesive teaching techniques that will allow teachers to maximize instructional time in their classrooms. This maximized time will better prepare the students in that classroom for future academic endeavors.

Patrick Vernon is a sixth grade social studies and English/Language Arts teacher in the Alamance-Burlington (NC) School System.

For some other views of the book, see this blog post.

Excite Students about Organizing Their Stories

Get Graphic! Using Storyboards to Write and Draw Picture Books, Graphic Novels, or Comic Strips
by Mark Thurman and Emily Hearn
(Pembroke, 2010)

Reviewed by Laura Reasoner Jones, NBCT
Elementary Technology Specialist (VA)
Teacher Leaders Network

As a person who works with elementary students to both organize their written work and to use photography and video to create stories, I was eager to see this book, and I was not disappointed.
   
As most teachers and parents know, getting a child to sit down and plan before starting a project is usually more difficult than getting the project completed. This book, with its entertaining style and engaging graphics, can lead a student through the planning process easily and thoroughly. Each chapter opens with a short guide for adults, and then talks directly to the students.

Get Graphic! begins by encouraging the student to read and discover what she likes, so that her creation will be pleasing to the future reader. Most kids will skip over this, of course, but it is there for their perusal and for the adult working with them. Then the authors jump right into plot development and art, illustrating how to show emotion with stick figures and facial expressions. And then they recommend (shocker!) research, under the guise of making the characters and backgrounds more believable.

A great deal of time in spent on drawing—the part most kids want to do. And this book with its many clear explanatory drawings makes that part seem easy, which is great for our reluctant artists. Thurman and Hearn make drawing scenes from different points of view look easy, or at least easier, to this non-artist. I particularly like the manner in which they give the theory behind the different points of view for drawings. For example, close-up-views are the most emotional part of the story. They also help us understand how to portray action and perspective.

As they guide the student through the creation process, the authors emphasize organization and creating drafts, traits we all want to see in our kids. They provide storyboard examples and templates that made me want to get out some markers and start something—very tempting! In my experience, storyboarding is one of the hardest things for elementary students to do—they want to rush to the end and see the finished product, and they are invariably disappointed. This book can go a long way toward stemming those impulses as it encourages and rewards carefully planning and execution while keeping interest high.

Other chapters in the book include detailed instructions on how to assemble books, making and using collage illustrations, using collages of letters and finding and using patterned papers, styles of lettering and making covers. I also appreciated the vocabulary pages titled “The Way an Artist Speaks”—we always need this but seldom find it in books for both teachers and students.

Writing the story comes last, as it should in a well-planned student effort. By the time you and your students have worked your way to this point, writing is almost effortless—all the planning and preparation is done.

As a technology specialist and elementary teacher, I would highly recommend Get Graphic! for all ages—in content areas, art, and in supplemental programs using technology to create visual products.
   
And most of all, who could resist a book that has as its very first chapter title "Read, Read, Read!"

Laura Reasoner Jones is a National Board Certified Teacher in early childhood education and earned a master’s degree in library media in 2007. She teaches in a northern Virginia public elementary school and writes frequently about girls and STEM careers.

A Fast-Paced Guide to Teaching Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking and Formative Assessments: Increasing Rigor in Your Classroom
by Betsy Moore and Todd Stanley
(Eye on Education, 2010)

Reviewed by Vicky Gilpin
High School English and Drama (IL)
Teacher Leaders Network
   
A constant theme in education is the concept of critical thinking. Researchers extol the virtues of critical thinking skills while encouraging teachers to develop strategies to assess them. However, teaching critical thinking skills effectively can challenge educators. This 2010 book by Betsy Moore and Todd Stanley emphasizes methods to guide teachers in teaching students to become critical thinkers.
   
The introduction explains the importance of critical thinking beyond a mere commonly touted phrase of educational jargon. It creates a clear rationale for the investigation of teaching methods created to develop critical thinking skills as well as the creation of an environment in which those skills can be developed within the classroom. Teachers cannot expect students to walk into their classrooms with the capacity to access higher-level abilities; we have to guide them through the process and provide repeated opportunities for higher-level thinking.
   
The organization of the book gently directs the reader from a careful reiteration and investigation of Bloom’s Taxonomy to an in-depth discussion of strategies that develop critical thinking skills. Early chapters create a foundation of information to provide a context for the information to follow. Concepts are developed through the lens of Bloom’s Taxonomy, with the goal of increasing rigor by developing activities and strategies that establish and amplify students’ critical thinking skills. At the end of each chapter, the authors highlight the “critical” aspect of each topic to reiterate the topic’s connection to the purpose of exploring critical thinking and helping students become critical thinkers. The topics of the chapters include

•Bloom’s Taxonomy 101
•Lower-Level Thinking and Higher-Level Thinking
•How Do Critical Thinking Skills Enhance Student Achievement?
•How to Write Lower-Level Questions
•How to Write Higher-Level Thinking Questions
•Writing Formative Assessments with Critical Thinking Questions
•Analyzing the Data from Critical Thinking Questions
•Instructional Strategies to Develop Critical Thinking Skills in the Classroom

Each chapter offers examples and anecdotes aimed toward teachers as leaders in their profession and teachers as lifelong learners, emphasizing the importance of teachers’ own critical thinking skills, higher-level questioning, and professional rigor. The authors stress that teachers have to use higher-level techniques of critical thinking in order to develop those skills within their students.
   
Two sections readers might find beneficial include the debunking of the belief that “rigor” has to equal “difficult” and the explanation of the correlation between critical thinking skills and student achievement.

Too often, teachers equate difficulty with rigor and are either reticent to increase the rigor in their classrooms or develop activities that go beyond their students’ current skill-set. To increase a course’s rigor, one must create steps from lower-level activities to higher-level ones. The authors remind readers that rigor and higher-level reasoning do not refer to difficulty but to complexity. The complexity involved in activities that encourage and develop higher-level thinking skills can increase student achievement in multiple areas, not just the subject area taught by the teacher focusing on building critical thinking skills.

Obviously, if more teachers decide to implement strategies that increase rigor and create opportunities for students to practice using critical thinking, the students will derive more benefit from the activities. However, student achievement on standardized tests, within the classroom, and in real-world application has been linked to critical thinking skills. The discussion of the link between critical thinking and student achievement gives encouragement and validation for teachers who must balance the often seemingly opposing requirements of NCLB and AYP with the desire to provide long-term benefits for students.
   
Multiple aspects of this fast-paced guide provide access points to developing students’ critical thinking skills. The work might remind one of an excellent conference session: user-friendly, well-organized, and composed of numerous “take-homes” for immediate use.

As well as the excellent “unpacking” of Bloom’s Taxonomy, suggestions for practical application in the classroom, and examples of application in multiple disciplines, the vast number of blueprints within the work (available for download) make this book a jewel for the experienced as well as novice teacher.

Vicky Gilpin is an English teacher at Cerro Gordo High School and Richland Community College, in Illinois, and was chosen as a Phi Delta Kappa national Emerging Leader in 2009. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership.

A Book for Any Teacher with ELL Students

Teaching English Language Learners Across the Content Areas
By Judie Haynes and Debbie Zacarian
(ASCD, 2010)

Reviewed by Julie Dermody, NBCT
Elementary ESL Teacher (NC)
Teacher Leaders Network

As an English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher, I felt like I was attending church services while reading this book as I wanted to shout out, “Amen” to the suggestions the authors make in supporting K-12 English Language Learners (ELLs) in the content areas. This is a book I want to put into the hands of teachers in my district as they work to ensure their lessons are comprehensible for the growing number of ELLs within our classrooms.

As they share real-life examples from elementary, middle and high school classrooms, readers get a sense of modifications (some small and some more extensive) that can make a big impact on ELLs’ learning and success. While the elementary teacher in me wanted this book to focus more on elementary classroom examples, it is easy to understand how the middle and high school scenarios would apply to elementary situations (and vice versa).

This book is organized around strategies for working with ELLs in the content areas. The strategies support teachers as they are: developing classroom learning environments, writing lesson plans, planning small group instruction, teaching vocabulary, designing reading and writing instruction, assigning homework and developing assessments, and communicating with the parents of our ELL students.

The authors start by sharing the stages of second-language acquisition. This is critical knowledge to have of ELLs since classroom lessons need to complement the stage of a student’s English.

Throughout the book, the authors remind readers that while some teachers may feel an ELL is competent in English because their listening and speaking skills are strong, the capacity to do ordinary classroom work in English includes the ability to “communicate appropriately in social and academic situations by listening, speaking, reading, and writing.”

The authors address these four abilities across content areas. For example, through a middle school math lesson we see how teachers can help ELLs develop all four skills by writing and reviewing lesson objectives; writing and exploring key vocabulary; modeling expectations; providing practice opportunities; using pairs of students to support each other; drawing from students’ lives to create activities; making sure to ask questions that match levels of English proficiency; observing students during each task; having the students provide feedback as a way to check for understanding; and assigning homework that relates directly to the day’s lesson, engages family members, and includes sentence frames for academic vocabulary support.

Communicating with parents of ELLs is often difficult when translators need to be contacted for every note and newsletter teachers want to send — or for notes received from parents. The chapter in this book dealing with parent communication offers many excellent suggestions, especially when working with a translator. For example, they suggest doubling the length of the conference time to account for the extra time translation takes, speaking in uncomplicated sentences, and speaking directly to the parents, not the translator.

A home language survey is included at the end of this book. I do wish the authors provided this form in Spanish also.

Recently, USA Today published some revealing facts about the American kindergarten class of 2010-11. They report that about 25% of 5-year-olds are Hispanic, a big jump from 19% in 2000. They also report that schools face “linguistic challenges” as the number of 5-year-olds who speak English at home slipped from 81% in 2000 to about 78%, and the share of Spanish speakers in the U.S. grew from 14% to 16%.

Lisa Guernsey, director of the Early Education Initiative at the non-profit New American Foundation, told USAToday that, “we really have a long way to go before we understand what the best methods are” for supporting second language learners. One place to start would be to provide a copy of this book to educators across the country.

Julie Dermody teaches English Language Learners at McDougle Elementary in the Chapel Hill (NC) Public Schools. She recently renewed her National Board Certification (Middle Childhood/Generalist). She reviewed an earlier book by Judie Haynes here.

The Total Teacher: Useful Planning Tips for Intermediate Classrooms

The Total Teacher Book and Planner

by Lorraine T. Milark

(Jossey Bass, 2009)

Reviewed by Kristen Sluiter

Fourth Grade Teacher (WA)

New Millennium Network

The Total Teacher Book and Planner, subtitled The All-In-One System that Gets You Organized, Empowered and Inspired To Teach Your Best is a thoughtful, well put together organization system for teachers. Touted as a useful tool for educators in grades K-12, the content speaks best to intermediate teachers and would need to be modified for primary, middle and high school students.

It is organized in three main parts; one to explain the Total Teacher Philosophy, one to explain the Total Teacher Plan and one to provide a month-by-month breakdown of tips that can help set the tone for an organized and productive school year.

The Total Teacher Book and Planner’s goal is to help teachers create a system that will benefit students and teachers alike. She offers up useful techniques for focusing on creating a business-like but joyful environment in one’s classroom. Much like a college professor, Milark believes that students at all grade levels should receive a syllabus. She has created various tools that emphasize that time is a precious commodity. She suggests that all classrooms have a calendar with a countdown, use a curve strategy to visualize progress (updated by giving frequent quizzes based on mastering standards) and teach the 24-hour clock.

Teacher and students root the Total Teacher Plan in state standards, broken down into five-week blocks, shared with students and routinely monitored. Her approach is very linear and straightforward — essentially she offers nothing new in the idea that most successful yearlong planning begins by planning backwards. An accompanying CD-ROM offers her template for a planner. Milark stresses that though we are in school 180 days, not all the days end up being teaching days, and to plan accordingly.

Though her approach to planning isn't revolutionary by any means, it does offer insights and tips to focus and hone your organizational skills with step-by-step instructions. These details are what really make this book stand out as a useful tool for new and experienced teachers alike.

Milark doesn’t just tout her philosophy of organization — she makes it accessible to all who may struggle with knowing where to start. Her month-by-month tips are exciting and creative but may not seem realistic in classroom settings where students can be between 1-2 grade levels behind and pacing guides rule the day.

Kristen Sluiter is an elementary district in “a district south of Seattle.” She worked for several years in schools with the Washington Reading Corps/AmeriCorps VISTA program before earning her Masters in Teaching from Evergreen State College in 2007.

Learning to Read: A Lot More Than 'Sounding It Out'

Catching Readers Before They Fall: Supporting Readers Who Struggle, K-4
by Pat Johnson and Katie Keier
(Stenhouse, 2010)

Reviewed by Gayla Dial
Elementary Special Education (IL)
Teacher Leaders Network

When I asked to review this book I was unsure what to expect since both authors are new to me. I opened the book, frankly, expecting to see the same old rhetoric. This, I thought, is going to be one more of the multitude of how-to-teach-reading books that are on the market.

But as I began viewing the layout of this book, I immediately noticed some differences. The authors are not telling you how you should teach reading. They are asking you to reflect on your paradigm of reading. The reader becomes involved in the ‘processes’ of learning to read rather than the teaching of reading.

The majority of teachers use the phrase “sound it out” throughout the school day. The authors suggest that “sounding it out” is difficult at best because of the intricacy of the English language. Because of that difficulty, reading must be addressed as a process and all parts included instead of focusing on one of the processes in order to read a word.

By utilizing a comprehensive literacy approach to reading which matches Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, they propose that teachers can give their students the highest potential for successful learning. This is an approach that addresses where students are and where they should be at the end of the year.

The authors suggest using the following steps to move from demonstration to independence:

• Demonstrate
• Share the Task
• Provide Guided Practice (high support)
• Gradually Withdraw Scaffold (low support)
• Give Specific Praise or Redirection

Once the reading paradigm is appraised and modified if necessary, the authors suggest a multitude of activities to implement in the classroom that will reinforce and extend reading and comprehension. I enjoyed the book because it forced me to reflect on my reading methods and strategies as well as the term “sound it out.” I will definitely make some of the adaptations in my classroom this year.

Gayla Dial is a Special Education-Life Skills teacher at Meridian Elementary/Middle School located in rural Olive Branch, IL. She’s taught in elementary public education for 30 years serves on the Illinois Education Association’s Special Education Committee.