Nathan sits down at the table and begins to read from his collection of familiar texts. He’s strategic. He grabs the easiest books he can from his pile. As we transition to the new book for our lesson, I see him slump in his chair. Though I know I’ve selected a book he will be able to read successfully, he has noticed there are a lot of words on each page.
It is still early in the year, but Nathan and I are beginning our second year of working together. As his reading support teacher, I’m concerned about Nathan’s progress. Our goal is always for intervention to be short term, but if we don’t start making faster progress, this won’t be true for Nate. Actually, we might already be at that point.
It would be easy to be discouraged by Nathan’s progress. He began last year needing to make a lot of gains. We’ve hit some bumps along the way, but he has shown steady growth. However, we really need to make faster progress. I’m trying to help him feel more confident in the lengthier books that are starting to come his way so we can keep moving forward. I’ve intentionally selected a book that is longer but will have few challenges. Nathan doesn’t see himself as a reader, and I believe he is thinking this book is going to prove once again that he is not. My hope is that it goes a bit differently.
We all support readers like Nate in our classrooms or school communities. It is easy to get overwhelmed by all that needs to be learned. Across my years of teaching, Nate isn’t the only learner I’ve seen have to work through tough challenges on their journey to becoming a reader. Fortunately, I’ve sat on the other side of this challenge with readers. I know the feeling when a reader realizes they’re figuring it out. There’s nothing like that moment when we both know we’ve got this. Sometimes the change is gradual. Other times, it seems to happen in a magical moment.
It is across these experiences that I’ve learned to ask myself some specific questions about my teaching and a child’s learning when it gets hard. I suppose I’ve come to a place where I have a few rules for myself for these learners, some nonnegotiables.
“Rules” for When They’re Hard to Teach
Believe! They know when we don’t.
Make sure the reader is in the room for read aloud. The truth is that these readers are often pulled out of our classroom. It is essential that they be in the classroom during read aloud. It might have required me to move my schedule around, but I worked to make sure it happened.
Take advantage of what is known. What a reader knows can help us move toward next steps. Knowing what a child knows, and helping them know it well, can help us push toward faster progress.
Connect reading to writing. Making sure there is time to connect writing can help with next steps. If students have strengths in writing, help them see how what they know can help them in reading. Opportunities to write are just as important as opportunities to read.
Change the narrative. I made myself change the narrative being created for the child. I made sure I spoke about strengths and next steps when talking with teachers, parents, and the child. I tried to talk more about the ways I saw the child growing toward independence to help build a new narrative.
Ensure time for reading. Too often our readers who need to make the most progress have the least amount of time to read and practice the new strategies they are learning independently in new text. For my youngest readers, I found ways to pepper these opportunities across the day in short bursts. Time to read upon entry with the right books at hand. Time to read in reading workshop. Time to read after lunch or toward the end of the day. For older readers, I made sure there was enough time to read for extended periods. Really enough time. Every. Single. Day. Yep, every single day.
Teach with intention for short cycles. Often we keep our readers who need support for longer lessons. When this happens, we can find ourselves teaching too many points instead of intentionally targeting the best next step. I made myself—and I had to make myself—keep lessons short and to the point. I tried to think in time frames. “After three lessons I want the reader to know ___. In three weeks I want to know the child can ___.”
Celebrate! Celebrate every single step. I made myself look for any little glimmer of what was next and bring it to the reader’s attention.
When It Comes Together
Working with the classroom teacher, I made myself follow the rules above…even when it was hard. And at times, it was very hard. The turning point for Nathan came, ironically, with a series of books likely much too hard for him.
I’ll never forget the day we sat down with Nate’s mom to discuss his progress. Our conversation quickly turned to the new book he had picked up a few days earlier from the I Survived series by Lauren Tarshis. Although the series was quite a reach for where he was as a reader, we all agreed we’d never seen him so excited about a book. He was reading every minute he had in reading workshop, sneaking minutes during class, and even wanting to read at home. We’d all heard him read the book and knew it wasn’t easy, but we agreed to see where this went.
I’m so glad that was our decision. He went from one book to the next one in the series. Though they were still a reach, he was finding them a bit easier each time. Nathan also now had a way to talk to friends in the classroom about books. That was the turning point for Nate. From there, he started to make quick progress, but most importantly, he finally saw himself as a reader. There were many pieces to Nathan’s success, but the “rules” above certainly played a part. We followed every one of them.
