My Research on Ability Grouping in Reading Classrooms

I'm putting the final touches on some ethnographic research I've been conducting this semester in conjunction with a doctoral class. The study was about the effects of ability grouping in reading on students self-perception and teacher curricular choice. The study has been very interesting and eye opening.

Of course I went into the study with pre-conceived notions about homogeneous groupings for reading. I currently teach a "high" reading group, while there is also a "medium" and "low" group. I am not a fan of the format, but because that's the way it is at my school, I of course go with the flow and make the best of it.

My study has taught me quite about about how fully aware of levels the students how, how they view themselves, and how they are either more or less motivated depending on where they are and if they think they can do something to move up a level (for those in the lower levels).

Also, as part of this study, I took a look at teacher curricular choices depending upon group level taught. Again I've learned quite a bit. It's obvious that the "high" groups in many cases feel more freedom in terms of what books they choose (for example in my own experience, I've read books this year such as The Lightning Thief, The House of the Scorpion, and The Little Prince, among others), how they approach the work load and how students are motivated from a teacher perspective.

I will be submitting my final paper next week, not for publishing but for grading (welcome to grad school). I will hopefully be posting it here on the blog shortly thereafter to great fanfare!

Departmentalizing (Blocking) Reading: Caution

This year, I moved to a new grade level in my building (a change that has been pleasantly nice), and we made the switch to departmentalizing reading across grades 3-5. If you're not familiar with the concept, to departmentalize in this case means that the grades involved share a common time for the subject, and students are put into ability groups, meaning that the majority will not be with their "homeroom teacher." This is also known as "blocking" in some circles, depending upon the jargon that is used where you teach. For the previous three years, the school I work in did self-contained reading groups (with the exception of some pull out special education students), and I was met with great success, because I was responsible for my students, and they performed up to the level that I demanded of them.

Now with this move to departmentalization, something I had previously dealt with four years ago, I have been forced to advocate for what I believe is best, both in my own experience and from what the research says.

I will first discuss my own opinions apart from the research:

I believe that self-containing classrooms in an elementary setting have many great advantages, ESPECIALLY in the area of literacy. We teach pre-service teachers that reading should be cross curriculur, that students need consistency, they need to reflect on their reading all day, and that they should have a classroom where they are able to revisit their readings and branch out into the other disciplines with their new knowledge.

My school has blocked reading from 3rd grade through 5th grade, and it basically looks like this:

Highest Group (taught by a 5th grade teacher)
2nd Highest (taught by 5th grade teacher)
Next (taught by 4th grade teacher)
So on and so forth, moving down the line to 3rd grade.

Now, for the highest groups, these teachers keep their high 5th graders, and are given the highly advanced 4th graders and off the chart high 3rd graders. So the highest 4th grade group is not truly the highest 4th grade group, because the highest 4th graders move up, while lower 5th graders move down. So basically, all but the top two groups become remedial in nature. Students, whether we want to admit it or not as teachers, are keenly aware of what group they are in. They know if they are "high" or "low," and this has detrimental effects on the motivation of all but the highest students.

Putting these facts aside, let's look at the effect of splitting the classes up for reading block. I love to teach literacy thematically, and let it flow over into social studies, math, and writing. With my students spread all over the building, I can no longer do this. To sum this up, everything that WORKS in the classroom is fundamentally impossible to do in a blocked environment.

The research in this area in the past has been mostly qualitative in nature, and has focused on standardized test scores, as well as student input, mostly in the form of narrative or question responses. For every study that opposes blocking, I can easily find one that is in favor of it, both in theory and in data. As with most issues in reading, there are opposing camps, and if this had been definitively proven one way or the other, it doesn't necessarily mean that we wouldn't be here anyways (because a shockingly low number of teachers actually read and understand current research). I am currently performing some doctoral level research on this very subject, and hope to have some beginning level results in by Thanksgiving.

Obviously I am opposed to the departmentalization of reading. I would like to continue this discussion. Maybe some of you have success stories, and that's great. But personally, I do not see the value, have not seen the value, and continue to not see the value.

Some More Technology in Literacy: Finding My Way Under New Mexico's Response To Intervention Model

I've been talking about technology in literacy a little bit lately, so I figured I'd stay on that topic today. My school district, like all school districts in the state of New Mexico, is implementing a "Response to Intervention" model (from here on referred to as RTI). The RTI model does have some MAJOR issues, including the fact that schools are basically left to their own devices to implement it, that it takes instructional time from the day, and that in many cases (whether the state department wants it or not) all students are given the interventions.

If you're not familiar, and I don't want to get too deeply into this, RTI is a mainly literacy intervention where kids are given extra small group tutoring sessions in heterogeneously grouped settings. I can't honestly say that I agree with the model and in the two years we have implemented it I haven't seen it do any good. But that's not the point here.

My grade level implemented RTI by taking one classroom teacher a quarter, as well as support staff, and splitting up the students in need of intervention (we defined them as "below benchmark"), while the other teachers took the kids not needing it and did science. When it was my turn, I had an intensive group of four students.

Rather than beat them over the heads with worksheets and mundane tasks, I pulled out some technology and had them interact with each other and texts in a new way. This was easy because there was four of them and I had eight computers in the classroom. One of the biggest things they did during their 9-weeks with me was they would read Diary of a Wimply Kid on Funbrain.com. This was basically the same book that I had six copies of on my bookshelf, but they came to me every day begging for more.

We were on computers four days a week during my RTI cycle (the entire 9-weeks). When these four students went to take the MAPS Test, an online assessment, they grew more than any other RTI intensive students that year. Of course, I knew why. They were excited about their reading, they were seeking out more, and they stayed positive. They were in an environment that allowed them to experiment with the text, to interact with it, and to get out of the mundane routine of worksheets and textbooks.

I guess my point(s) here are:

1. Sometimes school districts or state education departments implement programs that are not in the best interest of learning.

2. Sometimes teachers have to make the best of a bad situation (that is more than sometimes in some cases).

3. Think outside the box, even if it's just baby steps. I know that computers in the classroom aren't a "WOW" thing anymore, but they are still out of the routine.

4. Follow what works. Just because it worked for me doesn't mean it will for you. I'm just sharing in the hopes that maybe it will work for somebody else.

The Reading Class: A How To

I recently realized something as I was teaching my 5th graders during reading class. I realized that my class structure has become truly unique. I realized that my structure no longer follows the district guidelines (although it is still within what the district wants, it is not a clone), it no longer follows traditional thought, and it no longer follows what anyone else in the building does.

The teaching of reading in elementary school is basically broken into three components: teacher led reading (read aloud, shared, or modeled reading depending on the jargon where you work), group reading, and individual reading. Activities that are done in reading fall within one of these three areas.

My students enjoy teacher led reading immensely, they beg for more. The reason for this is the lack of textbooks, more often than not called "basal readers," which are books of story excerpts. Some of the excerpts are from great stories, so early in my career, I began to question this by saying that if the story was so good, shouldn't we read the whole thing? Isn't that part of the experience? My quest for the authentic literacy experience led me to where I am now.

For the first 30 minutes of each reading class (which run for 90 minutes, within my currently self contained classroom), I read to my students. I read to them from books that are basically above the reading level of 75% of the class, but not substantially above their level. I have read books like "The Castle in the Attic," "The City of Ember," "Coraline," and "The Giver," all books that I have read personally and consider to be masterpieces of children's literature. It is important that the teacher is familiar with the books before reading them out loud, don't just pick one because I or somebody else recommended it and start reading it. I am comfortable reading "The Giver," but somebody else might find it outside of their comfort zone, so be knowledgeable first.

After that 30 minutes is over, students work in groups for 30 minutes, reading a book that they selected together, or working on a project that I have given them. This block is where students are actually ability grouped and rotate between "stations," this is in following the Guided Reading model that my school district has mandated. This is another rule of reading. If your school district tells you to do something, do it, but make it work. Don't just say "I'm not doing that." In their groups, one of the big things I have going on is computer work. Students complete various projects on the computers during group.

At the end of group, there is 30 minutes of individual work. The activity most often done and preferred in individual time is sustained silent reading. Students love self choice, they love the joy that comes with a good book, and they love the time to themselves after a long day of lectures, group work, discussion, experimenting, and everything else that makes the school day so great. I guess I should say that my reading is taught at the end of the day (not my choice, but that's the way it goes).

So that's just a quick overview. I'll be back during the week with more book reviews, more ideas, and more discussion. Please check back soon.

The Pluses of Homogeneous Grouping

Homogeneous (pronounced either ha-mah-ga-nus or homo-genius, depending on who you are) grouping involves putting students of a similar skill level together, either in a group setting within a class, or in a class setting. Some teachers, a lot of times those who are self-contained (don't send their students out for any subjects), are faced with the choice of whether or not to ability group their students. If you work in a larger school, with many classrooms per grade level, you may have been faced with the possibility of grouping students for a subject by level and sending them, by those levels, to a certain classroom (this is also sometimes referred to as departmentalizing).

Homogeneous grouping can cause some issues, especially if you somehow become the teacher who is asked to take the 'low' group every time, but there are pluses. If you have a large class like me, and you are self-contained, like me, then you have to either teach whole group, small group, or a combination of both.

Since this blog is focused mainly around literacy, let's look at it from there. I've posted previously on how I run my reading class, and some suggestions on how to set up a reading class (that post was titled Reading Instruction: The Basics), but basically, I do some whole group stuff with the class, read aloud and the discussion that usually follows, as well as the activities that go with that book. I do that with all students, regardless of level, this could either be referred to as whole group or even heterogeneous grouping, although a more appropriate definition of heterogeneous grouping would involve their application in smaller groups. Then, they split off into their ability, or homogeneous, groups, and have work to do there.

The most obvious advantage of similarly skilled students working together is that you can focus them on texts that are appropriate for their ability. Why put the student reading on a 10th grade level in small group with the student reading on a 2nd grade level? Well, there are pluses for doing that, including having good modeling and a reciprocal relationship in the group, but there is also pluses of keeping them apart in small group.

A lot of it comes down to book choice. I would want to challenge my advanced student, and not frustrate my struggling student, so homogeneous grouping would be appropriate to steer clear of this conflict.

This blog is still rather new at this point, but I do have some long-term goals, especially as I gain readers, which has been happening very slowly so far, as I'm still getting embedded into Google and teacher blog sites, and things like that. However, I will be posting more on this topic, as well as its counterpart, both pros and cons. But for now, this is a good starting point.

Forced Into Doing Something Idiotic?

It's the question that applies to 100% of all teachers in this country. At one point or another (sometimes at all points), we're forced into some kind of program, whether it's a literacy program, a test-practice program, or a math program, that is completely idiotic and hasn't been thought out very well.

I live and work in New Mexico, which, needless to say, means that I am VERY familiar with idiotic ideas in education. I could be talking about many things right now, but mainly I'm talking about the Response to Intervention model that is currently a dark cloud hanging over our schools(you can Google it yourself if you'd like more information, because I don't want to provide a link that is completely one-sided in its definition and explanation of RTI).

Here is precisely what Response to Intervention is:

Everyday, for 40 minutes (longer in some places), students are pooled in to homogeneous groupings (groups of students at similar skill levels, so all the high kids are together, lows together, etc). In these groups, the teachers have to design some interventions that will serve the students. Since this is reality, and not some superintendents wet dream, the interventions have quickly turned to 40 minutes of daily test taking strategies.

It's supposedly mainly an intervention model that focuses on literacy components. However, intervening on students in no need of the intervention is not just a head scratcher, it's absolutely moronic. Now, I'm sure that some schools out there have appropriately implemented the model to only address those students who 'need it,' but now we've stumbled into a new area of debate.

The struggling student, many times a student with special needs, has obviously, OBVIOUSLY, become the plague of schools across the nation, because they hold down test scores (called Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP). Response to Intervention was crafted to serve these students. Before RTI, many schools would just pull these students out of science or social studies instruction (because who needs those? I'm not joking, I have literally been told that social studies doesn't help on the test, so it's not important) and work on reading strategies more. This is problematic for a number of reasons.

First, social studies and science are important disciplines, especially at a younger age. When educators make the error of assuming that literacy instruction is isolated to some sort of 'reading block,' or must be done in a certain way, they are taking away the power of differentiated and cross-curricular instruction. Done correctly, science and social studies are extremely valuable literary subject areas, especially for the struggling student, who is also at risk for being the bored student.

Second, well, I think I just said it. The struggling student is at risk for being the bored student. If we pull them out for 40 more minutes of test taking strategies, echo reading, and comprehension testing from isolated passages and short stories that they connect to in no way, then they'll just hate it even more.

So, have you been forced into doing something idiotic? I'm going to make a new label titled 'forced into something?', as well as 'teaching the test,' and will put similar posts under those labels so that this discussion can be furthered in the future. I realize this blog is new and doesn't have many readers as of yet, but if you come across this post and a light bulb goes off in your head, let me know what you're thinking or what's happening where you work, and we can discuss that a little more as well.