1. A new way to read in class
Jake Nagy, William Penn High School
Jake is a literacy coach for William Penn High School in Delaware where he does his best to get students to read anything and everything. Before becoming a coach, he taught English for seven years. He came to work with Sharon and Mike after trying out their strategies with a pilot team in his building. He has only authored one book, which sold almost no copies and isn't really worth looking up. Also, judging from his picture, he is a snappy dresser. You can contact Jake at
PALS
A new way to read in class

2. Literature and writing
Dual Nature
ELA
Literature and writing
Reading

3. Our school Our students weren’t reading on grade level
As a result, many of our teachers had, “textless classrooms”
The logic: if they can’t read well, I shouldn’t use text in class
This created a spiral effect

4. If there was reading… Popcorn Row reading Reading as homework
Silent reading
Listening to the audio version
Simplified text
What do you notice about these things?

5. What role does text currently play in your school?
How is it currently implemented?

6. CCSS changes this Integrated text approach Reading to learn
Emphasis on increased text complexity

7. Easy to say… Non-ELA teachers don’t want to be reading teachers
Non-ELA don’t know how to teach reading
Why should they?

8. Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS)

9. PALS is a simple way to incorporate text
The students can’t hide.
Improves fluency, predicting, and summarizing
Allows students to learn from text

10. Off the ground
PALS:
can be implemented almost immediately if teachers have text
takes only 32 minutes for full implementation
can be adapted for shorter pieces
can be used as part of a tier 2 intervention

11. Let’s do this!

12. A question…
How many of you have read every word of a text and not remembered much of what you read when you got to the end?

13. There are 4 steps to PALS Coach and read Review Paragraph shrinking
Prediction relay

14. First things first:
You need a partner!

15. Notes on pairings Lexile data is important for selecting groups.
Rank order your class and split the list in half.
Put the lists next to each other and—voila—you have your pairs.
Don’t group high-high, low-low, or high-low.

16. On the Board OR you can use slides from this presentation

17. Step 1:Coach and Read (5 min per partner)
Partner A (Stronger)
Partner B (Weaker)
Begin reading out loud for 5 minutes.
Follow along silently as your partner reads out loud. If partner struggles with words/sentences, help.
Start over and read out loud for 5 minutes.

18. Step 1: Coach and Read

19. Step 2: Retelling (2 Minutes)
check
Partner A (Stronger)
Partner B (Weaker)
Ask partner: “Tell me about the first part of what we just read.”
Tell your partner what happened first. Then ask your partner: “What happened next?”
Continue to swap roles until you’re told to stop.

20. Step 3: Paragraph Shrinking (5 minutes per partner)
check
Partner A
Partner B
For the next five minutes, continue reading from where you both left off, but only read 1 paragraph out loud at a time.
Follow along silently. Help your partner if he or she struggles with words/sentences.
At the end of each paragraph ask: “Who or what was the paragraph about?”
After the answer, ask your partner: “What is the most important thing you have learned about that who or what?”
Finally, say, “Tell the main idea in 10 words or less.” Count to help your partner keep track. Ask your partner to shrink it if necessary.
Switch roles after 5 minutes, and continue until you’re told to stop.

21. Step 3: Summarizing Activity

22. Step 4: Prediction Relay (5 minutes per partner)
check
Partner A
Partner B
Your job is almost the same as last time. Only now you predict what the next paragraph is about before beginning to read.
Your job is almost the same as before.
Now the first step is to stop your partner at the end of the paragraph and ask: “How correct was your prediction?”
Then ask: “Who or what was the paragraph about?” After the answer, ask your partner: “What is the most important thing you have learned about that who or what?”
Finally, say, “Tell the main idea in 10 words or less.” Count to help your partner keep track. Ask your partner to shrink it if necessary.
Switch roles when told to do so, and continue until you’re told to stop.

23. Teacher’s jobs Move among the pairs and monitor their efforts
Ask them for their predictions or summaries to check
Answer questions that naturally arise when reading (after using the partner as a resource)
Reinforce procedures

24. PALS must lead to a task
Discussion
Writing
Organizing information

25. Magnet Card-on your own
Other Important word
Most Important Word
Other important word

26. Your application task? Answer the following question.
Now that you have read/reread the introductory section of the ELA CCSS, identify the strengths and weaknesses of how you use text in your content compared to CSS

27. Troubleshooting
Now that we have done a round of PALS what problems do you anticipate with implementation?

28. Common Problems Noise Student compliance
Text doesn’t fit the 32 minute length

29. Noise Space groups (really?) Have everyone face the same direction
Demonstrate appropriate volumes

30. Student Compliance
Reflect on improved comprehension and improved assignment grades
Use a monitoring sheet for initial implementation

32. Text Length Text is too long Text is too short Repeat entire procedure
Repeat only Prediction relay and switch off every paragraph
Text is too short
Use Prediction Relay or Paragraph Shrinking and chunk the text

33. Questions?

34. Resources www.comprehensivereadingsolutions.com
Full PALS Module
PALS developer website