1. Teacher Knowledge and Informational Texts Or How I Learned to Teach Reading while Doing Science Cleti Cervoni EdD and Cami Condie EdD 19 th European Conference on Literacy July 2015

2. What We Know About Literacy and Informational Texts 1.Children need to read, write, and speak about something interesting (Allington, 2002; Guthrie et al., 1999). 2.Reading and writing can be used as tools of inquiry in science. Reading and writing benefit when embedded in an inquiry-based science setting (Pearson et al., 2010).

3. Purpose of Summer Program Provide intensive summer interventions in literacy for struggling readers and writers (predominantly ELL) through science investigations and art projects.

4. Summer Program Mantras and Goal Our Mantras: Every child will read something well every day. Our curriculum is what the child needs. Reading, writing, and learning are for authentic purposes. Goal: Authentic, targeted learning interventions.

5. Summer Program Setting Staff Director and Assistant Director 2 interventionists, 10 teachers, 6 paraprofessionals, 1 art intern Target students—41 struggling readers and writers entering 1 st - 5 th grade 5 classrooms Team taught Four weeks long, four days a week, four hours a day 1 hour of debriefing/planning for staff

6. Teacher Participants TeacherGrade (rising) Experience# of years in our program 113 rd year classroom teacher3 215+ years as paraprofessional3 31Recent graduate2 415+ years classroom teacher2 52Recent graduate2 621 st year Math and literacy specialist2 725+ years classroom teacher1 83 1 932 years as paraprofessional2 104-55+ years classroom teacher1 114-52 nd year as paraprofessional1

7. Professional Development 1.Trainings bridged literacy and content 2.Teacher teams collaboratively planned, analyzed assessments, and designed strategic interventions. 3.Teachers were provided mentored support and coaching.

8. Planning our Ocean Content and Literacy Interventions Developing science inquiry questions, supporting experiments and experiences Informational text focus—how to scaffold learning Analyzing assessment data and determining next instructional steps

9. Sample Daily Schedule Morning Meeting Responsive Classroom Discussion Daily agenda Fluency work with poems Content generation Reading opportunities Guided reading Word work Independent reading Read alouds Writing opportunities Writing about science experiments, field trips, videos, their research, and reading Daily wrap-up Goals for the next day Content focus Daily debriefing and planning time for teachers

10. Reading Outcomes 7 children (14%) who were previously below grade level are now on or above grade level An average of 3.7 months of growth in four weeks Attendance = 91% Number of ChildrenGrowth on the BAS reading assessment 21 children (53%)+1.5-3 months 6 children (15%)+4-6 months 7 children (18%)+7-9 months 6 children (15%)maintained

12. Our Question How and in what ways do our teachers grow as they participate in this program?

13. Methodology: Photo Voice (Delgado, 2015; Luttrell, 2010; Luttrell & Chalfen, 2010) Each participating teacher chose four photographs. Individual interviews (recorded and transcribed verbatim) –Tell me about this photo and why you chose it. Analysis

14. Analysis Procedures 1.Read transcripts and looked at the pictures separately. 2.Analyzed photos looking for patterns. What is this picture of? 3.Analyzed photos with transcript. Five learning themes emerged. 4.Reread transcripts with these themes.

15. In the teachers’ own words… I thought everything about the program is represented in these photos: how diagnostic it is, how we’re constantly modifying the curriculum, how the students are totally engaged, and then the science themes are embedded throughout so that it’s highly motivating.

16. Theme 1: Re-valuing authentic experiences I just like that it captures them engaged and literally in the habitat that we’re learning about.

17. Theme 1: Re-valuing authentic experiences It gives the kids an authentic purpose for wanting to learn how to access this nonfiction task and research what I need to, because I have to teach other people that it’s a source of life that we have to protect. So it’s like all connected. And I think it makes them more motivated to read and write about a topic.

18. Theme 2: Teaching and Learning is Coherent. It’s just all day long, no matter what they're doing, they're constantly learning how to read and write through what they're learning about scientists and what they're learning about themselves as a scientist.

19. Theme 2: Teaching and Learning is Coherent. In morning meeting, for our activity, we’ve been doing poems and songs based on ocean animals and their behavior. The question is what is a scientist. For example, this morning we read the words and listened to the song Calypso by John Denver. Then we related it to what they had just learned about Jacques Cousteau. We talked about how the song connected with Dr. Cousteau’s studies and research.

20. Theme 3: Co-Learning Together So they would write down their findings and then compare their notes with each other, with the other groups. It’s “all hands on deck.” You're not just sitting listening to people talk. It’s the students asking questions of each other… It’s all about discovery for them and for us and them working together and learning from each other and all of us learning from each other too… We’re a team of scientists.

21. Theme 3: Co-Learning Together All of the kids are teachers, too. We’re learning from each other.

22. Theme 4: Teachers seeing students in a different light. I see some of these kids in a different environment and it’s like we're having fun. Her sentence was 12 words! And, I could barely get three words out of her on a similar activity throughout the school year. Kelly photo of great white shark

23. Theme 4: Teachers seeing students in a different light. Robert Nash in touch tank Robert Nash writing

24. Theme 4: Teachers seeing students in a different light. They were actually jumping up and down, because they were just so happy to be going onto the next thing…. typically you don’t see that excitement throughout the school year.. They were so engaged and so they can’t contain themselves. It’s unbelievable. I don’t see that anywhere else.

25. Theme 5: Students seeing themselves in a different light. He speaks to me about what this program is all about. I was working with him, just one on one and the joy that came from him, from him feeling like a reader, like almost made me cry. They see themselves as a scientist, as a learner, as a reader. It’s just amazing.

26. Theme 5: Students seeing themselves in a different light. The kids are learning about scientists and how they're fearless and they're explorers and they're inventors. I feel like they're seeing themselves as “This is us. This is our job. This is what we need to do to discover how things work and to take things apart and put them back together.”

27. Theme 5: Students seeing themselves in a different light.

28. First, she was recoiling and then there’s this picture where she’s starting to get more comfortable and she’s just got her hands all over stuff. It’s in that small amount of time you can see her change, and a lot of the other kids too, from having never experienced something like this before and being afraid of it to getting excited by it.

29. What We Learned Advocating for authenticity Coherence matters. Authentic learning re-positions teachers as co-learners. Students become the co- teachers. Teachers are motivated when they see their students eager to learn and as they see students changing their own learning identity.