FOSTERING
ACCELERATION
IN DAILY INTERACTIONS
WITH TEACHER AND STUDENT
By Tonya Leija
Reading Recovery Teacher Leader
Spokane Washington
-- with
the help of 2 dedicated teachers and
several first grade children
Ohio National Reading Recovery and K -6
Literacy conference February 2014
From the child’s mind… note written by Lucy to
me. I placed a paper and marker in and told her she can
have more time to write at home tonight.
OVERVIEW OF SESSION
What puzzles you about it?
•
What is it? *Key Principles by Clay
•
How was it created by the focus
students and teachers?
*Common themes in T/S interactions
•
Which teacher moves can we find
and possibly adopt into our
practice?
*Teaching/Learning point framework
*Summary of Accelerative Moves
Goal: A goal might be to walk away
with intentional moves and action
steps.
Influence from
outside the
Field
• How We Decide,
by Jonah Lehrer
• Imagine—How
Creativity Works,
by Jonah Lehrer
• The Art of Changing
the Brain,
By James E. Zull
• The Power of Habit
in Life and Business,
by Charles Duhigg
What is Acceleration?
Marie M. Clay
• “The child… has been making very slow progress and has
been dropping further and further behind his classmates.
• “In order to become an average-progress child he will have
to progress faster than his classmates for a time if he is to
catch up to them.”
• “Acceleration refers to this increased rate of progress.”
Clay LLDI Part 1, p. 22
WHAT CONDITIONS
ALLOW
ACCELERATION ?
• 1:1 relationship T & S
• Starting point is the child’s strengths
• Proceeds according to what he is
able to learn
• The teacher will follow his leads and
needs
• One new detail of print is learned in
relationship to old continuous text
(familiar) and in context of R &W
LLDI Part 1, p. 22-23
KEY PRINCIPLE OF
ACCELERATION
1
“Acceleration depends upon how
well the teacher selects the
clearest, most memorable
examples with which to establish
a new response.”
LLDI Part 1, p. 23
KEY PRINCIPLE OF
ACCELERATION
2
“The teacher must be able to
design a superbly sequenced
series of lessons determined by
the particular child’s
competencies...”
LLDI Part 1, p. 23
KEY PRINCIPLE OF
ACCELERATION
3
• “And make highly skilled decisions
moment by moment during the
lesson.”
• “She must watch the effects of this
decision and take immediate action
if necessary.
• The teacher must watch for shifting
of the child and shift the emphasis
of her teaching.
LLDI Part 1, p. 23
KEY PRINCIPLE OF
ACCELERATION
4
“Two kinds of learning must be kept
in balance…
Familiar-------------------------New
Knows what?-------------Knows how?
LLDI Part 1, p. 23
KEY PRINCIPLE OF ACCELERATION
5
Achieving Acceleration is NOT EASY
• “…the teacher cannot produce or induce acceleration.
• It is the learner who accelerates because some things no longer need his
attention and are done more easily. Things that are familiar come
together more rapidly, and allow the learner to attend to novel things.
• When this happens at an ever-increasing rate…
ACCELERATION OCCURS”
LLDI 1 p. 23-24
Grit, Persistence and Hard Work
• Becoming an expert takes time and practice.
• “It looks easy because they have already worked so
hard.”
Jonah Lehrer, Imagine
Our Goal for the child: A Self-extending system
On text of appropriate difficulty the child can:
• Monitor his own reading and writing,
• Search for information in a word and letter sequences, and in meanings,
• Discover new things for himself,
• Cross-check one source of information with another,
• Repeat as if to confirm his reading or writing so far,
• And self-correct to solve the problem
LLDI Part 1, p. 40
The classroom children have learned to:
•
•
•
•
Detect errors for themselves
Search for more information
Monitor for errors, correct those errors, check a decision, if necessary
repeat
Confirm a decision
LLDI Part 1, p. 52
KEY PRINCIPLE OF ACCELERATION
6
Self-Evaluation and Taking Control
• “In order for a learner to claim ownership, to say “I did this myself.”
he must examine his own performance and approve it. He must look
over his work and say, “This is good.”
• “It is the brain watching over itself.” Zull, p. 240
• “The child needs to feel in control of what you ask him to do…Being
in control is important at every level of achievement throughout the
lesson series.” Clay, LLDI Part 1, p. 34
Zull
• “No outside force or influence can cause a brain to learn. It will
decide on its own. Thus, one important rule for helping people
learn is to help the learner feel she is in control.”
• “We learn things that are important to us.” p. 225
• “The teacher’s first task is to get some emotional movement. To do
that, she defines the goal for the student. This goal must do two
things:
1. Get the student’s interest
2. Appear realistic p. 236
“The main task for the teacher is to help the learner find
connections.” p. 242 Because it is the learner who has to connect.
Accelerative Moments?
How will I know that the learner
has learned something for
himself?
The learner has to make
connections using known
information and pull together
the ideas to find a solution.
HOW DO WE GET AN
INSIGHT AT POINT OF
DIFFICULTY?
Think of a word…that connects as a
compound word with all three of the words
below
• _______age
• Mile________
• Sand _______
LINK TO READING RECOVERY
S: GROW
GREW
T: “You reread and you don’t give up. You keep
trying and trying. This word…”
T: places magnetic letters n -e-w up in front of
student after reading. “This word is”____( teacher
pauses looks to child)
S: “new”
T: without words--models changing first letter replacing ‘n’ with ‘gr’ and breaks it left to right
(gr-ew…grew)
How has the learner
‘learned’ or had an
‘insight’?
“Now you do it.”
Familiar……….New
S: Reads correctly the text: They grew back legs.
They grew front legs. Their tails disappeared.
Knows What......How
T: “This word (points to ‘grew’ gave you some
trouble. So this chunk ‘E -W’ helps.”
S: gr-ew… grew
T: “Now read this part” (directs back to text
section in book).
How do we know that the
teacher has made, as Clay
writes,
a ‘highly skilled decision’?
HOW DO WE
DECIDE?
“And make highly
skilled decisions
moment by
moment during
the lesson.”
LLDI Part 1, p. 23
How can we make a good decision?
Embrace Uncertainty—hard problems rarely have easy solutions
• Entertain a competing hypothesis
• Continually remind yourself of what you don’t know
You know more than you know—The brain learns by
accumulating wisdom through errors
• Once you have developed expertise in an area—it’s
important to trust your emotions when making decisions
in that domain
Positivity helps (happy people solve 20% more problems)
How We Decide , Ch. 8, J. Lehrer
Teaching and Learning Points
Look for S/T Language Interactions
My Tentative Theory:
• Teaching Points + Child Understanding = Child’s thinking shifts
• Child’s shifts in thinking = New Behavior (Which must be tested now)
• Child Shifts in thinking + New Working Behavior =Child Accelerates
• Child shift + New Non-Working Behavior = Child does not accelerate
“If we can’t incorporate the lessons of the past into our future decisions, then
we’re destined to endlessly repeat our mistakes.” J. Lehrer, HWD
Zull’s Diagram of the Learning Cycle
The Art of Changing the Brain, James Zull, p. 209
Learning from Errors:
Flight Simulator
• 1940-1990-Plane crashes due to
pilot error- 65%
• 1990s—dropped to less than 30%
• Since 2001—pilot error only 1
crash
• Attributed to success of practicing
errors in the simulator
• Takes advantage of the way the
brain learns from experience and
errors
Learning from Errors in Reading Recovery?
“The best decision makers don’t
despair after mistakes. Instead,
they become students of error,
determined to learn from what
went wrong.”
How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer p.250
Do Teaching Points Focus on Errors?
“If we can’t
incorporate the
lessons of the past
into our future
decisions, then we’re
destined to endlessly
repeat our mistakes.”
Jonah Lehrer, HWD, p. 39Jonah Lehrer,
HWD, p.
• Video Clip: Teaching Point after
Running Record--Ashton & Sandy
• Activating the dopamine system
to error predict and to learn for
the future
• Future predictions are revised
when we encounter a different
result than expected—teachable
moments
Teaching & Learning Points
The Role of Learning from Errors
Transcript of Teaching Point at
Tables:
How is the brain
given the
opportunity to
accelerate?
• Kiersten & Mary; Wk 9 Lesson 37
• After Running Record:
The Hungry Sea Star, Level 14
Running Record Excerpt:
The Hungry Sea Star R.C. Owens Level 14 Running words= 69 Errors=7
Overall Accuracy on this Running Record: Error Ratio 1:10=-90% SC rate 1:3
This excerpt reveals the most challenging section of text and the area returned to for the
teaching point.
Student:
 
m-us-ee/ “no” /mo/SC   
  
Text: p.6
… out it’s
mouth.
It’s belly oozed into the mussles.
Student:
  
*sl urped/ slur/R sl-o-/sl-owly/slowly /SC
Text: p.8 The sea star
slowly
soft
soft /T

and
slowly/slim
slimy
perts
parts.

 
slurped up the
Teaching Point after Running Record
Hungry Sea Star Lvl 14, p. 8
Student: Kiersten
Teacher: Mary
Listening and looking at the
book
OK. This was a tricky page. And you tried so hard. You were looking
through the word. And you reread one time, but then… every time
when you get stuck …just go back and reread.
So what was the tricking one?
Points to 3 different words:
slowly, parts, slimy while
saying, “that one, that one,
that one.”
That one was? Uh huh… Yeah… (agreeing)
There were a lot of tricky ones. So, let’s look through them. Look
through these. What do you see that you know there? (pointing at
‘slowly’)
“sl-im..”/slowly (making error)
Looking at Mary
See your brain is wanting to tell you something different there, but
let’s look for the parts we know.
“sl-owly”
Now reread
Reread first part of sentence:
“The Sea Star slowly…
yes
Did it help you to look for those parts? Did it help to go back and
reread?
Child pointed to ‘soft’
OK. What other ones do you want to try?
“so-ft” slid through quickly
OK. What do you see that you know?
Now reread.
Reread whole sentence with
no errors, slowed down on
‘sli-mee’ to solve in 2 seconds
and resumed fluently.
Did it help you to reread? Did it help to look for the parts you know?
So now, that would work for every time wouldn’t it.
Zull-The Learning Cycle
Learning from the outside in and the inside out
The Art of Changing the Brain, James Zull, p. 209
DECONSTRUCTING
TEACHING POINTS
ACTIVITY
• One transcript of TP interaction
• Read through to self
• With a partner attempt to name
each different teaching move
• Label in left column
• Share with table
• Share out to the room
“We are looking for
independent
reconstruction of
yesterday’s
experience.”
“Teach not only to
errors but also on
successful solving.”
“The teacher must
give a major share of
her teaching
opportunities to
shaping up fast,
efficient processing of
continuous text.”
Clay, LLDI Part 2, p. 97
ACCELERATIVE
TEACHING POINTS
• An interaction that increases
processing power because the child
understands and uses the
learning—contributing to a cycle of
growth and shift in each and every
lesson
• Focus on the partially-correct for
lifting what the child is already
trying to do to success
• Completing the problem-solving
cycle with scaffolding
POSSIBLE FRAMEWORK
Teaching Points
live up to their
name only when
the child learns.
1.
You did _______
(specific example of successful
problem-solving related to #2&3)
2.
You were almost right and got stuck
on ____(point of error can learn on)
3. You can do this ______(concrete
demo)
4. Do it here _____
(active testing with support
adjusted)
5. Here ______(again)
6. So___________ helps you
(summary/reflection)
ENDING THE LESSON
SEALING THE LEARNING
Reflection on Learning
Reflection after Lesson: 28 minutes and 45 seconds had passed
Student: Kiersten
Reads last page of new
book: Closes book
Teacher: Mary
Little Critters Lvl 14/127 words
“That’s it. Thanks.”
“Welcome.”
“Here you go.” Hands student
take home bag.
“What did you do that’s really
good?”
“Look through and
(when..)* couldn’t
decipher this clearly
“And you did some rereading.”
“All righty. We’ll see ya! ByeBye.”
Another example of brief reflection after Lesson:
Student: Laris
Teacher: Mary
“Did you have to read your words quickly
and tie your words together so you were thinking?”
“Yes.”
Reaches for
sticker card.
“You have to tell me what you learned first.”
What did you learn today?”
“I read.” smiles
“How?” Showed him the running record. Let’s check and
see if you did any rereading.”
Do you see any re-reading on here?” (positive tone of voice)
“No.” smiles
“So you need to work on rereading and thinking. I’ll write
that on there.” Teacher writes on her lesson plan.
Zull’s Diagram of the Learning Cycle
The Art of Changing the Brain, James Zull, p. 209
Goals Linked to Reflection
Current Goals (ZPD) on index card
Previous Goals (ZAD) on achieved chart nearby
Reflection Card-with
Caution-How do we
show students their
agency and how
working and problem
solving is what they
want to do? It has to be
the student’s desire.
Video
Emotion & Learning
How is the brain given
the opportunity to
accelerate?
• The entire brain is an organ
of emotion, and emotion ,
reason, and memory are all
linked together. The
learner is happy when he
feels in control.
• The “go” signal is the
reward.
• Taking Action
• Movement toward a goal
Zull, p. 61-65
Movement Toward a Goal
Our Language Frames Perspective
Mindset of the
child
Influenced by
Mindset of the
teacher
Shown in her
language
What is the teacher’s
language doing for
the learner?
What is the
teacher’s
language
doing for
the learner?
LANGUAGE AS A TOOL
• “The purpose of feedback is to
improve conceptual understanding
or increase strategic options while
developing stamina, resilience, and.
motivation—expanding the vision
of what is possible and how to get
there.”
Peter Johnston, 2012, Opening Minds, p. 48
• “Perhaps we should call it feedforward
rather than feedback.”
Peter Johnston, 2012, Opening Minds, p. 48
• Language/conversation that induces
Intra-psychological functioning--child
can become independent when earlier
collaboration was necessary
Vygotsky, 219 in Carol Lyons, ‘93
FLUENCY WITH HIGH
FREQUENCY WORDS OF
INCREASING COMPLEXITY:
Skill fluency
is available
for more complex,
strategic problem
solving on
Increasing text
complexity
EXAMPLE OF # WORDS LEARNED
• “Two kinds of learning must be
kept in balance…
Familiar-------------------------New
Knows what?-------------Knows how
LLDI Part 1, p. 23
WHAT TEACHER MOVES FOSTER
STRATEGIC STUDENT MOVES?
Summary of Accelerative Moves: TiGR LiST
Teaching points that motivate students to attend to errors and extend
partially correct attempts and replay successful solving actions
Goals are understood by child; teacher clearly shows how to reach
goals in text; goals are tested by student with success (must work)
Reflection occurs as a habit throughout and across lessons
Language is used as an accelerative teaching tool: spotlights problemsolving, provides clear examples and precise description of action
working for child to solve current level of errors and difficulties (closely
tied to ‘reflection’ above)
Skills from previous learning are enacted strategically and selfregulated (not tentative); energy used for more sophisticated solving
Texts chosen evolve in complexity and lift learner to expect varied
outcomes in reading books (language structure, text structure/genre)
ACCELERATION
Second Round Students: Series of Lessons
12-14 Weeks
Pre/Post
Ashton
Kai
Kiersten
Laris
Text
Level
5/20
5/20
3/20
3/20
Word
Reading
10/19
7/20
10/20
10/20
Writing
Vocab.
21/70
22/70
37/81
22/72