LLI

LLI Questions/Wonderings

1. How can we best us the Bechmark Assessment System (BAS) in conjunction with LLI? 2. What pieces of LLI are flexible and which pieces are nonnegotiable? 3. How is Meli feeling? :) 4. What is suggested to do with students in the Green and Blue systems who need more than 10 lessons at a given level? 5. How was the word work portion of the lessons developed? Does it follow a systematic scope and sequence? 6. I would love to know how they recommend dealing with Reading Records that run long, sometimes MUCH longer than the recommended 5 minutes. Sometimes kids are just slow to read and process, but most of the time I run over on the levels past 18 or so... There is just so much to read and then lots of questions to get through. Curious to see if they feel like the reading record should be cut short or some part of the lesson.

__**Day 1 Treasures of Fountas & Pinnell LLI Training:**__ - LLI research proves that it closes the gap...8 months of progress in 4 months time (even with ESL, sped and economically disadvantaged students). - LLI requires 30 minutes of instruction time (kids actually working) per day for 5 days a week to close the gap. - Classroom teacher should be a STRONG partner for intervention. Both the classroom teacher and reading specialist should get credit/be responsible for a child's progress. - We can predict a date that a child will exit LLI based on the reading level and date of entry. - It is essential to do all parts of the lesson. - Reflective question: What have I taught children to do today that they can do for themselves on another book? We are not teaching words or teaching a book, we are teaching problem solving skills that can be applied to reading a variety of texts. - Comprehension is more that recall (a retell), but it's thinking within, beyond and about the text. - What about kids who read slow, walk slow, talk slow...? Teach these students to work at the speed of everyone else. Don't let kids drag or be passive, or they will always appear to be unskilled. - Decision making during teaching is the key! Good books without a change in teaching does no good! - Getting a book on Monday and keeping it all week is PRINT STARVATION! - What about reading records that take longer than 5 minutes?
 * Get kids reading fluently! Don't allow them to have more than one day of disfluent reading on a text. "You can't read like that. Your reading needs to sound like this... Try it! No, like this...try it..." Until they read in phrases.
 * Do not take too much time for teaching points!
 * Don't have to read the whole book, ok to sample 100 words. Don't have to have conversations regarding all of the comprehension questions. Get the information you need on the child, and move on. You will be getting additional information on this child every day (how they process, self correct, etc)!

__**Day 2 Treasures of Fountas & Pinnell LLI Training:**__ - Engagement is a huge factor in motivation...this is why the series books were created. - Going slowly through books decreases engagement. We need kids to gobble up texts. Volume counts! It is imperative for kids to read a lot. For struggling students, we need to build the volume of texts (books, not word lists/cards) read. - The purpose of writing in LLI is moving from reading to thinking to putting those thoughts and ideas down on paper. - Before students re-read their own writing, the writing should be correct (spelling). We don't want students practicing reading words that are misspelled. - Consistency in the verbal path of writing (how to make a letter shape) should be consistent between the classroom and the intervention (should match handwriting curriculum). - It is important for LLI teachers to have classroom colleagues come watch lessons. Collaboration is essential. Take the time to discuss adjustments to be made during instruction. - Students need to take our pace, not us taking their pace. Students who are slow, speed them up! Don't rush, but have an appropriate pace. - If you lose time in the lesson, gain it somewhere else. Lessons should not take more than one day! - When writing, don't use the book as a reference. We don't want to teach students to copy, we want them to have a strategy for writing...listen for sounds you hear and write...does it look right... - Poems in Poetry Books are from "Sing a Song of Poetry" by Fountas & Pinnell. - Video reflections are strongly recommended. The CD contains "reflection guides" for odd and even lessons to allow a teacher to self-reflect. Teachers are even encouraged to watch each other's videos...not for the purpose of evaluating, but for the purpose of learning differently about teaching (like teaching behind the glass). Don't be intimidated, none of us teach perfect lessons! - During LLI, corrective words (don't, stop, no, etc) should not be used. Engage students in a different way...call for action in the brain! - The purpose of the reading record is to dig deeper and look for patterns...to help the teacher make instructional decisions througout the lesson. Teaching an LLI lesson is a breeze, but once you get to know parts and flow of the lesson, we need to perfect our decision making! Reading records are gold to help us know what to do next...diagnostic teaching! - When you do a follow-up running record on any student, a teacher should always compare to the previous record and ask the question, "What were the effects of my teaching?" If the record looks virtually the same, the teacher should ask the question, "Has my teaching been effective?"

__**Day 3 Treasures of Fountas & Pinnell LLI Training:**__ - Principles for Powerful Teaching - Teachers and students should look forward to benchmark assessments because you get to know kids as readers. Benchmark data is old news in 4 weeks...now what? BAS isn't as good as doing analysis on instructional text from the day before. BAS is generally over-used...use it to get the information you need, then put it away! - Most children won't need the Getting Started Lessons. It is not for the purpose of establishing routines, it is a "pre-A" set of lessons. - Don't let kids go to level B unless they have one-to-one match. - Red, Gold, Purple and Teal LLI kits will take readers through level Z. Red will be available for a preview spring 2012 and ready for classroom use fall 2012. The lesson structure of these kits will be different (45 minutes, 4 kids per group, heavy emphasis on vocabulary and comprehension, 60%NF/40%F texts, use of paired texts). - If you have LLI and haven't use the data management CD, make that a professional goal. - LLI teachers should read the program guide from beginning to end. - Using "When Readers Struggle" as a professional development tool is key. - It is highly recommended that teachers use flip cameras to self-assess. Teachers are also encouraged to take turns sharing lessons and thinking together. We must take time to be reflective.
 * 1) Notice a student's precise reading and writing behaviors (knowing a reading level or that a child can write a sentence isn't enough).
 * 2) Eliminate ineffective behaviors and replace them with effective behaviors (Sam, when you come to a word you don't know, you look at me and that's not going to help you. Here's what you can do instead...) STOP DISFLUENT READING!!!
 * 3) Select a text on which the student can learn. Teachers have to start where students are and move forward. Texts need to support new learning.
 * 4) Teach the reader, not the text! Teach for thinking, problem-solving and strategic actions that will apply to all texts.
 * 5) Teach the student to read written language, not words. Attending to one word at a time loses meaning. Don't allow students to read texts like they're reading a list or pile or words. When a child reads fluently, there is a strong correlation to comprehension. Everything is about fluency...NOT RATE, but fluency! Reading in phrases takes care of rate. Teach phrase reading. Phrases are the building blocks of sentences.
 * 6) Teach for the student to initiate problem-solving actions so they will become independent and take over the process. Kids are passive and slow because we let them be that way.
 * 7) Only ask the student to do what you know he can do. Build confidence by teaching the child explicitly to do things. When you want to "see" if they can do it, you're in testing mode, not teaching mode.
 * 8) Don't clutter teaching with too much teacher talk.
 * 9) Focus on self-monitoring, self-initiating, self-regulating behaviors.
 * 10) Build on examples of successful processing. Find what they do well, point it out and ask them to try it again on another page where an error was made.
 * 11) Teach for fluent processing and responding.
 * 12) Don't do for the student what he can do for himself.