It's Always the Toughest Kids

It’s kind of a universal truth in teaching that the kids who make you work the hardest are the ones you love the best.  Maybe it’s true of anything in life.  When I look back on my teaching career, it’s the Keishas, the Matts and the Ivans that stick out; the one who didn't know the alphabet in fourth grade, the brilliant bully, the one who joined MS-13.  

I have a student this year who’s been challenging me for a year and a half now.  We’ll call her Maria.  When I started working with her, she was a fourth grader reading at a first grade level.  She’s now halfway through fifth grade, and she’s reading at a third grade level.  At first that seems like good progress, but she’ll never catch up at this rate.  The problem is she hates to read.  She doesn't read in class, because the books she can read look too babyish for a fifth grader.  When her teacher insists she read, she becomes disrespectful and sometimes oppositional.  She's often mean to other kids, because she'd rather get in trouble than look dumb in front of her peers.  

Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet to cure struggling readers.  The most effective way to become a better reader is read more.  However, if a student has struggled through six years of schooling, they usually start to give up around fifth grade.  Nobody likes to do things they can’t do well.  Maria is no different.  This is when teachers and reading specialists have to get tricky.  I am constantly working to make sure Maria has books she can read at her disposal.  She loves pandas, so anything with a panda in it goes in her book box.  I use a lot of non-fiction because you can’t necessarily determine the reading level by looking at the cover, good for judgmental ten-year-olds. 

  

And thank goodness for Hi-Lo books, designed for struggling readers, they feature high interest topics at a low reading level.  Some like the Mallory books by Laurie Friedman, The Magic Treehouse and A-Z Mysteries are available anywhere.  While they look like more mature texts, the reading level is about second or third grade.  Unfortunately, the characters in the books are generally also in second or third grade, not always appealing to an older student.  Dick King-Smith and Sue Bentley solve this problem by writing primarily about animals.  King-Smith is the author of Babe: The Gallant Pig, as well as a host of other engaging animal tales at an easy reading level.  Similarly, The Magic Puppy and Magic Kitten series are focused more on the animals than the age of the characters.   

The best Hi-Lo books, though, come from specialty publishers.  These companies create books specifically to be used to teach reading in schools.  Usually, they can be ordered by parents as well.  The books are expensive, but worth it for a struggling readers.  My favorite company is Sundance Publishing.  They have three great series for struggling readers.  The easiest are the Sparklers series. They are goofy books, organized in chapters, with great picture support.  They also have a character list, a map of the setting and a glossary to aid in comprehension.  Slightly harder are the Supa Doopers, and for non-fiction, they have That’s Wild.  Kids love them.  The Wright Group publishes a series called the Woodland Mysteries.  These are nice, chunky books that look respectable for a 5^th grader, but the reading level is about the end of second grade.  They have picture support and predictable plots.  HIP Books and High Noon Books are two other companies that specialize in Hi-Lo texts.  In each case, the books are designed to deal with issues faced by older kids.  They have older characters, but the text is simple enough for a struggling reader to be successful. 

 

Hi-Lo Books for Struggling Readers

Sparklers – Sundance Publishing

Woodland Mysteries – The Wright Group

Scoop Doogan Mysteries – High Noon Books

Bats Mystery Series – HIP Books

Bailey School Kids by Debbie Dadey

Babe by Dick King Smith

Mallory Series by Laurie Friedman

A-Z Mysteries by Ron Roy

Cam Jansen Mysteries by David Adler

Jigsaw Jones by James Preller

Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osbourne

Magic Puppy by Sue Bentley

Where's the Multi-Culturalism

One of our student teachers came by my office this week, looking for help with a paper she’s writing.  Her thesis is that kids will be more engaged with reading if the protagonists in their books are of the same race.  She’s right.  Unfortunately, she was trying to prove that the books are out there, if we just look.  That’s where her argument falls apart.  I spent $13,000 on books for our book room last year, and one of my goals was to find books with minority protagonists.  It’s not as difficult in upper elementary books, or if you are looking for African American or Asian characters.  However, if you want easy texts or Hispanic or Middle Eastern characters, you’re almost out of luck.  In a school like mine, that’s 75% Hispanic, that’s a problem. 

There are a few bright lights on the horizon, and if it’s out there, it’s in my book room.  If you are reading about the Civil War or the Civil Rights Movement, you can find a number of texts about African Americans.  I love A Picture of Freedom, Martin’s Big Words, Goin’ Someplace Special, and Barefoot.  However, not all kids can relate to historical fiction or biography.  We need books with contemporary settings and real kids.  The Stories Julian Tells is a beautifully written book at about a 3^rd grade reading level, and it’s now a series.  Another, that I discovered last May, is Darnell Rock, Reporting.  It’s perfect for a reluctant 5^th or 6^th grade reader.  Darnell isn’t particularly into school, until he is heavily encouraged by the principal to join the school newspaper.  It turns out he’s quite passionate about homelessness in his community.  There’s also Amazing Grace, a picture book about a little girl determined to play Peter Pan, even though she’s black and a girl.  I’d also recommend almost anything by Jacqueline Woodson and Candy Dawson Boyd, but they are geared towards upper elementary students.  There are a few publishers that specialize in guided reading books, and have some African American characters at a first grade level.  Rigby offers Matthew and Emma, a set of twins, and the very athletic Jordan.  However, you’d probably have to buy them in sets of six.

Of the thirty or so kids I see a day, about 90% are Hispanic, and I frequently find myself looking for books like Salsa Stories. It features a Latino family gathering for the holidays, and the oldest daughter begins collecting family stories.  My students enjoyed the Spanish words sprinkled throughout the text.  Pam Munoz Ryan has two wonderful books with Latina protagonists, Becoming Naomi Leon and Esperanza Rising, about a girl who becomes a migrant worker after her rich father is killed in Mexico.  Both are difficult reads, though.  Gary Soto is a prolific Hispanic author who’s written some wonderful books, like Too Many Tamales and The Skirt.  Tomas and the Library Lady and I love Saturdays y Domingos are excellent picture books.  The latter is about a young girl who spends Saturdays with her English speaking grandparents and Domingos with her Spanish speaking abuelos.  Unfortunately, that’s about it, unless you want a biography of Pele or Cesar Chavez. 

When kids see themselves reflected in their books, they are more likely to read; and the more they read, the more invested they become in school.  I suspect that the lack of minority protagonists in the canon, contributes to the documented achievement gap between minority students and their white counterparts.  Until we can create a truly multi-cultural world view, our kids will continue to suffer the consequences. 

Books with Minority Protagonists

The Watson’s Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King by Doreen Rappaport

A Picture of Freedom by Patricia McKissack

Goin’ Someplace Special by Patricia McKissack

The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson

Barefoot: Escape on the Underground Railroad by Pamela Duncan Edwards

The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron

The Circle of Gold by Candy Dawson Boyd

Darnell Rock Reporting by Walter Dean Myers

Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman

The Skirt by Gary Soto

Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto

Salsa Stories by Lulu Delacre

Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan

Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan

Tomas and the Library Lady by Pat Mora

I Love Saturdays y Domingos by Alma Flor Ada

Going Home by Eve Bunting

Pele, King of Soccer/El Rey de Futbol by Monica Brown

Books vs Video Games

It is a constant and unfortunate truth, that most of the children I work with prefer video games to books.  Books are low tech, they don’t talk back to you, they aren’t wifi ready, and they’re usually non-competitive.  So how do we make books as exciting for our kids as a video game?  We have to create reading experiences that are interactive.  Whenever or whatever we are reading with our children, we should ask questions, make predictions and laugh at the funny parts.  The most effective way to do this is at the turn of the page.  Ask, “What’s going to happen next?”  “Why’d he do that?”  “Will Pigeon share his hotdog?”  Reading engagement happens in the brain; it’s not visible and it’s not always innate.  We have to model our thinking for our kids, because good readers make meaning as they read.

While we can talk with kids about any book, some books are more interactive than others.  Rhyming and pattern books are perfect examples.  I love Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood.  “I’m as quick as a cricket.  I’m as slow as a snail.  I’m as small as an ant.” Stop here.  Don’t turn the page yet.  Say, “I’m as  . . .” and let the kids predict the opposite and the rhyming word – “I’m as big as a whale.”  Lift the flaps books are also excellent choices for little kids, like Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.  A child writes a letter to the zoo asking for a pet.  We can predict what animal arrives based on the size of the box and the preceding text. 

My niece received a great book for Christmas, and it wasn’t even from me.  I gave her princess books, but her Uncle Tom gave her Press Here by Herve Tullet.  Each page has an instruction, like “Press the yellow dot.”  The next page shows the effect of following that instruction – the yellow dot turns blue.  Bella literally jumped up and down while I was reading it to her, because she was so excited to see what would happen next.  Upon finishing, we had to immediately start it again.  Books written with second person narration, like Mo Willems Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and If You Decide to Go to the Moon, also make kids think they are part of the story. 

For bigger kids, interactivity becomes more challenging, but Choose Your Own Adventures have been around for ages.  And kids still love them.  The more high tech version is The 39 Clues series.  Each book is written by a different, famous author and each comes with 6 playing cards that help kids figure out the clues.  The website allows fans of the books to search for clues along with the main characters, Amy and Dan.  Book series and author websites are becoming part of social media, as authors ask fans for plot suggestions and input on upcoming texts.  I hope books never become completely obsolete, but as the line between books and video games narrows, we have to remember that reading is reading no matter the format. 

 

Interactive Books

Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood

Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems

If You Decide to go to the Moon by Faith Mcnulty

King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub by Audrey Wood

The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

Where is Baby’s Belly Button by Karen Katz

Where’s Spot by Eric Hill

Press Here by Herve Tullet

The Dinosaur Museum by Sebastian Quigley

Choose Your Own Adventure by R. A. Montgomery

The 39 Clues by Rick Riordan and others

The Amanda Project by Amanda Valentino (This is a Young Adult series)