This webinar presented by Jessica Bianculli, will discuss how to build a foundation for rigorous instruction—specifically, what systems need to be in place to support student academic success. Participants will discuss: The need for a consistent, school-wide instructional model The emphasis on building knowledge across disciplines with a focus on informational text How direct instruction of academic vocabulary can increase student comprehension of rigorous text

1. Jessica Bianculli
BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR
RIGOROUS ELA INSTRUCTION

2. Poll
 Where are you joining from?
• NE
• SE
• South
• Mid-West
• NW
• SW
• Other?
 What’s your role?
• Teacher
• Principal
• “District” Administration
• Instructional Coach
• Other?
2

3. Agenda
Discuss 3 building blocks for rigorous ELA instruction:
1. A consistent instructional model across all content areas
and grade levels
2. The inclusion of complex, informational text
3. Explicit and systematic academic vocabulary instruction
3

4. What Works in Schools
Marzano, 2003
Average student - 50th percentile
2 years highly ineffective teaching
Performance drops to 3rd percentile
Average student - 50th percentile
2 years highly effective teaching
Performance rises to 96th percentile
4

5. Poll
 What are these “highly effective” teachers doing?
5

6. Consider This Question
Walk through the hallways of any school and you
will see there is teaching going on … but, how do
we know if there is learning going on?

7. Which time is most prevalent in
your classroom?
• Allocated Time
• Engaged Time
• Academic Learning Time

8. Recipe for Student Success
1. Allocated Time – how much time will you spend on
a lesson?
2. Engaged Time –are students paying attention to
teacher input and/or participating in a learning
activity?
3. Academic Learning Time – 1,2 and is the student
successfully completing the task at hand?
Improve Teaching By Increasing Academic Learning Time
(1979) Fisher, Marliave,& Filby
Education Leardership - ASCD

9. Academic Learning Time (ALT) Critical Attributes
1. Students know and understand the lesson objective.
2. Students actively manipulate content in relation to lesson objective.
3. During this active manipulation, students are experiencing a 75–95%
success rate.
 Because of the time allocated for actual teaching in a school day,
teachers must utilize time most efficiently by ensuring Academic
Learning Time is always present.
 This applies in all grade levels and content areas.
9

10. ARK
TIP
SAP
ISS
Anatomy of a Lesson
10

11. ARK
TIP
SAP
ISS
Activate Relevant Knowledge
Anatomy of a Lesson
11

12. ARK
TIP
SAP
ISS
Teacher Input
Anatomy of a Lesson
12

13. ARK
TIP
SAP
ISS
Student Active Participation
Anatomy of a Lesson
13

14. ARK
TIP
SAP
ISS
Independent Student Success
Anatomy of a Lesson
14

15. ARK
TIP
SAP
ISS
Anatomy of Lesson
15

16. ARK
Understand Lesson Objective
•Activate and Assess Relevant Knowledge.
•Augment if necessary.
•Show relevance through an essential question.
16

17. ARK
TIP
SAP
ISS
Student Active
Participation
45%
Anatomy of a Lesson
Teacher Input:
20%
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18. Gradual Release of Responsibility
TO WITH BY
Modeled
Share
d
Guided
Independe
ntTeacher
Student
Mooney, 1990Pearson and Gallagher, 1983
(I do, you watch)
(I do, you help)
(You do, I help)
(You do, I watch)
Model Shared Guided Independent
18

19. A Dance . . . Gradual Release of Responsibility
19

20. A Dance . . . Gradual Release of Responsibility
ME
 What does this look like, sound like in an ELA classroom?
 During Modeled reading, the teacher does all
reading. She models good reading while periodically
stopping to “think aloud” and model good
strategies/skills
20

21. A Dance . . . Gradual Release of Responsibility
21

22. A Dance . . . Gradual Release of Responsibility
 What does this look like, sound like in an ELA classroom?
 Shared Reading (I do, you help) – The teacher reads
the text and provides instruction in skills/strategies,
but also ask students to try these strategies/skills on
the shared reading text.
22

23. A Dance . . . Gradual Release of Responsibility
TWO
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24. A Dance . . . Gradual Release of Responsibility
TWO
 What does this look like, sound like in an ELA classroom?
 Guided Reading/ Writing (You do , I help) – Students
are now asked to practice strategies/skills learned in
a “coaching” setting. The child does most of the
work and the teacher sits back and coaches when
necessary
24

25. A Dance . . . Gradual Release of Responsibility
25

26. A Dance . . . Gradual Release of Responsibility
 What does this look like, sound like in an ELA classroom?
 Independent Reading/ Writing (You do, I watch) –
The students show us what they can do and control
independently. They read the entire selection on
their own and use skills and strategies on their own
without assistance from the teacher
26

27. Identify Student
Success
Students:
• Identify what they
have learned
• Explain process they
used to learn
• Discuss how they can
use what they learned
• Identify what they
want more information
about
•Show evidence of
learning
27

28. Reflection Question
 How can a consistent school-wide instructional model like
Anatomy of a Lesson help increase Academic Learning
Time?
28

29. RIGOROUS ELA INSTRUCTION:
COMPLEX, INFORMATIONAL TEXT
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30. Reading Emphasis
Grade Literary Informational
4 50% 50%
8 45% 55%
12 30% 70%
Distribution of Literary and Informational Passages
by Grade in the 2011 NAEP Reading Framework
Source: http://www.nagb.org/content/nagb/assets/documents/publications/frameworks/reading-2011-
framework.pdf

31. The Importance of Complex Text
According to ACT’s Reading Between
the Lines, “what appears to
differentiate those who are more likely
to be ready from those who are less
likely is their proficiency in
understanding complex texts.”
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32. The Challenge of Challenging Text
 “When teachers understand what makes texts complex,
they can better support their students in reading them.”
 What Makes Text Complex?
1. Vocabulary
2. Sentence Structure
3. Coherence
4. Organization
5. Background Knowledge
Timothy Shanahan, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
2012
32

33. Text Complexity
Consider Text Complexity:
Choosing the Right Texts to Read!
1. Can students read the text? (Quantitative)
2. Should students read the text?
(Qualitative)
3. Do students want to read the text
(Reader) and does the text contribute to
coherence of knowledge and
understanding (Task)?

34. 1. Can students read the text?
Measures such as:
• Word length
• Word frequency
• Word difficulty
• Sentence length
• Text length
• Text cohesion
Quantitative Measures
Adapted from Kansas Common Core Standards
BEST MEASURED BY
COMPUTER SOFTWARE

35. A Cautionary Note
 While knowing the Lexile score for the books you intend to use in your
classroom, you should understand that Lexiles (or other readability
measures) don’t really tell us everything about a book.
 Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
occupy the same Lexile band.
• The Lexile scores are 950 and 890.
 The MetaMetrics website offers this disclaimer which we should heed:
"Many other factors affect the relationship between a reader and a
book, including its content, the age and interests of the reader, and the
design of the actual book. The Lexile text measure is a good starting
point in the book-selection process, with these other factors then being
considered."

36. Qualitative Measures
Measures such as:
• Levels of meaning
• Levels of purpose
• Structure
• Organization
• Language conventionality
• Language clarity
• Prior knowledge demands
Adapted from Kansas Common Core Standards
2. Should students read the text?

37. 3. Do students want to read the text?
37
Reader and Task
Considerations such as:
• Motivation
• Knowledge and experience
• Purpose for reading
• Complexity of task assigned
regarding text
• Complexity of questions asked
regarding text
Adapted from Kansas Common Core Standards
BEST MEASURED BY
EDUCATORS’ PROFESSIONAL
JUDGMENT

38. Points of Entry
 “Teachers need to help students find access points that
enable them to gain entry to complex informational text
and then trek their way through to a successful conclusion.”
Four access points are:
1. Establishment of the purpose by modeling and thinking aloud.
2. Close reading instruction.
3. Collaborative conversations.
4. Independent reading.
November 2013 | Volume 71 | Number 3
Tackling Informational Text Pages 34-38
Points of Entry
Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher
38

39. Points of Entry
 “Teachers need to help students find access points that
enable them to gain entry to complex informational text
and then trek their way through to a successful conclusion.
Four access points are:
1. Establishment of the purpose by modeling and thinking aloud.
ARK/TIP
2. Close reading instruction.
TIP/SAP
1. Collaborative conversations.
SAP
1. Independent reading.
SAP/ISS
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40. William Faulkner was once asked to give
his advice to readers of his fiction who
couldn’t understand it even after reading
it three times.
Faulkner’s advice: “Read it four times.”

41. RIGOROUS ELA INSTRUCTION:
ACADEMIC VOCABULARY
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42. Vocabulary Quiz
1. How many words does the average student have in his/her spoken
vocabulary at the start of 1st grade?
6,000
2. True or False: Direct vocabulary instruction focused on essential academic
terms leads to an average improvement of 33 percentile points on
subject area tests.
True
3. Students need to have a vocabulary of approximately __ words by the time
they graduate from high school.
84,000
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43. Reflect
 How do you decide which words to teach?
 What criteria do you use for selection?
43

44. Tiered Vocabulary Model
Tier 3 Words
Tier 2 Words
Tier 1 Words
Domain-specific
words
General academic
words
Words of everyday
speech
Bringing Words to Life, Second Edition: Robust Vocabulary Instruction.
(2013) Beck, Isabel L., McKeown, Margaret G., Kucan, Linda.

45. Word Sort
Sort the following words into three tiers.
melancholy school antiderivative
osmosis endothermic benevolent
happy
inevitable

46. Word Sort
melancholy
school
osmosis
endothermic
benevolent
antiderivative
happy
inevitable
Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3

47. Repeatability
Important Considerations for Choosing Words
47
Representative

48. Careful. . .
48

49. Key Findings from Vocabulary Research
 Vocabulary instruction has the greatest effect when it focuses
on a reasonable number or important academic terms rather
than on high-frequency word lists (Marzano, 2004).
 Developing anything more than a superficial understanding of
new terms requires multiple exposures to the terms (Jenkins,
Stein, & Wysocki, 1984).
 Understanding and retention improve when students
interact with words in a variety of ways ( Beck, McKeown, &
Kucan, 2002).
 Students need opportunities to think deeply about new
words using thinking strategies like comparison, metaphors,
and nonlinguistic representation (Marzano, 2004).
From The Core Six: Essential Strategies for Achieving Excellence with the Common Core (2012) by Silver,
Dewing, & Perini
49

50. Reflection Question
How does this vocabulary research connect to Anatomy of a
Lesson?
How does this vocabulary research support student success
with informational text?
50

51. Agenda
Discuss 3 building blocks for rigorous ELA instruction:
 A consistent instructional model across all content areas
and grade levels
 The inclusion of complex, informational text
 Explicit and systematic academic vocabulary instruction
51

52. 52
Thank you for your participation!