City School Stories

Notes from the Field
Submitted by Frank Murphy, December 7, 2010

In recent days, principals and school-based instructional support teachers have received instructions from representatives of the school district’s central administration on how to explain to teachers the “mid course corrections” to the instructional programs at Empowerment Schools and Promise Academies.

District officials claim that these changes are being initiated in response to the requests of classroom teachers. Since training for the new literacy programs were instituted at school sites, teachers at professional development sessions have complained about the lack of time allocated for writing instruction. (Currently only fifteen minutes is scheduled). Teachers have also been insistent on voicing their dissatisfaction concerning the elimination of any opportunity for small group guided reading instruction. In response to these concerns, the central administration has decided to implement all components of the Glencoe and Imagine It basal reading programs in their entirety.

Now teachers will be expected to utilize a full complement of scripted materials during a 120-minute literacy block for Imagine It and a 90-minute block for Glencoe.
Time will be allocated for small group instruction during these reformatted literacy blocks. Teachers are being directed to not refer to this small group work as guided reading. District officials claim that test scores have not increased sufficiently using guided reading; therefore it is an ineffective instructional approach. This does seem to make sense, since the purpose of guided reading instruction is to assist students to develop higher level reading comprehension skills, not to tweak test scores.

Instead, teachers will follow the book companies’ designs for small group instruction: the reteaching of specific isolated skills that were taught in whole class lessons. In this format, students will continue to be organized into fixed homogenous groups for instructional purposes. They will be led through a prescribed series of lessons by the teacher. This is quite different than what teachers do when they conduct a small group guided reading lesson.

In guided reading lessons, teachers:
• place students in instructional groups that are flexible and will change in response to student performance and contextual significance;
• choose texts from a variety of sources that are at the appropriate instructional level for the students;
• tailor lessons to the instructional needs of individual students;
• continuously and carefully evaluate students’ skill acquisition using a variety of informal and formal assessment tools.

This approach to small group work is specifically geared to differentiate and individualize instruction. Struggling students receive additional practice tailored to their unique situational needs. Students who demonstrate grade level proficiency are able to move along at a pace that is appropriate for them. Teachers can accelerate and enrich instruction for children who require more advanced challenges. Groupings of students will shift regularly in response to individual student responses and changing needs.

Effective instructors cannot adequately differentiate instruction when they are required to follow a prescribed, sequential, lock-step approach to meeting student needs. The scripted programs they are being asked to implement, involve writing activities and small group lessons that are as rigidly controlled and limiting as the whole-class activities.

To say that the district leadership is responding to concerns expressed by teachers at professional development sessions is more than a little misleading. Being provided with the time and materials that would allow them to address the reading and writing needs of individual students, was what teachers sought. Eliminating guided reading in favor of re-teaching scripted lessons in small groups, replacing learning centers with isolated skill and drill worksheets in independent group activities, and abandoning writer’s workshop to now implement writing lessons focused on discrete skill instruction: these are not what teachers requested.

Teachers should be careful about what they wish for, as this administrative response illustrates.