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  • The Power of Laura Brettle’s “Active Observation” + Hope to See You in Miami

    The Power of Laura Brettle’s “Active Observation” + Hope to See You in Miami


    “Shea, you mentioned the word “equal”…

     

    In a few weeks I’ll be in Miami with my colleague Hannah Solomon talking about techniques to Check for Understanding (There’s still room to join us: info and registration here). 

    One of the things we’ll talk about is the power of Active Observation–the idea that building systems to harvest data and observations about student thinking during independent work is one of a teacher’s most powerful tools.

    Here’s a great example of what that looks like and one reason why it can be so powerful, courtesy of Laura Brettle, a Year 6 (5th grade) teacher at Manor Way Primary in Halesowen, England.

     

    Laura starts by giving her students the task of describing the relationship between two fractions, which are equivalent.

    They’ve got two minutes to answer in a “silent solo stop and jot.” Here Laura is cue-ing a familiar routine. Whenever students think in writing it’s called a stop and jot. Having a name for it reminds them that it’s a familiar routine and familiarity is important- when a procedure is familiar to the point of routine, students can complete the task with no additional load on working memory. All their thinking is on the math, rather than the logistics of what Laura has asked them to do.

    But Laura has some great routines here too! As her students write she circulates and takes careful notes on her clipboard.  She’s able to spot students who need a bit of prompting and to take note of students whose work is exemplary. Because she has notes on what many of her students think, she’ll be able to start the discussion intentionally.

    “During the active observation,” my colleague Alonte Johnson-James noted when we watched the video with our team, “Laura monitors student thinking/writing in her first lap. As she launches into the second lap she begins to drop in feedback. First, to push a student to make their answer better and more precise. Additionally, she challenges students who might have finished early to push their thinking to identify additional equivalent fractions. She also recognizes where students struggle and uses intentional, appreciative Cold Calls of Shea and Joanna to explain how and why 5/6 and 10/12 are equivalent.”

    And of course she does that in the most appreciative of ways.

    First she asks students to track Shea: “Shea, you mentioned the word equal.”  In doing so she’s let Shea know that the Cold Call is a result of her good work– she’s done well and this is her reward. And she also tells Shea what part of her answer she wants her to talk about.  It’s a great way to honor students and make them feel seen for their hard work and to make Cold Call fell like an honor.

    But you can see that Laura’s notes were really comprehensive. She also credits Finn for using the word double in his answer too.

    Side note for one of my favorite moves–she magnifies the positive peer to peer symbol of the hand gestures students give to show they agree–“I can see people appreciating…” this helps Shea to see how much her peers approve of her good work!

    Next Laura goes to Joanna. “What I liked about your answer is that you showed the calculation…. we know it’s double but what calculation did you use?”

    Another super-positive Cold Call that makes a student feel honored for her work. And a very efficient discussion of the problem in which Jen has let students discuss the key points but avoided wasting any time.

    We often refer to this as “hunting not fishing”: while students work, Laura “hunts” for useful answers and tracks them. When she calls on students she can be ultra-strategic and efficient, rather than calling on students and “fishing” for a good answer: that is, merely hoping that they’ll have something on-point to say.

    Her simple but beautifully implemented systems for gathering data during independent work allow her to work efficiently and honor the best of student thinking.

    If you’re as inspired by Laura’s work as we are (Thank you, Laura!!) please come join us in Miami to study this and other techniques for getting the most out of your classroom!



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  • The Power of Read Aloud & Come See Us in Denver

    The Power of Read Aloud & Come See Us in Denver


    Reading aloud to students creates the music of text for them…

     

     

    In mid-March we’ll be in Denver leading a workshop on reading.

    The workshop will incorporate content for our new book, The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading.

    One of the themes of the book is bringing the text back into the center of the classroom. When we read together, from a book, during class, often aloud, we can bring the text to life and make the story compelling, we can socialize students to sustain their attention in text, we can practice fluency if students read, and model it if we read to them.

    Check out these beautiful moments of Pritesh Raichura’s science class reading aloud—excerpted from the outstanding Step Lab documentary Great Teaching Unpacked for example.

     

    Or this montage—from the book—of Spencer Davis, Will Beller, Emily DiMatteo, Jo Facer and Rob De Leon reading aloud with their classes.

     

    Read Aloud, then, is a literacy tool that shouldn’t be overlooked, even among older students, we note in The Teach Like a Champion Guide to the Science of Reading.

    Some other key benefits of doing what we see Spencer, Will, Emily, Jo and Rob doing.

    Read Aloud can be an opportunity to share in, relish, and savor the beauty of books—one of the most joyful parts of the students’ and teachers’ day. It is also more critical to building fluency and preparing students to comprehend rich, complex texts than we originally understood.

    A good Read Aloud allows students to access a text well beyond what they can read on their own, enabling them to familiarize themselves with more complex vocabulary, rhythm, and patterns of syntax.

    Read Aloud also has the benefit of speed. A teacher reading a book aloud to students can cover more ground, more quickly, than the students themselves could if they were reading on their own, especially if the text is complex and challenging. In that case, the rate of exposure to key ideas, background knowledge, rare words, and technical vocabulary is accelerated.

    Teacher Read Aloud also provides a model of fluent expressive reading for students. It helps students hear what language sounds like when read aloud with mastery and develop a mental model.

    Developing such a mental model, will not only inform how students read aloud but also how they read silently. One of the core outcomes we seek as reading teachers is a sort of cognitive afterimage in our students when they read silently. We want their internal reading voice to be characterized by expression and prosody that bring the book to life during independent reading, thus enhancing meaning and perhaps pleasure.

    Some details that we love about the clips in the montage.

    • 90/110: Good read aloud is of done at 90% of your natural pace—providing students a bit more room to hear and process the words and information clearly but not so slow as to lose the story—and 110% expression—to build that mental model of expressive meaning making. You can hear that for sure in all of the clips
    • Check for Attention: We want students locked in and listening and often reading aloud themselves. So it’s important that they have texts out and are following along. Quick call and response checks that they are with you can help. Spencer, for example, pauses to say “We were specifically told….” And students respond “not to go past,” proving they are locked in. Rob does something similar
    • Circulate as you read: This lets you get near to students to observe them more closely and interact with them subtly if they need direction. It also somehow makes the reading a bit more dynamic.
    • Feed knowledge: Emily very quickly explains that the phrase “in league” means “teamed up with.” Jo asks students to clarify who ‘her father’ was in Othello’s soliloquy.
    • Shape Attention. It’s often helpful to give students something to “look for” such as “be on the look out for ways in which Squealer is scapegoating Snowball.”

     

    We’ll spend two days “close reading” dozens more videos of teachers in action at the Reading workshop in Denver. Come join us!  Details here: https://teachlikeachampion.org/readingreconsidered/mar2025

     



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