Teaching Literacy in the Visible Learning Classroom, Grades 6-12

It could happen at 10:10 a.m. in the midst of analysing a text, at 2:00, when listening to a students’ debate, or even after class, when planning a lesson. The question arises: How do I influence students’ learning–what’s going to generate that light bulb Aha-moment of understanding?

In this sequel to their megawatt best seller Visible Learning for Literacy, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie help you answer that question by sharing structures and tools that have high-impact on learning, and insights on which stage of learning they have that high impact.

With their expert lessons, video clips, and online resources, you can design reading and writing experiences that foster in your students deeper and more sophisticated expressions of literacy:

• Mobilising Visible Learning: Use lesson design strategies based on research that included 500 million plus students to develop self-regulating learners able to “see” the purpose of what they are learning—and their own progress.
• Teacher Clarity: Articulate daily learning intentions, success criteria, and other goals; understand what your learners understand, and design high-potency experiences for all students.
• Direct Instruction: Embrace modelling and scaffolding as a critical pathway for students to learn new skills and concepts.
• Teacher-Led Dialogic Instruction: Guide reading, writing, listening, speaking, and thinking by using strategic questioning and other teacher-led discussion techniques to help learners to clarify thinking, discuss, debate, and goal-set.
• Student-Led Dialogic Learning: Promote intellectual, social, and creative growth with peer-mediated learning experiences that transfer to other subject areas, including history, science, math, and the visual and performing arts.
• Independent Learning: Ensure that students deepen learning by designing relevant tasks that enable them to think metacognitively, set goals, and develop self-regulatory skills.
• Tools to Use to Determine Literacy Impact: Know what your impact truly is with these research-based formative assessments for 6-12 learners.

With Teaching Literacy in the Visible Learning Classroom, take your students from surface to deep to transfer learning. It’s all about using the most effective practices—and knowing WHEN those practices are best leveraged to maximise student learning.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Mobilizing Visible Learning for Literacy

• Visible Learning for Literacy
• Components of Effective Literacy Learning
• Adolescent Literacy: Reading
• Adolescent Literacy: Reading
• Knowledge of How Students Learn
• Developmental View of Learning
• Meaningful Experiences and Social INteraction
• Surface, Deep, and Transfer of Learning
• What Students Need
• Scheduling Instructional Time
• Time Orgainzation
• Across a Week
• Spotlight on Three Teachers
• Conclusion

Chapter 2: Teacher Clarity

• Understanding Expectations in Standards
• Learning Intentions in Literacy
• Student Ownership of Learning Intentions
• Connecting Learning INtentions to Prior Knowledge
• Make Learning Intentions Inviting and Engaging
• Social Learning Intentions
• Success Critieria in Literacy
• Success Criteria are Crucial for Motivation
• Conclusion

Chapter 3: Direct Instruction

• Relevance
• Teacher Modeling
• Pair with Think-Alouds
• The I and Why of Think Alouds
• Students Should Think Aloud, Too
• Checking for Understanding
• Use Questions to Probe Student Thinking
• Guided Instruction
• Formative Evaluation During Guided Instruction
• Independent Learning
• Fluency Building
• Application
• Spiral Review
• Extension
• Closure
• Conclusion

Chapter 4: Teacher-Led Dialogic Instruction

• Effective Talk, Not Just Any Talk
• Foster Deep Learning and Transfer
• Listen Carefully
• Facilitate and Guide Discussion
• Teacher-Led Tools For Dialogic Instruction
• Anticipation Guides
• Pinwheel Discussions
• Opinion Stations
• Close and Critical Reading
• Scaffolded Reading with Small Groups
• Conclusion

Chapter 5: Student-Led Dialogic Learning

• Student-led Dialogic Learning
• The Social and Behavioral Benefits of Peer Assisted Learning
• Fostering Collaborative Discussions
• Teach Students to Develop Their Own Questions
• Student-Led Tools for Dialogic Learning
• Fishbowl
• Gallery Walks
• Book Clubs
• Readers Theatre
• Reciprocal Teaching
• Peer Tutoring
• Conclusion

Chapter 6: Independent Learning

• Reading Conferences
• Finding Flow
• Learning Words Independently
• Independently Working with Words
• Building Fluent Readers
• Independent Writing
• Power Writing
• Extended Writing Prompts
• Big Ideas about Independent Learning
• Does it Promote Metacognition
• Does it Promote Goal-setting?
• Does it Promote Self-regulation?
• Conclusion

Chapter 7: Tools to Use in Determining Literacy Impact

• Do You Know Your Impact?
• Do You Know your Collective Impact?
• Assessing Background Knowledge
• Informal Reading Inventories
• Reading Fluency
• Metacomprhension Strategies Index (MSI)
• Assessing Attitudes Toward Reading
• Assessing Writing
• Assessing Writing Fluency
• Assessing Spelling
• Assessing Writing Holistically
• Literacy Design Collaborative Student Work Rubrics
• Why Assess? Know Your Impact
• Conclusion

Compendium of Assessments

• Compendium 1. Cloze Passage
• Compendium 2. Sample close procedure answer key
• Compendium 3. Sample vocabulary matching assessment for literary devices
• Compendium 4. Metacomprehension Strategy Index student form
• Compendium 5. Metacomprehension Strategies index administration and scoring directions
• Compendium 6. Reader Sefl-Perception Scale 2 Student Response Sheet
• Compendium 7. Reader Self-Perception Scale 2 Administration and Scoring Directions
• Compendium 8. Class record of writing fluency
• Compendium 9. Developmental Spelling Analysis Screeining Inventory
• Compendium 10. Developmental Spelling Analysis Screening Inventory

References

Appendix