A Teacher's Work is Never Done & "Ask Me 3"

I woke up at 4:30AM this morning and by 5:00AM, I was sipping coffee and online, prepping for the new academic year.

Tentatively, I am scheduled to teach (1) Grade 10 and (4) Grade 11 reading courses.

I'm utilizing the New York Times Learning Annex and seeking current events in the U.S. and around the world that infuse ACT/SAT level vocabulary that students can elaborate and extrapolate.

So far, the articles this past week have been rich with tier 2 words- but I am still finding it a challenge to choose the ONE word that is most likely to show up on a high stakes test that I can take beyond the definition.

For years now, the directive has been to deviate from using classroom dictionaries and thesaurus in the classroom but up until recently, I did not FULLY embrace or even support this movement.

The research seems to support that the best way to build vocabulary knowledge is NOT via definitions (words based on definitions) but that the word knowledge MUST be constructed as networks of personal connections and useful associations. (Isabel Beck et. al).

This poses a challenge to teachers planning their content - based lessons because textbooks generally do not provide more than a glossary or a content-specific definition that students see emboldened within the context of the lesson and possibly footnoted (at the bottom of the page) with a dictionary - style definition.

I considered dividing lesson vocabulary into three tiers; tier 1, 2 and 3 and then focusing primarily on tier two words (words that represent mature language- the mostly unknown words that require explicit instruction) but until I evaluate and get to know my student's data, there simply is no way, right now, for me to know how much time I will need to spend on reviewing or explicitly teaching tier 1 words (basic words heard frequently in numerous contexts)... I say this because according to researchers, the average reading level of American parents of young children is 7th or 8th grade with the average reading level, overall being grade 8.

Here is the "Health Literacy Statistics" data for the U.S.

• Nearly half of the U.S. adult population (90 million people) have low functional health literacy (National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) data)
• 11 million adults are non-literate in English (2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) data)
• 7.8 million seniors can only perform the most simple and concrete literacy skills (Below Basic) (2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) data)

For more information go to The partnership for Clear Health Communication .


October is Health Literacy Month so I will be looking for more health related articles, come October, to include in my curriculum and boost student's vocabulary.

I am particularly excited about this because my academic  background is in psychology and biology... I find that I can also teach more complex affixes (prefixes and suffixes) and word building skills using science vocabulary than I can in any other academic area.

There really is no reason, in my opinion , that any student graduating from high school should have less than the minimum requirement of a 10th grade level in reading or higher so, IF high school graduates are reading at the minimum level or higher, my concern lies in how many students are reaching graduation...

In other words, drop out prevention.

The challenge, in my opinion, is to retain students and to give them the intervention needed to keep them in school and help to earn their high school diploma.

Therefore, we absolutely HAVE TO engage students.  And, we have to do it at a higher, more sophisticated level.  It has to be relevant to THEIR lives and to THEIR interest and still meet the required state standards and hit the benchmarks.  We absolutely HAVE TO teach ALL students to...

ASK 3 QUESTIONS
1. What do I need to do?
2. Why do I need to do it?
3. Why is this important to me?

The first two, should be CLEARLY stated in student friendly language and students should be able to find the answer to these questions without having to disrupt the entire classroom if they walk in late or have been absent.  Teachers have to have a consistency plan.

Question 3 is a bit more challenging... Students should be able to communicate what change(s) that they can or should make that will help them to meet the benchmark and/or reflect on how what they learned affected them.

Affect leads to change.

If no new learning took place, than you are asking students to ride a dead horse and expecting them to kiddy-up!

In other words, you are wasting time.

Your time, their time and it is about time that you reassess students and differentiate instruction so that you are meeting the needs of ALL students.

Differentiation takes TIME. Period.

And, I am guessing that teachers who differentiate instruction, as I do, don't get much sleep.  But at the end of the day, the results are worth the time invested... Well, it's time for me to get ready to report to work.

Time to reevaluate my curriculum.

Warm regards.