Classroom Descriptions

Nolen (2007). Young children's motivation to read and write: Development in context. Cognition & Instruction, 25(2),

Descriptions of each class, based on fieldnotes, teacher interviews, and child interviews.

School 1 (High SES; 2% FRL)

Grade 1
Ms. Adams. K-1 split, taught collaboratively with Ms. Allenby for some subjects; Grade 1 Language Arts (LA) taught by Ms. Adams. First graders were starting their second year with this team. Two classrooms with a movable divider.
Ms. Adams’ goals for Grade 1 LA

• Reading: fluency and comprehension (kids are generally at or above grade level), enjoyment, choosing to read books.
• Writing: enjoy writing, feel successful at writing; some organization, fluency, punctuation

Situational interest and motivation:

• Using a variety of interesting activities (reading/writing on high-interest topics, choral reading practice-as-game or in context of funny text, artwork as way to communicate about books and topics (triorama, plays) Good children’s literature.
• Partner reading: has taught some coaching strategies but children don’t use or talk about them; partner reading is mostly social fun and a chance to read a familiar story.
• Expresses enthusiasm, models interest and enjoyment of books and students’ writing; reads (or has child read) writing to class during work time)
• “Weekend stories,” weekly accounts of life outside of school (connecting writing to communication, home life); Ms. Adams collects and uses these to show progress over the year.

• Considerable room for creativity within writing activities. Ms Adams often had children brainstorm possible ideas, but they were free to choose or come up with their own.

Activity structure:

• Whole group activities
• Independent work on a single task (although there may be kids working on different tasks.) Kids spontaneously show each other their work to appreciate, no apparent ego-talk.  During independent work, kids can move around and chat unless Ms. Adams feels they are off-task. Ms Adams works with individuals during this time and only catches some of this.
• Generally must finish morning work before recess, at minimum the “homework notebook” although Ms Adams allows kids who have accomplished some things and are working hard to go out.

Status issues

• The downside of interesting activities plus somewhat loose structure of independent work time is that struggling kids are often distracted, especially two of the target children. They frequently don’t finish and lose part or all of their recess time. Ms Adams expresses some worry that one of these students lost time to socialize.
• The girls tend to be clique-ish, three targets are not part of the main clique. Two of these are from immigrant families, the other has social skills issues.
• No specific strategies for dealing with status differences were observed.

Grade 2
Ms. Bowers. Team-taught 2nd/3rd combined class with Ms. Ballard. Seven of Ms. Adams’ students plus thirteen new participants. Two classrooms with partition wall. Most LA segregated by grade, although literature groups were cross-age and team-taught.
Ms. Bowers’ goals for Grade 2 LA.

• Reading: Motivation to read books, able to decode
• Writing: Most important that they are not afraid to write, comfortable, even excited; second, organization of thought, and then mechanics.

Situational interest and motivation:

• Connections between writing and interesting books, topics, fieldtrips
• Writing assignments often quite scripted, use of pattern books. Provides individual help - in writing she tries to help them say what they want to say. In the syllable activities this is more directive but that is the structure of the activity -- one right answer.
• “Library Passports” – kids had to read and briefly talk to the librarian about one book in each Dewey Decimal category (300s, 400s, etc.). Opportunity to become interested in variety of books, but extrinsic control, recess threat.
• Read good children’s lit, nonfiction books to learn (whales, Australia)
• Literary analysis of fiction books, some connection to writing (e.g. circular story)

Activity structure

• Whole group tasks
• Individual work on single assignment made comparison easy (worse when recess depended on finishing.) Public praise for target kids (you’re really concentrating!) may have highlighted problems.
• Small groups (~4 students) for literature, first alone but monitored, later with parent volunteer. Later parent-led “Great Books.”

Status issues

• Opportunities for social comparison, though mostly not from Ms. Bowers
• Over-helping was frequent from peers and volunteers; there was no tolerance for slow decoding on the part of kids and often parent volunteers. Every hesitation results in kids or adults supplying the word; also cutting target kids out of conversations. Targets, especially G and N, resisted marginalization through silliness and withdrawal from activity; G also gave sotto voce answers to questions when she wasn't called on, or commented anyway when she wasn't included. In the group reading scenario in the interview, all 3 targets stated the others would not see helpee as a desirable groupmate, predicted others would show anger, impatience, and yell at struggling reader.

Changes over the year:
Early on Ms Bower and partner used missing recess to spur task completion. Fallout included students rushing to finish, pressure on slower readers in groups, etc. Ms Bowers began to downplay this and even encourage them to take their time around midyear. Initially literature groups were students without adults, later adults added but this increased marginalization of target kids.

Grade 3
Ms. Donovan. Team-taught 2nd/3rd combined, with Ms. Danvers. All kids from Ms. Bowers’ class move to Ms. Donovan’s for third grade. Again, LA is separated by grade, with Ms. Donovan teaching the third graders. Social studies (which is connected to LA) is team taught.
Ms. Donovan’s goals for LA.

• Reading: To find their instructional level, allowing them to increase confidence and enjoyment, develop a love of reading.
• Writing: Learn writing process, become excited about writing, develop ownership in their writing. Want kids to feel like writers, more independent, but to have social supports (e.g. peer conferencing, discussing ideas, etc.) Stressed “authentic” (student-chosen) writing. These goals were mentioned in child interviews as reasons for positive writing affects (enjoyment, interest, continuing motivation).

Situational interest and motivation:

• Introduced “writers workshop” using game analogy (A big hit with kids)
• Stressed process writing and author’s creative control. Write, get feedback, make decisions about whether and how to use feedback.
• Promoted interest through interesting topics, use of student writing for reading tasks, fun ways of sharing writing/research (e.g., ant reports sung to “Ants go marching”).
• Modeled excitement and interest when introducing new activities or approaches.
• Extensive sharing of student writing, class worked toward an “authors’ tea” for their families where all of their published work was presented for comment and appreciation.
• Social reading: book reviews, book discussions.

Activity structure

• Whole group mini-lessons (e.g., DOL, writing strategies)
• Writers workshop (independent or collaborative work with writing conferences and individual work with teacher – kids at different stages of writing, often on different products
• Small group (e.g., research on topics)
• Round-robin reading (volunteers) in social studies
• Spelling (regular and challenge lists), public membership shifting weekly

Status issues

• Ms. Donovan worked individually with struggling students on the fringes of independent activity; all kids had some writing conferences, so this wasn’t noticeable.
• Finding everyone’s “instructional level” so they could read smoothly in front of others.
• (In interview) reported on working to develop social skills, especially for group work.
• Looked for ways to highlight target students’ accomplishments (e.g., reading N’s story anonymously, praising ideas not neatness or mechanics.) Everyone had several pieces of writing to share by authors’ tea.
• Spelling still highlighted differences; at one point kids were lying to get into the challenge group. Provided a chance for G to show off her one literacy strength.

School 2 (Low-Mid SES; 40% FRL)

Ms Norman. Team-taught 1-2-3 multi-age class with Ms. Oliver. LA instruction was split between the two teachers, with Ms. Norman teaching all first graders and second graders with lower literacy skills. Target children were with Ms. Norman for two years.
Ms. Norman’s goals for LA, Year 1:
Reading: To get them so they can "understand what they're reading and secondly...enjoy it and want to do it some more." Writing: Do they want to write? Can they communicate in print? Mechanics start after that.
Situational interest and motivation:

• Norman uses many of the same interesting activities as Adams, somewhat less informational text. Both use good children’s lit, artwork, readers theater or plays. Both cast PA practice as games. Norman’s more Norman uses many of the same interesting activities as Adams, mostly around fiction but not all. Both use good kiddy lit, artwork, readers theater or plays. Both cast PA practice as games. Both Norman & Adams model curiosity, interest, and enjoyment while reading to kids.
• Norman follows interests of kids on journal writing, if some want to write not on the prompt, or if big event has them all talking, write about that. Writing to find out info (e.g., don't know about Nat'l parks, write to people at the nat'l parks, got letters back)
• Norman’s more structured work on PA and decoding probably reflects differences in reading skill between classes. Both Norman & Adams model curiosity, interest, and enjoyment while reading to kids.
• In addition, Norman follows the interests of kids during journal writing: if some want to write on a different prompt, or if children are excited about a big event, they are encouraged to write about that.  Uses writing to find out information (e.g., they didn't know much about national parks, so they wrote letters to people at the national parks, and received responses.)

Activity structure:

• Individual silent reading
• (“popcorn reading” where kids take turns reading a known story)
• Whole group phonemic awareness, decoding, penmanship, read-alouds
• Multi-task structure, including: Small flexible reading groups with Norman while others work on journals, other writing, popcorn reading (kids take turns reading a known story), practice reading.
• Aides and parent volunteers help out during writing
• Collaboration – Norman believes true collaboration with shared goals and decision-making very difficult for this age, instead she sees parallel work with some discussion or sharing. Low skilled kids copying others’ slates during practice “games,” indicator of skill level, good practice, but tries to get them to try it by themselves.

Status issues:

• Downplays and normalizes individual skill differences (e.g., thumbs under chins rather than hand waving “when you know”; points out different kinds of skills
• Teaches coaching/helping strategies to both children and adult helpers: ask first if helpee wants help or “thinking time,” suggest various strategies if asked, avoid just giving the word unless otherwise specified.) Kids discuss these in positive terms during interviews, one target attributes learning to read to help from kids.
• Observed social comparison only in terms of sharing.

Norman, Year 2:
Goals:

• Reading & writing: Fluency, getting kids to see the benefits of practice, help poorer readers “find a place where they can be successful.’ Wants children to see reading and writing as tools they can use for fun, to learn something, to communicate, and if I practice I will get better. Develop comfort sharing writing with the class.

Situational interest and motivation:

• Similar to first grade strategies (modeling interest and enjoyment, good literature, active involvement, choice in writing, high-interest reading, group brainstorming)
• Lots of reading and writing with other kids, in pairs and groups. Reading one’s writing to 3 people for feedback and ideas before final draft (mostly for a reason to practice reading one’s work to others).
• Making practice fun through games and pair work.

Activity structure:

• Quiet (“silent”) reading with spontaneous sharing
• Whole group instruction in PA, decoding, penmanship, DOL (correcting T’s mistakes)
• Multi-task structure with small flexible reading groups with Norman, while others do independent and collaborative writing, journals, fluency practice (popcorn reading, timings)

Status issues:

• Similar to last year, coaching strategies, downplaying importance of individual differences
• Positioning poor readers as “leaders” or “coaches” of younger children (even with the one third grader in this group – this is ostensible reason for having LA with Norman)
• Shifting responsibility to kids for “figuring things out” as she can

Changes from year 1: More emphasis on fluency and practice; she has seen a difference in children’s skill growth with additional practice, and in their confidence. Attributes this change to influence of the Summer Institute. More emphasis on second graders as leaders; all three targets took this up enthusiastically during observations.

Ms. Oliver. Taught with Ms. Norman in 1-2-3 multi-age classroom. Provided LA instruction to all third graders and the more-skilled second graders. Her classroom was not observed in Year 2, but the following information was provided during her interview.
Ms. Oliver’s goals for LA, Year 2:

• Reading: fluency and comprehension
• Writing: fluency

Situational interest and motivation:

• Building up prior knowledge and topic interest through experiences (fieldtrips, building models, etc.)
• Writing for many different reasons, stressing fluency and lots of writing, so “they know they can write.”
• Not over-structuring writing assignments.
• Characterization study activities: improvisation as characters in books, teaching empathy through understanding characters’ motives

Activity structure:

• Whole group direct instruction in composition (structure), grammar, mechanics; also vocabulary and decoding
• Multi-task structure: Small reading groups while other students working on writing or other tasks
• Individual writing conferences

Status issues:

•  Uses tasks that can be completed at different levels depending on student skill.
• Works to make it a safe environment where children help each other, where struggling students feel supported by peers.
• Normalizes individual differences but also believe competitive kids do best

Ms. Oliver, Year 3
Goals for LA:

• Reading: comprehension, fluency, to be able to find information they can use for a project
• Writing: Structure – main and supporting ideas in expository writing (“power sentences”). Narrative writing (story structure, characterization), some creative writing. Promoted developing voice in writing. Saw skill level as limiting factor: “Unfortunately with this group, we had to work a lot on just writing complete sentences”

Situated interest, enjoyment:

• Combined expository reading and writing with social studies to generate topic interest
• Studying local pioneer history, kids showed interest in learning through reading
• Penpals in another state
• Writing dialogue as famous people (e.g., “I am Celine Dion!”) back and forth to each other
• Teacher-directed class project of replacing current “boring” local history book for third graders by writing a new one. Students were grouped by topic interest, created dioramas on their topic, created pages for the book on their topic. Illustrations using cut-outs, cloth, etc. Published and distributed to the school district.

Activity structure:

• Quiet (“silent”) reading with spontaneous sharing
• Whole group instruction in grammar, mechanics, expository paragraph structure, DOL. Also reading and discussion of social studies texts. Children participate by answering and sometimes asking questions
• Small reading groups with teacher, reading novels together, also reviewing expository reading/writing lessons from social studies. Round-robin reading and teacher questions (often IRE pattern).
• Directed writing tasks (completed during reading group time). No journals observed, little connected writing about chosen material (observed). Targets mention increased writing difficulty spontaneously, due in part to focus on mechanics, in part on harder books (book reports seen as a major part of writing).
• Small group collaboration on projects.

Status issues:

• Faster pace of whole-group lessons caused problems for some target kids
• Unsupervised small group work increased pressure on target kids when they couldn’t keep up. Also allowed J’s social issues to surface.
• Some instruction on group work, but focused on asking each other teacher-like questions and was not displayed in observed small groups. Instead, groups fell back on round-robin reading, punctuated by interested examination of pictures and silliness.
• Target kids developed strategies for avoiding or dealing with marginalization by others.

Change over the two years:
Writing became much more structured and teacher-directed in Year 2, produced primarily for the teacher. Oliver noted decreased motivation, planned to implement increased choice in writing the next year. Book reports tied to “Book-It” book reports became a chore for many; toward the end of the year Oliver switched to “Book reviews,” which increased interest and enjoyment.