The executive director for a national literacy program quoted research Wednesday that came as a relief to Greenwood teachers hard pressed by constant test prep.
"Children who think well test well," said Ellin Keene of the Cornerstone Literacy Initiative.
And Cornerstone - with its emphasis on creative writing and critical analysis of text, all in a living room environment - is designed to make children think.
On Wednesday, Keene, simulating a literacy block at W.C. Williams Elementary School, demonstrated what the program can do in an ideal setting. The two-hour session was filmed and will be presented as a model on the initiative's Web site and promotional materials.
Teaching with Cornerstone might seem strange to teachers in the age of statewide testing, Keene said. Many of them are used to stopping their regular lessons months before the school year ends to prepare for the accountability tests, even though studies show that the extra preparation isn't useful, according to Keene.
"Children who come from classrooms like the one we demonstrated this morning, who are pressed to think critically are testing well if we spend two to three weeks - not months, but two to three weeks helping them with test prep," she explained.
"That means you can teach well. You can teach deeply and with rigor and you don't have to worry."
Molly Grantham said that philosophy runs counter to everything she has heard from administrators, who tell her and her colleagues to "teach to the test." But that's good news, said Grantham, a kindergarten teacher and one of the four Cornerstone coaches at Williams.
"They come in the first day, and that's what they emphasize. They say teach to the test, teach to the test," Grantham said. "We're doing that six months before the test is even to be taken. So it's a relief to hear her say they only need three weeks."
Cornerstone is a four-year national literacy initiative run by the New York Institute for Special Education in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. W.C. Williams and Threadgill Elementary are in their third year with the program. Keene enacted the literacy block again this morning at Threadgill.
Her two-hour demonstration at Williams began with a "crafting session," as she read "An Angel for Solomon Singer" by Cynthia Rylant aloud to a group of selected Williams third-graders. She stopped intermittently to relate questions that came to her as she read the book about a man who seeks the tranquility of his Indiana home place in his New York City life.
After finishing the story, Keene directed the students with a hand gesture to select their own books and write down their questions about the text as they read silently at tables, on rugs and in bean-bag chairs. During this time, she went around the room and had individual and small-group conferences with students. Then, the class regrouped to hear the students' questions and talk about writing, leading into the final composing session with the children responding to the story with writing of their own.
Keene gave the presentation as professional development for teachers in the district.
She strongly recommended that teachers give the literacy blocks two uninterrupted hours. They are most effective when students get plenty of time to reflect on the session in their writing, she said.
This refocus away from the test-prep formula doesn't mean teachers can shirk their responsibility to gear their students up for end-of-year testing, Keene insisted.
Teachers still have to acquaint their students with what has become recognized as its own genre of writing, the testing structure, she said. "You've got to be ready for it."
But the teachers who combine a high level of thinking in the classroom with "a little genre study on testing a few weeks before the tests" are, as Keene says, "nailing it."
The changing philosophy might have come at the right time for Williams. Low test scores last year and lower-than-expected growth gave the school a Level 1 rating, the lowest the state assigns. Threadgill is not far ahead at a Level 2, or underperforming.
On Wednesday, Keene had nothing but compliments for the students she worked with. Their proficiency is a good sign for Williams, she said.
"The quality of their thinking is off the charts," she said. "These kids are off the charts. Something's going well in this school."
