Juli Kendall's Weekly
Reading Workshop Journal
A MiddleWeb Listserv Project
Self-selected members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List are joining
together to explore the Reading Workshop and other ideas about supporting
young adolescent readers. Juli Kendall, a reading teacher/coach in Long
Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Juli is also keeping
a weekly journal of her own Reading Workshop initiative. Find out more about
our project at our Reading Workshop homepage.
You'll find Juli's background article here.
Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin
to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
Week #37
Student Surveys
Help Us Fine-Tune for Next Year
"I hate the smell of books," the 8th grader proclaimed last year
as he entered the middle school library.
From time to time you hear startling comments from kids. "You need
to have worked in a middle school to appreciate that remark," I thought
to myself.
If you really want to know what kids think, they'll be glad to tell you.
But watch out! Don't ask if you don't want to know. And no matter what,
you won't be prepared for the results.
As the year winds down, kids in our Reading Workshop have been telling us
what they think about what we're teaching and how we're doing it. From this
end-of-the-year questionnaire, we get lots of information about what they
are learning and how we can improve our instruction. It's also a lot of
fun, if you're brave.
Why do we survey our kids?
So what are our kids learning? Why do we use surveys with our readers? How
can they help our kids read with understanding?
It's certain that we can learn from this. After all the other things we've
done, this one tells us what they really think. To begin, we gave them the
Reading/Writing Survey from Janet Allen's Yellow Brick Roads, pp.
281-282. I've used this one several times before, and it has a user-friendly
format.
After they completed the forms, I gathered all their responses on one sheet
and sat down to look for trends. I learned some new things, remembered some
old things, and made some teaching decisions for next year. In addition,
I had a few good laughs.
In Chapter 12, "Full Circle: Assessing, Evaluating, and Starting Again,"
from Yellow Brick Roads by Janet Allen, she discusses how she changed
her views on the use of student surveys.
For several years I looked only at the individual responses
in relation to the individual student. In my last year of teaching, however,
I realized that the information on the surveys could also be instructive
when I looked for class patterns. When I looked at the results of this survey
for one class, I discovered several areas that influenced my planning. (p.
202)
[NOTE: See the results of the student
survey by downloading this small PDF file.]
Here's what they told us
So, hang on to your hat! Here's what our kids are saying and how we plan
to use it: (Thanks to Janet Allen for this format from pages 202-204.)
Many students enjoy Reading Workshop and dislike spelling, math
and writing.
Students see important teacher qualities as being nice, teaching people
more, being strict, and having good manners and a cool brain.
Favorite categories for reading are poetry, nonfiction, fiction and magazines.
Surprisingly, many students enjoy reading plays.
Many students enjoy reading books by Dave Pilkey, the author of the Captain
Underpants series, and Patricia Polacco.
One reason they dislike Reading is that you have to read a lot.
They believe other classes would be better if students were quieter, if
students listened to the teacher, if the whole class passed, and if the
whole room was clean and had a soda machine (!).
Almost all students see reading and writing as extremely important in their
lives.
More than two-thirds of the students agree with this comment: "I really
enjoy reading and often read when I have free time."
Almost 100% of the students know someone they consider a good reader.
They believe students become good readers when: they read every day, others
inspire them, they read at home, and they read chapter books.
Several students think we can help them become better readers by reading
with them; others think that they will become better readers if we give
them Just Right books and have them read.
Most students enjoy working in small groups, watching movies, reading and
listening to cassettes (books on tape).
Most students disliked class discussions, working alone and having someone
read to them.
After going over the survey results, the next step is using the kids' comments
to improve our instruction. Last year I completely revamped the Student
Reading Journals based on the negative feedback. That reorganization of
"writing in response to reading" seems to have worked. In this
year's survey, there were no negative comments about the Reading Journals.
What we learned from the surveys
Based on this year's results, I can see that we need to look at how we manage
class discussions and reading aloud to students. Because they enjoy working
in small groups, it may be a good idea to try doing less of the discussions
with the whole class and more during Guided Reading and Reading Strategy
groups. That will fit in easily with our use of Instructional Conversation
(Journal #36).
I have sensed as the year went along, that this particular group of kids
enjoys Shared Reading much more than the Read Aloud format. Because of that,
I've been doing more and more Shared Reading (#28)
with them. This survey confirms my suspicions. So we'll forge ahead with
refining our Shared Reading and only do very short text in the Read Aloud
portion.
Then, there's the comment about the soda machine. Well, there's one in every
crowd!
After reviewing the results, I shared them with the class. Almost better
than the survey itself were their comments as they listened to what other
students had written.
"You've got to be kidding!"
"Who said that? They're crazy."
"What were they thinking?"
"Get real!"
"Three people never talked about their reading? Where did they go to
school?"
And last, but not least, my favorite: "Did that person ever come to
class?"
See Juli's May/June curriculum map
Editor's Note: Juli's final journal, reflecting on a year of Reading
Workshop, will appear in two weeks.
Read Juli's final journal entry
Read Juli's previous journal entry
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
Back to Juli's journal index
Back to the Reader Workshop Index Page