Scripted Lessons versus Individual Prescriptions

I am as happy as a clam to be back in classes – learning AND teaching! They are hard and I want to bang my head on the wall at times, and yet I love them because they are my chance to grow as an educator. So below I am posting one of my recent assignments. It was to pick a question from this website Focus in Teaching Performance Expectations. I’m not even sure that I had the right question, but it was a beautiful opportunity for reflection. Hopefully, you will enjoy!

What one strategy did you use this morning that went beyond the expectations of the scripted lesson? I’ll be very honest that I have yet to go by any scripted lesson in teaching. I am a certificated Reading Specialist with a Masters in Education in Advanced Literacy. I always feel it is my job to not just be a teacher but to be a professional educator – aka as in any profession, I am always researching and knowledgeable of the best practices and as in any profession there is a diagnosis and prescription for each individual case – be it in sickness or a law case or a business transaction or a marketing scheme – each client needs something different. This is no less the same for our students.

So no, I rarely follow a scripted lesson and it hasn’t failed me yet. I have seen groups of students who were barely at 50% passing reach 75-80% passing. I achieved higher scores on the Science STAAR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness) than my previous school had ever achieved. My goal is always to first and foremost create lifelong learners. We will not create lifelong learners with a scripted, dry and ofttimes snap, snap, snap hurry hurry hurried lesson. We will actually create little people who hate school, hate learning, and are unmotivated.

So in my classroom, we do Reader’s Workshop and Writer’s Workshop. We have a Daily Cafe where I read aloud and demonstrate a specific skill for what good readers do and then during Guided Reading/Reader’s Workshop students get to try it out. During Writer’s Workshop, I model what good writers do, then conference with my students as they try it out. Their work is always messy and unpredictable as we start, but that is the beauty of it. They are learning and growing. Learning and growing do not happen without messes and imperfections and mistakes and sometimes tears and always hard, hard work. And then the beauty happens as we continue the routines day after day after day and they start to get it and grow. And then we celebrate!

In Math, we started with our hundreds chart and counting by 2s up to 50. By week three, I could tell they were ready. They were starting to see and understand the pattern – 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and repeat. So we went all the way to 100! I saw them the first week of school during our morning meetings barely looking at each other in the eye and barely talking to each other. Thursday, September 1st, I could barely get them to stop talking to each other about their lives and listening and asking questions of each other during the sharing portion of morning meeting – so I didn’t stop them!

During back to school night, three parents came to visit. They were all happy and pleased with what was going on. Two of them told me that their child hated school and never wanted to come in previous years but now they were not only coming but couldn’t wait to get their homework done and couldn’t wait to come to school! This is it! It is not easy or overnight, but they are starting to be lifelong learners..

I could tell my teaching assistant has been getting frustrated with me because she thinks I want to do too much and have too much faith in their abilities. I politely told her that my principal hired me for this reason. She liked that I had general education experience because I would have high expectations for our students.

Growth happens when we first diagnosis and know each student and then when instead of providing a one size fits all scripted lesson, we give them a prescription based on their specific needs. I was lucky to get the last spot to attend a training last Saturday, August 27th given by the 95% group – a training to administer a Phonological Assessment to get more specific information than DIBELS provides and then prescribe the right lessons/solutions for each students’ individual needs. The best part was arguably receiving a kit to use in class. But the truly best part was the amazing presenter who demonstrated what it is to be that kind of prescriptive, engaging teacher I hope to be- she used this analogy of the prescription and diagnosis. We cannot cure reading problems for example if the problem is segmentation by skipping ahead to a higher skill. We must always meet students where they are with the expectation that they will not stay there long.