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“Why do people explore the sea?” Candice Riley’s 3^rd graders were exploring this question in their reading module about the ocean. They started with a poem. Then they discussed a work of art. Then they read a fictional story about a whale and mouse. Then they read a non-fiction book, “Shark Attack,” with fun facts. “Bloodthirsty” was the vocab word of that week.

At the end of the module, they really took their learning to a new level. Together, they built two and three dimensional models of a giant squid. They invited students and teachers to explore the giant squid and learn about its important features by scanning QR codes with their iPads. There is also an online only version of their giant squid exhibit.

As students engaged in each new experience, Candice observed some differences in how the reading part of their day felt. They were asking more questions, finding main ideas and supporting points in the text by themselves and even reading about oceanic topics on their own. The kids were excited. Candice was, too.

The structure of the sea exploration module and the collection of resources brought together is an example from Spring Lake Park Schools’ new core reading resource for grades K-6 called Wit and Wisdom. The implementation of this new resource during this year of pandemic learning is bringing new levels of learning and engagement to classrooms across the district.

“Students are far more engaged,” says Candice, a teacher for 18 years. “The modules break things down to support kids in developing their thinking and getting to their own answer for each essential question. It’s integrated, interdisciplinary and has super high interest reading to engage kids.” 

The path to Wit and Wisdom

Classroom experiences like Candice’s are encouraging for Amy Bjurlin, district literacy coordinator, and Judi Kahoun, principal at Northpoint elementary. They co-facilitated the team of teachers who spent more than 1,500 hours identifying and studying options before selecting Wit and Wisdom and Fundations (phonics resource) last summer.

The team chose Wit and Wisdom for many reasons. It is, first and foremost, highly engaging. It seamlessly integrates the research-backed domains of reading. It includes multiple perspectives and strong connections to students and the world around them. It incorporates learning experiences in which children are successful in thinking at the highest of levels and provides strong teacher support.

“This was the clear choice for authentic learning for our kids,” says Judi. “It is grounded in the research of teaching reading, developmentally appropriate and authentic to our students’ real-world experiences.”

Initial implementation plans were sidetracked by COVID-19 last fall, but implementation has moved across the district over the last several months.

“We asked our teachers what they wanted to do and 90-95 percent of them said – let’s go – despite the pandemic,” says Judi, “Once we got through the first months of school, we supported teachers with professional learning and a flexible, extended rollout.”

It helped that the concepts Wit and Wisdom is built upon weren’t new to teachers. What was new was having a structure to help teachers implement what they had learned about the effective teaching of reading and having fun, meaningful content for students to read and talk about.

“At first, I think many of us thought – we’re already stressed and this is taking us to the next level,” says Candice, “Then, I think we shifted. What better time to be flexible and experiment? I’m very glad we did. It’s a LOT more engaging.”

Candice isn’t just experiencing the higher levels of engagement as a teacher. She’s experiencing it as a mom, too. Her SLP 4^th grader was so excited reading and learning about the circulatory system, that he spent more than one car ride sharing all kinds of interesting stats and facts and now wants to be a doctor.

“This is not like our experience of the past,” says mom Candice.  

Celebrating successes

Alyssa Olson teaches 6^th grade at Westwood Intermediate School this year and has been teaching for 22 years. Student motivation, engagement and depth of learning in reading is at an all-time high in her classroom these days.

“The level of questioning is outstanding,” says Alyssa. “I haven’t seen it before. We were reading about the Great Depression and the kids were mesmerized. The core resource does a great job building background knowledge and vocabulary . . . in context. It engages kids in critical thinking. They have to figure it out - not us telling.”

Another big plus is the way writing is embedded. Alyssa’s students have read several monomyths (stories about heroes taking a journey). Each piece of content built a deeper understanding of what a monomyth is. After experiencing several examples, students wrote their own.

“You’d never ever guess sixth graders wrote these,” says Alyssa.

Candice is experiencing the same kind of quality writing with her third graders.

“Kids don’t own something until they write about it,” says Candice. “Through the progression we are taking the kids through, they can now identify key details and evidence from text without even thinking about it – where they would stare blankly at me back in November.”

The writing concepts make sense. One example is “hand paragraphs” for explaining how to write a paragraph.

“Thumb is a topic sentence, and fingers are supporting points. Touch thumb and pinky together to connect topic sentence and closing sentence,” says Candice, demonstrating on her own hand. “For elaborations, we put a ring on the finger to talk about how the elaboration has to connect to the key point on the finger.”

Meeting kids where they are

For those involved in selecting the resources, it has been especially encouraging to hear examples of how students are able to engage and participate no matter where they are in their learning.

“All children experiencing success with this start to see themselves as good readers, writers and thinkers,” says Judi. “This makes a difference in how they continue learning and view themselves as learners.”

That the resource is helping facilitate those moments of innovative and more personalized learning when each student is engaged and learning are worth all the effort.

“I recall it was feeling hard, and then as we got to our third book in the module and the kids weren’t just replicating what I was doing,” says Candice. “They were identifying key pieces of evidence – talking in small groups, using their white boards to share ideas, finding the evidence. And, all were doing it – all at the level they could participate. This is what we’re about.”