Another question from a PLC member came today:
Hello! I am a world language teacher about to enter my second year of teaching. Last year I taught Spanish to heritage speakers, so starting FVR was relatively easy and we were able to start almost at the beginning of the year (once we had books!). However, I am changing schools this year and will be teaching novice students. I am wondering at what point it is possible to introduce FVR, whether this is something I can expect to achieve in a level I class, and how to go about beginning it so that I am not losing student engagement. My classes are heavily focused on TPRS and CI, and I know there are great level I TPRS books out there, and I am also working to get subscriptions to the Scholastic Spanish magazines.
I appreciate any advice!
Thank you!
Carla
My response:
The key phrase in Carla’s question is “…so that I’m not losing student engagement…”. This is a very wise concern, one unfortunately not shared by lots of people who have – wrongly in my opinion – placed too much emphasis on reading too early in level 1 and 2 classes.
I introduce FVR (I call it Free Choice Reading or FVR) in my books in a level 1 class when they can read the easiest of the chapter books and I mean easiest. Like, Brandon Brown wants a dog stuff or anything simpler.
I don’t hand them anything that requires them to think about how the language is structured or that requires them to have a big reading background, which is a quick way to split a class down racial and economic lines.
Like Susan Gross stressed when training me so much, over and over, reading to them has to be “like a movie in their minds.” That’s the same thing that happens with auditory input. No thinking. No feeling of chasing the bus.
How do I know when that time is, when they can actually read without that feeling of not being able to catch up with the bus driven by the smart kids? I wait. I give them the simplest books, what the reading experts call level 1 books, but not until level 2. I give them the level 2 books to read during FCR (first ten minutes of each class as explained in ANATS and ANATTY and the new Invisibles books), but not in level 2. I wait a year and give them the so-called level 2 books in level 3.
A good way to see half the class abdicate is to not provide enough support in reading in the only thing they can really read – their own stories that they created in class. This is what the Star Sequence is about in the new Invisibles books. Why can they read their own stories? Because of this sequence, which is in my view a true state-of-the art WL curriculum without peer:
So thank you for asking. Most TPRS people object to my position on reading. But that doesn’t change my mind. Because I know that what they think doesn’t matter. What my students thinks is the only thing that matters to me, and if they can pick up an FCR book to start class, but one that they can actually read with great ease because I wait that year, and have them only read the stories we make in class for that first year, I’m happy.
It’s like with a driver’s license. You don’t just hand a kid a license; she has to wait a year and get some miles under her belt, which miles are provided throughout the first year by their own stories and by big helpings of all of the reading options provided in my new Star Curriculum. Now THAT is the way to get a kid to be a good reader.