Voices from the Field

The Making Meaning program has two goals: supporting students’ comprehension and developing social skills. Academic rigor and collaborative learning are consistently integrated.

Here’s what teachers are saying:

Getting to Know Students

For me, the IDR conference is just like a snapshot of where they are at the time. When I listen to them read a passage, I ask ‘What are you reading now? Why did you choose this book?’ I just want to get some background information on what their interests are and where they are. It gives me an idea of the choices of the books they’re making and what they’re having trouble with.

Improving Test Scores

Though none of us likes to base things on it—our test scores have improved. Making Meaning creates an environment where reading is fun, where the children feel like they can own and share stories. [The students] offer books to each other. We have become a community with a reading life. It really has worked. We’re readers.

Understanding at a Deeper Level

When I ask my students how working with a partner makes them understand the text better, they say, 'My partner helps me think about parts of the book I never thought about before.

Making Time to Practice

When I ask my students how working with a partner makes them understand the text better, they say, 'My partner helps me think about parts of the book I never thought about before.

Including All Students

“About half of my students are English language learners and I also have some special ed students. I’ve found that in the way Making Meaning is laid out, it includes all students. And because I’m reading the story to the children, it’s open to everybody.

Helping One Another

Making Meaning is something that integrates into everything that you do each day. It is about creating a sense of community and allowing the children to be equal partners in what’s happening in the classroom and in the learning. You will see that the students take ownership. You have to allow time in your classroom to do it, to develop the lessons. You need to make a commitment to it, and the rewards are far, far greater than you expect.

Making Time for Listening and Speaking

I’ve always found that the listening and speaking portion of Language Arts was really neglected. Children don’t have a chance to talk, except maybe on the playground, and that’s not even using academic language. Making Meaning brings in talking for the students learning English.

Helping One Another

Making Meaning is something that integrates into everything that you do each day. It is about creating a sense of community and allowing the children to be equal partners in what’s happening in the classroom and in the learning. You will see that the students take ownership. You have to allow time in your classroom to do it, to develop the lessons. You need to make a commitment to it, and the rewards are far, far greater than you expect.

Learning to Articulate

I want students to be able to articulate their thinking. At the beginning of the year, they wouldn’t talk, didn’t communicate, wouldn’t say anything. As the year went on and we used Making Meaning with the partner work and the class meetings, I saw a difference. They learned to talk as partners and our class discussions have become something enjoyable. The program made a huge difference in my class. It opened up their minds to be able to think and talk and share in other subjects.

Keeping Students Engaged

One of the things that really makes the program special is the partner work. When I stop reading to discuss a point, everybody gets an opportunity to share their ideas. They turn to their partner and share, and everyone is fully engaged. Then we listen to two or three partner responses and continue with the story. If I had to stop reading and ask questions of the whole class, I’d lose kids. Using this process, I don’t.

Here’s what students are saying:

My vocabulary grew.

When we were talking to our partners, I noticed that my conversation grew, like I was using words I didn’t know I knew. The conversation lasted longer, and my partner grew also, and I learned lots of reading strategies.

Partners connect their brains.

I like to work with a partner because you connect your brains together to make one big huge pot . . . pots and pots of ideas. And the teacher gets very interested.

Visualizing is easy to understand.

Visualizing is like when you are reading a chapter book with no pictures and you get all of the ideas out of the book and into your mind.

My reading improved.

I noticed how much I grew in reading. At the beginning of the year I was reading at 3.7, at the end I was at 7.0—and that’s what Making Meaning did for me.

I copy the words in my mind.

I’m a reader. I copy the words in my mind to make sure that I’ve read those words and have them.

I’m challenging my thinking.

Before, I would just read a book—beginning, middle, end. But then I learned how to challenge my thinking by using the strategies and thinking about what I was reading instead of just reading it.

I pretend I’m in the book.

When I read, I pretend that I’m in the book. I’m not reading, I’m in the adventure with the characters in the book.

I learned from my partner.

My partner Johnny and I were very different. He would bring up topics in our conversation that I wouldn’t normally think about. He made me think deeper because he had another opinion about things.