PEER ASSISTED LEARNING STRATEGIES

1. PEER ASSISTED LEARNING STRATEGIES

2. What is PALS? Who will benefit from PALS? • PALS-Reading is a scientifically research-based practice that helps teachers boost the reading performance of low-, average-, and high-achieving students, as well as those with special needs. • PALS is designed to supplement a teacher’s existing reading program.

3. PALS Benefits • Increase the proportion of instructional time that all students engage in academic behaviors • Provides students with feedback, immediate error correction, and high mastery levels • Can support content coverage • Supports the development of “mental models” – what Ruby Payne calls “theshared understandings of the purposes, structures, and patterns in information.”

4. What skills are reinforced? First Grade: • Letter-sound correspondence • Phonemic awareness • Early decoding and word identification, • Reading in context (Sentences and Short Stories) • Fluency-building activities.

5. Supplies you need • The First Grade Peer-Assisted Literacy Strategies Curriculum Package • A First Grade Peer-Assisted Literacy Strategies Teacher’s Manual • Sounds and Words Preparation Exercises – Visual Presentation Sheets • Sounds and Words Placement Test • First GradePALS Rules • First GradePALS Partner Assignments Chart • Sounding Out Practice Sheet All available at http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/pals/ordering/

6. Everyone Has a Job to Do!

7. Teacher’s Role Large Group Instruction: • Procedure Lessons (All) • Introduce and Model Sound and Word Reading Activities (K-1st) Partner Reading (1st) • Introduce and Model Through Training Lessons (2nd-5th) Partner Reading Retelling Paragraph Shrinking Prediction Relay

8. Teacher’s Role Monitoring Partner Work: • Listen to pairs of students read daily • Notice fluency development • Notice the main idea statement development • Provide students with feedback • Monitor procedures • Timekeeper

9. Peer Assisted Learning Strategies • Peer • Assisted • Learning Strategies. • A strategy is a plan to get something important done. • Peer Assisted Learning Strategies means everyone is working with a partner to practice reading to become a better reader.

10. All Students Have Two Big Jobs • Coach Like a tutor - helps their partner • Reader Reads and answers questions Each student will do both jobs. Jobs will be switched when the teacher gives a signal.

11. Pairing Students for Partner Work • List of class according to reading ability, high to low. • 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 Partners: 1 and 11 2 and 13 3 and 13…

12. Being a Good Sport

13. Rules for Moving to Your Partner • Leave your chair/desk when you move. • Move quickly and quietly. • Take your PALS materials with you. • Quietly move the chair/desk beside your partner

15. Review the Rules • Talk only to your _____ and only about ____. • Keep your voice ___. • Cooperate with your_____. • Try your ____.

16. Review for Students • We learned that the reason for PALS is to help you become better readers. • We learned how to move and stay. Each of you now knows where you will sit during PALS and who needs to move. • We learned that there are rules we must follow to make PALS work.

17. PALS Rules • Talk only to your _____ and only about ____. • Keep your voice ___. • Cooperate with your_____. • Try your ____.

18. Lets get started… PALS LESSON BOOKLET THINGS YOU WANT TO DO TO PREPARE • If possible you will want to scan your pals notebook into your computer. It will make it easier for your students if you can project it. • Print off a copy of each page, one set for each partner pair.

19. PALS partners PALS LESSON 1 • Divide your students into their partners. They sit right next to each other with the paper on the desk between them, allowing both partners to see it clearly.

20. How it works… • Coach points to the first letter and asks,” What sound?” • Partner response, with the letter sound. • If the player is wrong, the coach says “STOP what is the sound?” • The player then tries again. If they are right the coach response, “Good, read the line again.” The line is always started over when a mistake is made.

21. Continued... • If the player is wrong at this point the coach will tell them the correct sound. “No, the sounds is _”. They will then repeat the sound. The coach response, “Good read the line again.” • They start the line over. • This will be the same when they read words and stories. Each PALS worksheet has a coach’s script in the right hand column.

22. LESSON 1 Coach points to the first letter and asks,” What sound?” Partner response, with the letter sound. If the player is wrong, the coach says “STOP what is the sounds?” The player then tries again. If they are right the coach response, “Good, read the line again.” The line is always started over when a mistake is made.

23. Watch Students: PALS Lesson 2 Watch these 1st grade students complete Lesson 2 in PALS. They are working with their PALS partners. Watch as they take turns being a coach and a reader.

24. Stop, Write and Reflect What concept from PALS really “squares” with your thinking? What question is still rolling around in your head? Name three facts about PALS that you learned today.

25. Learning for All Students “People develop feelings that they are liked, wanted, acceptable, and able from having been liked, wanted, accepted, and from having been successful.” (Combs, 1982)

26. Throughout the centuries, there were men and women who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. -Ayn Rand