SHARE and Share Alike
By Jeffrey Marshall Baird

Several years ago, our school began a program in which our seventh and eighth grade students teach our first and second graders reading comprehension strategies learned in middle school literature. The program is called SHARE: Students Helping Achieve Reading Excellence.

This program was undertaken for three reasons: 1) because research supports explicit strategy instruction in all grades, 2) to build community and 3) to introduce strategies to the primary students while helping the middle schoolers master the concepts by teaching them.

All in the family. Our school is small, approximately 300 kids, grades K-8. Our older and younger students know each other quite well. This is thanks, in part, to our Family Activity Program. Each student in our school belongs to a "family" made up of kids from the other eight grades. Throughout the year, students participate in activities as a family ranging from attending church services (ours is a Catholic school) and school assemblies, projects that highlight important points in the school year and fun activities like our annual spring Olympics. The older kids take a leadership role in the families; in SHARE, we simply pair students from the same family. This adds to the sense of community in our school.

The first time the students meet, we don't focus on a reading strategy at all. Previous students suggested having a "get to know you" session a few weeks before the first lesson, and it's paid off. The middle school students bring cards that explain a little bit about themselves and welcome the primary students to the program. They also develop a set of open-ended questions designed to help them learn about the student they'll be teaching. A few weeks later, I introduce the first lesson of the year and we're ready to begin.

Strategic texts. I will focus on the teaming that takes place between grades one and seven. (Continued instruction occurs in the students' second and eighth grade years, respectively.) My seventh graders focus on five comprehension strategies throughout the course of the year: narrative and expository text structure, schema (making connections), visualization, prediction and self-questioning. We study each strategy in isolation over a four-to six-week period, and conclude the year by focusing on what we call Weaving – using a variety of strategies with a single text.

I introduce each strategy to the seventh grade using the same children's books that they will use with their first graders. The books, of which we have about a dozen sets, have been selected because they elicit and encourage use of a particular strategy. I explicitly model my use of each strategy with these texts.

For example, The Two of Them by Aliki (HarperTrophy, 1987) is excellent for teaching schema because every child can make connections between the little girl's relationship with her grandpa and a relationship he or she has with an adult. Horace and Morris But Mostly Delores by James Howe (Atheneum, 1999) is good for teaching text structure because there are clearly defined main characters, a central problem with a clear solution and an easily identifiable theme.

The preparation process. After a few days of modeling, we spend the next four to six weeks reading age-appropriate stories, essays, poems and articles, using guided practice as the students become familiar with each strategy. During this time, students also practice the strategy while reading self-selected novels. They reflect on their strategy use in their Lit Logs, spiral-bound notebooks where they write to me and each other about their thinking and reading.

At the end of this period, we return to the children's texts used at the beginning and go over the lesson plan the students will each use when teaching his or her primary student. The lesson plans are structured with an introduction, suggestions for teaching the lesson and an ending activity. However, they are open-ended enough that the middle school students can adapt and change them to best fit their particular primary learner. After reviewing and discussing the lesson plan, the students select the book they feel is best for the strategy and their primary learner.

Once the middle school students are familiar with the lesson plan, the text and the strategy, they prepare by practice-teaching one another, just as they will teach their primary learner.

Time to share. Then comes the day the students – both middle and primary – have been looking forward to: SHARE Day. They convene in our school's music room, a large, open area with plenty of space, natural light and good acoustics. The older kids greet their younger schoolmates and move off in pairs on their own to teach, read and learn. The primary grade teacher and I move about the room observing and enjoying this community we've all built.

The program – and the year – concludes with the teaching of weaving multiple strategies together. In preparation for this, the seventh graders learn this strategy as we read Lois Lowry's The Giver (Houghton Mifflin/Walter Lorraine Books, 1993) as a class.

During this time, the seventh graders also collaborate in pairs on their own children's book. They design their books to elicit particular strategies, designing lesson plans to fit their learners, their text and their own particular teaching styles. This reinforces the link between reading and writing. The communal aspect of this project continues as all the students – middle and primary – work together in small groups during this final lesson.

The middle school students create two copies of their text and give one to the primary students as a gift. As the final session ends, however, we realize we've been given something more than just a book: We've been given a sense of knowledge, accomplishment and community.

Jeffrey Marshall Baird is a middle school language arts and seventh grade homeroom teacher at J.E. Cosgriff Memorial Catholic School in Salt Lake City, UT. An earlier version of this article appeared in the January/February 2005 issue of Today's Catholic Teacher.

February, 2006, Vol.36, No.5