Rich Rewards
By Dr. Jane Sullivan, Guest Columnist

To teach is a transitive verb, i.e., a verb whose action flows from a giver to a receiver. That truth has never been more evident to me than during my travels to the small country of Guatemala.

Since 2003, teams of members of the New Jersey Reading Association have traveled to Guatemala three or four times a year to create teaching partnerships with the teachers and students of a small school called La Escuela Integrada de los Niños Trabajadoros (The Integrated School for Working Children) in Antigua, Guatemala. During our visits we have provided workshops for the teachers, observed in the classrooms, demonstrated lessons in literacy strategies and donated approximately 500 books to the school.

Five components
This past September, my colleague Midge Madden and I traveled to Integrada to present an intensive five-day institute in literacy instruction for the teachers. Elementary school teachers in Guatemala are required to have only a high school education, where they learn little more than the fundamentals of teaching. Because of this and the fact that, in this school, the teachers have had only three or four years of teaching experience, we wanted to build a more complete understanding of the five components of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, fluency and vocabulary. We also wanted to show the educators strategies for teaching these skills.

From past classroom observations in Integrada, we knew that the teachers taught skills in phonemic awareness and phonics well. Therefore, while we would review phonemic awareness and phonics in relation to literacy learning, we focused on the three remaining components: comprehension, fluency and vocabulary. Our goal was to provide training in assessment strategies to measure students' performance in these skills as well as teaching strategies to further them. Finally, we wanted to model the steps teachers follow in executing a lesson.

Following a sequence
As the week progressed, Midge and I became more and more aware of that transitive verb, to teach. Actions flowed from givers to receivers. And active we were! We spent the mornings videotaping examples we would use in the afternoon. For example, Midge taped me taking a running record of a student's reading as well as of a student retelling a story. We taped teachers giving a reading lesson and children engaged in literacy tasks. During the afternoon workshops, after explaining the purpose of the technique we were showcasing, we watched the videotape and discussed it. The teachers then paired off and tried the various techniques themselves. Their homework was to use the technique in their classroom the next morning and be prepared to discuss the results that afternoon.

In the case of a reading strategy, we also pointed out that we were modeling the sequence we recommended they use in their teaching:

1. Explain the purpose of the strategy you are demonstrating.
2. "Show" the strategy by actually doing it yourself.
3. Have students try the strategy with the teacher as observer.
4. Have students practice the strategy on their own.

Eager to learn
Our teachers were eager learners and were willingly engaged in the tasks we set up. At the end of each session, while we packed up our equipment, the teachers stayed behind, grouping in intense conversations and discussing what we had covered during the workshop. One afternoon, we entered a first grade classroom to find on display a retelling chart that the teacher had created that very morning with her first graders.

And what of the "niños trabajadoros?" The kids greeted us enthusiastically as we entered their classrooms. They sat in corners reading books from the library. They brought books to us to read to them. Action had flowed from enthusiastic teachers to willing learners.

To teach really is a transitive verb at Integrada. The love of learning is evident in this school, the result of the partnership that exists between educator and educated. With this partnership, we brought new learning to the teachers who then passed that action along to their students. What a rich reward we teachers reap from such efforts!

Dr. Jane Sullivan is professor emeritus at Rowan University in NJ. Currently, she is working in volunteer professional development in Guatemala through the Guatemalan Reading Council.