Geodes-Focused Summer Program Supports EL Students in Gloucester Public Schools

Katina Tibbetts has been an educator for nearly 10 years, starting as an AmeriCorps teacher in Philadelphia. After completing her master's degree in TESOL for grades K–12 at Columbia University, she went on to become a grade 3–5 English learner (EL) teacher in the South Bronx. She now works as an EL teacher for grades 1, 3, and 5 at Gloucester Public Schools in Massachusetts, where she has worked for the last three years. At Gloucester, Katina teaches with Wit & Wisdom® and Geodes® along with Fundations® for foundational skills.

We sat down with Katina to discuss her experience teaching with Wit & Wisdom and Geodes, and to hear more about the summer learning program that she developed using Geodes texts to support her newcomer EL students. Read on to learn more about her work and impact on student success.

How long have you been teaching with Wit & Wisdom and Geodes?

Katina: This is my third year using both programs. My first year in Gloucester we piloted Wit & Wisdom and CKLA, and because I worked with all grade levels, I got to try both pilots. For me it was a no-brainer. CKLA was really fast paced and hit so much content that we’d move from one lesson to the next far too quickly, and the language was much less accessible. With Wit & Wisdom, we spent more time going into depth for my students, and there were already scaffolds worked in. So, personally, Wit & Wisdom made my job a little bit easier, and CKLA took a lot more accommodations, scaffolds, and modifications on my part to make it accessible.

The most powerful thing about Wit & Wisdom and Geodes is that the content is all connected and builds. I think the big thing is how much time is spent on one topic, because if you jump to the next thing too quickly a student might not process what’s going on. A lot of what my students need is repetition, repetition, repetition. So the amount of time spent going into depth on each topic or story is huge, and the writing scaffolds already built in are very helpful.

"The most powerful thing about Wit & Wisdom and Geodes is that the content is all connected and builds...A lot of what my students need is repetition, repetition, repetition. So the amount of time spent going into depth on each topic or story is huge, and the writing scaffolds already built in are very helpful."

How do you typically use your literacy time with students?

Katina: Depending on a student’s ACCESS exam, we’re given Can Do Descriptors through WIDA, and I use those to guide my lesson planning. If a student is a newcomer, I should see them at least two times per day–one time for foundational skills and one for content. So, in an ideal world, I’m doing Fundations® or working with Geodes for one block, and I’m doing Wit & Wisdom for the other block. In reality, there are a lot of moving parts and scheduling considerations, but my core instruction involves using the Can Do Descriptors, students’ reading levels, and students’ DIBEL scores, and then creating lessons that meet their needs.

For a Wit & Wisdom previewing lesson, I’ll take the lesson that’s happening in the student’s class and use scaffolds to help the student comprehend what’s going to happen. Then I’ll send them back to class, telling them, ‘You know what’s going on, you’re super confident, I want you to participate extra.’

Do you see students making connections between content or concepts?

Katina: For sure, I feel like I’ve mainly seen those connections across the years. I had grade 2 students last year and I now have some of them again in grade 3, and you can see that they have taken to the language of Wit & Wisdom because of the repetition. These are newcomers, they just got here last year, and they are already saying, ‘I notice’ and ‘I wonder,’ and asking, ‘Is this a Reveal or Distill question?’ So they’re definitely using those routines in the curriculum, and the big thing is the academic vocabulary that they’re acquiring so early on in their transition to the states.

Summer Learning Program Boosts Student Confidence and Success

What was the inspiration for the summer program you created for newcomers?

Katina: It was inspired by one of my students who was considered SIFE [Student with Interrupted Formal Education]. He came to Gloucester in grade 4 and didn’t know his letters and sounds and I was really trying to figure out how to best support him. I asked if we could get him into a summer program, but it turned out that none of our current programs would be able to support his needs. It didn’t seem fair that my student now couldn’t get extra school because he hadn’t had enough instruction, so my administrators came back to me and encouraged me to start a new program if I was interested, and that’s how the program was born.

Can you outline the basic logistics of the summer program?

Katina: We had grades 1–6 all in the same classroom, and these were newcomer students that really needed that foundational skills development and extra support over the summer. So I took anyone that was a Level 1 or Level 2 who was recommended for this program and worked with them over the summer. Another criterion was if a student didn’t have literacy in their home language, because when they don’t, it definitely slows down the overall process of acquiring the language once they arrive.

The program was held on Monday through Thursday for half days, so students came in at 9:00 a.m. and left at noon, and they got a recess break as well. So, in total, there was about 2 hours and 40 minutes of instruction Monday through Thursday for five weeks.

How were days structured and what resources were you using with students?

Katina: I structured it by having a morning meeting with a focus on social language. For that, we would just have different topics that we would focus on like days of the week or seasons. Then we would have a quick leveled math lesson—because I had grade 1 students who needed to add along with grade 6 students who were multiplying—so I did a quick leveled lesson there.

The literacy lesson was using Geodes and would focus on a certain book depending on the social language topic. And then we did rotations in the afternoon where they’d be grouped by grade. I had a paraprofessional and a Portuguese speaking tutor with me, and students would rotate through three stations depending on what they needed.

Gloucester Newcomer Summer Program
Sample Schedule

9:00–9:30: Morning meeting with a focus on social language

9:30–9:45: Leveled math lesson

9:45–10:30: Literacy Lesson using Geodes with a focus on wh-questions, vocabulary, writing, or a project

10:30–10:55: Snack and recess

11:00–11:50: Rotations

11:50–12:00: Dismissal

What did your rotations look like and how did you incorporate Geodes?

Katina: Rotations differed from day to day, but mine was usually a speaking rotation with a spider web discussion about a Geodes book. I love spider web discussions because it holds every student accountable for using their speaking skills to answer questions about the text and it is more student-centered and allows the teacher to step back. For the other rotations, there was usually a foundational skill being taught with manipulatives and then an educational game such as ‘fly swatter’ with sight words, CVC bingo, academic Jenga, or something like that.

How do you choose which Geodes books to use?

Katina: For the summer program I tried to connect to the Wit & Wisdom curriculum of each grade level. So to connect to the grade 5 module about westward expansion and Nez Perce culture, for example, I knew grade 2 had the Geodes book Nez Percé: The People, so I worked that in at some point during a rotation. And then for the main literacy lesson, I connected the book we focused on to the social language topic. So if we were learning seasons that week, I went to the grade 2 Geodes, which has the module A Season of Change. When we did locations one week, I did Statue of Liberty, which also related to the grade 3 Wit & Wisdom module, A New Home, about immigrants’ experiences. So I just tried to connect it all because I was getting students from all different grades.

How do you group students for targeted instruction?

Katina: Obviously by language, so if I have different languages I would try and group them together, but something I do and record every lesson are self-assessments, and that’s always helpful. So I have students say how they feel about the lesson and that’s how I give my leveled independent work. That’s how I actually made first graders with sixth graders work.

A Level 1 might be a younger student or a student who doesn’t feel confident at all in the lesson—it went completely over their head. They need a reteach and come to my teacher table. A Level 2 they can do the easiest level of work but might need some help. This is where a Level 4 might come in and support another student. A Level 3 student completely understands the lesson and can do assigned work independently. And a Level 4 student can work independently and is also like a mini teacher who can mentor other students.

What progress or results have you seen from the program?

Katina: I can tell you I have students from the summer program now and it’s been leaps and bounds in their progress. I think the biggest thing is confidence, which seems so small, but the students I was working with were either still in their silent period—not speaking, not participating, and shut down—or they lacked those foundational skills and never had the confidence to speak up. They might have been the only person in their classroom speaking their language. So it was pretty magical to watch them see themselves in a lot of other students and feel comfortable growing and learning in that space. So I think there’s been a boost to their confidence and in those foundational skills—speaking, using more oral language and more academic language, and just getting those foundational skills to be emerging readers.

Are there any features of Geodes that really help make them accessible for your learners?

Katina: The kindergarten ones are awesome. The sound searches at the beginning are a really nice way to get all levels involved and learning sounds and connecting them to letters at the same time as learning a story. A lot of upper grade students I have will shut down at learning the alphabet because they think, “Oh, I’m 10 and I’m learning the alphabet.” So the sound searches are amazing because they’re taking in that information and learning sounds and finding them in a story. It is a pretty big jump once the sound search ends. My kids tend to freak out, they’re like, “Oh my god we’re reading now,” but I would say that’s a huge strength of moving on to CVC and VC words. And then I love the grade 1 books. Those are great too because they have the Fundations® that match at the back, and you can pick out the skill to focus on. I’ll always use that skill at the back as my language objective.

How was your experience using Geodes with older students?

Katina: Geodes do not feel like “kiddy books” for my upper grade students, which is huge because a lot of the time I’ll get an upper grade student who doesn’t want to read about how the cat ran, the cat sat, and things like that. So I love Geodes because they don’t feel like they’re too old or too hard for the grade level they’re made for, but they also don’t feel childish for an upper grade level. So I definitely use them across grade levels depending on students’ needs.

How do you approach vocabulary development with students in the program?

Katina: Each day of the week was a different focus that I used with Geodes. So the first day was wh-questions, the second day was vocabulary, the third day was a writing lesson, and the fourth day was a poster. So for that vocabulary day I picked the language objective using the Fundations® skill at the back of the Geodes book, and I picked words to front load with students. Then I would use the Frayer Model to introduce those different words.

Do students have any favorite texts or text sets?

Katina: Yes, in kindergarten they love the Continents module that explores the world, and then in grade 1 they love the Creature Features module—they love those books.

What are your hopes for the future?

Katina: I have so many hopes for the future. Next summer, if we have the funding, I would love to do the program again, but I would love someone to do it with me so we can break up grades 1–3 and 4–6 or something like that. It worked this year because there was a sort of mentorship going on, but I could be much more effective if it was broken up.