Brookside teacher instills love of reading
By Stephanie Bertholdo bertholdo@theacorn.com

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers LISTENING- Brookside Elementary School second-grade students, from left, Carly Dion, Morgan Kramer and Lindsey Marks enjoy a lesson with teacher Patti Kolb.

Learning to read and write is an academic- and developmental- milestone reached by children starting in kindergarten and continuing in each grade level. By second grade most children are developmentally ready to decipher words, grasp story lines and pen their own preliminary adventure tales.

Patti Kolb, a second-grade teacher at Brookside Elementary School in Oak Park for more than 30 years, goes beyond the fundamentals in her classroom and aims to instill a love of reading and writing to last a lifetime. After attending a variety of professional development programs over the years, Kolb customized a GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) program to reach all students.

Kolb's second-grade class is set up to encourage reading and writing. She has hundreds of books categorized by subject in the middle of the classroom and ample, cushy seats for students to hunker down with a good book.

When it's time for a writing lesson, Kolb creates a "sense of community."

"Children develop a love of writing, feel that they are authorsrecognize the value of their writing, through their own rereading and through sharing with othersand learn to recognize and use a writer's craft," Kolb said.

Storytelling is encouraged in Kolb's "community." Kolb reads aloud "wonderful literature" to her students. "We read books that foster a sense of community and texts which resemble those we hope our students will write," she said. "We want them to fall in love with words. We teach them to read like a writer."

The craft of writing is taught through an interactive approachKolb pauses at various points of a story read aloud to discuss writing style, the author's meaning and other elements of writing.

Students are not confined to their desks when writing. "Real writers write in many different places," Kolb said. "One of the first activities we did in Reader's/ Writer's Workshop was to write down our favorite place to read; nobody put 'at their desk.'"

Kolb's class looks more like a cozy family room than a classroom, with colorful beanbag chairs and hundreds of books to choose from.

Students work with partners and receive feedback on their writing. Students also share their work with larger groups, including the entire class.

The writer's notebook is integral to Kolb's program. Children "build collections of ideas," expand their topics of interest and practice literary devices. The writing program is tied to the reading program. In their "Reader's Notebook," students learn to respond to literature. "One feeds off the other," Kolb said.

Another required element of Kolb's program is "modeling" reading and writing habits. Brookside teachers model their passion for writing by filling in their own "Writer's Notebook" during class, demonstrating in front of students that writing is a craft valued for a lifetime.

The philosophy behind Kolb's custom program centers on "teaching the writer, not the writing," Kolb said.

Kolb instills the joy of writing and the pain of revision. "We teach students the value of trying, and trying again," she said.

To celebrate their creativity, Kolb hangs writing assignments on the classroom wall.

The poem "Escargot" was written by Jack. Amid handcolored pictures of snails, Jack wrote:
Escargot
Steamy
Feels as slimy as an eel
As crunchy as a seashell
Garlicy
SLIMY
So crackly
So buttery
Like a little bit of Heaven

Jack's final snail drawing is placed between a picture of a fork and spoon.

Lindsey wrote about "The Nervous Moment."

"Thump, thump, bump, bump went my heart as I was waiting in the green room," she wrote on a paper decorated with a ballerina under large stage lights. "I was shivering backstage. I was shaking with fear. Would I have stage fright? Would I do the right steps? Soon they called our dance. I decided to go on for my parents. I would have to do it sooner or later," she wrote.

Kolb's students write fables, poetry, narratives and other genres each week.

Sharing knowledge

Kolb has presented her original materials at California Associated for the Gifted conferences for the past two years and introduced them to Oak Park schools' kindergarten through third-grade students at Brookside, in the Oak Park Unified School District and neighboring districts.

"The conferences and workshops have a tendency to dwell on theory rather than practice," Kolb said. "This frustrated me, after attending the Summer Institute for three years. There were no materials that could be easily used with my grade level, so I decided to create them."

Kolb's materials have been enthusiastically received by her colleagues. She even received a standing ovation at last year's CAG conference. Kolb's program puts theory into practice, which allows teachers to implement practical methods for reading and writing.

Kolb's reading and writing program segues nicely into the third grade at Brookside. Thirdgrade teacher Karolyn Tassio uses the "Dig into Reading" program, which encourages children to "grow theories about characters."

Students tackle "realistic fiction" in third grade. Tassio guides students to notice how an author writes, make connections to their own lives and between one book and another. Students learn how to predict what may be up next in a story and learn how to "walk in the shoes of a character."

"Most kids think the plot is a good story, but it's really about character," Tassio said. Like Kolb, Tassio allows students to choose topics to write about and books that tap into their interests. "It gives them so much power," she said.

"They pick a story seed from real life," Tassio said. Character development stems from the idea, and students are taught how to integrate dialogue into their stories.

"Students should know their character so well they know how much change they have in their pocket," Tassio said.

And they do. . . .