Ten Ways to Make Learning to Read More Difficult

Learning to read is hard work. Teaching children to read is hard work. Educators don't need to make this work harder by using discredited practices while working with children. Here are ten practices to avoid and the reasons to avoid them.

1. Providing Instruction that Lacks Balance

Reading is getting the meaning from text while guided by squiggles on a page. It makes sense that reading instruction requires instruction in how to decode those squiggles and how to get that meaning. Any program that requires an out-of-balance attention to one side or the other of this process is not adequate. Decoding is a complex process of coordinating visual information (phonics), syntax, and meaning. Decoding instruction cannot and should not be divorced from context because the context is a part of the decoding process. Balanced instruction does not mean equal parts of decoding and comprehension instruction, rather it means instruction on a sliding continuum based on student need. The observant teacher adjusts the instruction based on an assessment of student processing of text.

2. Putting Faith in Programs over Teachers

Programs do not teach children to read, teachers do. The wise administration would invest scarce resources in teacher training rather than specific programs. A skilled teacher adjusts instruction based on student need, not on programmatic prescription. No program can be as responsive to a student as can the knowledgeable adult working with that child every day. Empowering teachers to make critical instructional decisions and giving them the support they need to continuously improve performance (not through test scores, but through informed feedback) will improve instruction.

3. Testing Comprehension instead of Teaching Comprehension

Children do not improve their reading comprehension by answering multiple choice or short-answer questions. Reading comprehension improvement comes through the direct instruction in strategies that focus on comprehension including predicting, questioning, summarizing, monitoring for understanding, visualizing, making connections, and adjusting reading rate. Asking comprehension questions may help a teacher assess student understanding, but it does not teach comprehension.

4. Mistaking Difficult Texts for Rigorous Instruction

Except in very limited circumstances (some one-to-one tutoring and buddy reading), children do not improve their reading by reading text that is too difficult for them. The Common Core State Standards' (CCSS) call for greater rigor and text complexity should not be mistaken as a call for children to be reading text that is too difficult for them. Reading instruction should still occur in texts that provide some challenge for readers, but that are not at the frustration level, in other words, in a "just right" book. More complex texts may be introduced to students through read aloud, because listening comprehension is generally 1 to 2 years higher than reading comprehension. To meet the CCSS call for greater rigor, the teacher should focus on rigorous instruction, not more difficult text. For more on this see here.
   
5. Interrupting Real Reading for Silly Activities and Worksheets

Avoid assigning students activities that are not an integral part of their reading while they are reading. For example, do not ask students to look for their spelling words and circle them while they are reading. Don't ask them to find vocabulary while reading. This type of activity actually interferes with the real purpose for reading. Real reasons for stopping reading are based on student choice and comprehension development. An activity like "stop-and-jot" where the student chooses where to stop and what to jot is a genuine reading comprehension activity. Likewise reams of worksheets kill enthusiasm for reading and generally do not reinforce learning. Well structured journal entries or other written response activities are more engaging and more productive.

6. Engaging in Round Robin Reading

Round Robin Reading is the practice of having one child read aloud while the other children (either in a small or large group) listen in. This practice persists today despite longstanding research that shows it is ineffective. Round Robin Reading has been shown to lower the quantity of reading that children do, to emphasize pronumciation over comprehension and to cause discipline and self-esteem issues. For a fuller look at this pernicious instructional strategy you can look here.
 
7. Telling Children They Can't Read Ahead

Sometimes when the whole classroom is reading the same book, or when students are engaged in Literature Circles, students will be assigned to read up to a certain point in the text. Inevitably, some students will finish this assignment and want to continue reading. Let them. We need to decide what is more important, having kids who are motivated and enthusiastic about reading, or controlling kids because it fits better in our lesson plan. Since the greatest single factor in whether students become good readers is how much they read, it would be educational malpractice not to allow children to read ahead. What we can do is make it clear to them that they are not to share with others what they have learned and that they are to focus their comments only on what everyone has read.

8. Not Allowing Children to Take Books Home

I know, I know. We have limited resources, books are precious and if we allow them to go home, they might get lost. On the other hand, if we allow them to go home, they might get read. And since we know the best way to become a good reader is to read, what we have have here is a cost benefit conundrum. Here is what I suggest. The power and potential of allowing children to take books home outweighs the risk. We don't need to ban books from going home; we need better ways to insure they come back. The first year I taught in elementary school, I ended up owing the library 280 dollars for lost books (I would take them out and give them to the kids and they would forget to bring them back). Then I instituted a policy where every book that went home from my room went  home in a baggie with my name on it and in it. I then solicited the help of parents through phone calls and backpack mail to assist in making sure books were returned. My losses and out of pocket expenses went down exponentially and kids were reading books at home.

9. Tapping Fingers to Decode Words

Some children have difficulty learning to decode words. What causes this is not really known, but it is likely a combination of many factors including perceptual issues, developmental issues, literacy experience and instructional issues. Whatever the cause, these children often find themselves in remedial programs where they receive intensive phonics instruction, sometimes including such activities as tapping out the sounds of words and then scooping the sounds together to make the word. Not surprisingly, these children often get better at word identification activities. What they typically do not get better at is reading fluency and comprehension. The What Works Clearinghouse reviewed one exemplar of this kind of instruction, Wilson Reading. You can find out their conclusions here. It is really not surprising that kids do not become better readers with a program like this. These programs lose the balance I spoke of above. Children who are tapping and scooping are not able to attend to the real purpose of reading - what do these words mean?

10. Interrupting Student Reading

In typical classrooms good readers spend a great deal of time reading and struggling readers spend a great deal of time having their reading interrupted. It is understandable. We see a child struggling and we want to intervene. We want to provide instruction. When we have a group of struggling readers, it may get even worse. More stopping, more instruction, less actual reading. So what happens is like in our society today, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Skilled readers are likely to have hours more time to actually read in school over the course of a month than struggling readers. The strong readers, therefore, get stronger and the struggling readers continue to struggle. Teachers must find a way to insure that struggling readers get plenty of uninterrupted time to just read (on their own appropriate level) and also additional time for continued reading instruction. Richard Allington has some very cogent thoughts on this topic in his book,What Really Matters for Struggling Readers.

So there you have it. Ten ways to make learning to read harder. Let's see if we can eliminate these non-productive practices from our reading instruction.

A Teacher's New Year’s Resolution: Read Aloud Daily

I was treated to a remarkable experience at my brother’s home this past Sunday, where the family was gathered for an annual holiday celebration. My brother came out to the family room where I was sitting taking in a football game and said, “You better look into the den, your granddaughter is holding court.” I went in to check it out and there I saw my twelve year-old granddaughter, Allison Rainville, reading aloud to a rapt audience of her younger cousins, ages ranging from one to nine. The book was The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg. Allison’s reading was expressive, even dramatic. I thought, “Boy, this kid would definitely score high on a fluent reading rubric.” I was proud of my granddaughter and pleased that the read aloud of a book had captured the children’s attention away from all of the distractions that electronic games, remote control cars and new dolls can create at this time of the year.

So I got to thinking, what would be a great, easy to implement and educationally sound New Year’s resolution for all teachers to make? How about reading aloud to your students daily? I am taking the pledge, also. Even though I now teach in college, read aloud remains relevant and engaging to my 20 somethings. I resolve to read to them at each class.

In this time of Common Core implementation, runaway standardized testing and teacher evaluation based on student performance on these tests, I worry that the daily read aloud may become a casualty of education reform. The truth is, there will never be a time when reading aloud is not a relevant and effective instructional strategy for students. In case your supervisor does not think so, here are ten reasons that read aloud matters that you can put into your lesson plans.

1.    Read aloud helps children relate to reading as a pleasurable experience.

2.    Read aloud provides a rich aesthetic experience for students.

3.    Read aloud exposes students to different text genres and writing styles.

4.    Read aloud provides students with a model of fluent, expressive reading.

5.    Read aloud increases vocabulary.

6.    Read aloud provides opportunities for the teacher to model comprehension strategies.

7.    Read aloud helps young children make connections between speech and print.

8.    Read aloud engages students in more complex text. Typically, children can listen and comprehend text two years above their reading level.

9.    Read aloud helps second language learners become familiar with the sounds and shapes of English.

10. Read aloud helps students learn to ask and answer questions about text.

What should you read aloud? The truth is any text can make for a good read aloud, but I would encourage careful choices based on high quality or high impact texts. Texts for read aloud should be rich in the quality of language used to communicate a message. For younger children, high quality picture books that tell the story through words and pictures will make good choices. For very young children, cumulative stories like The Napping House, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, or Brown Bear, Brown Bear are enjoyable and help students develop oral language. Poetry is written to be read aloud and makes a good choice for read aloud at any age.

You can follow this link to a list of great picture books for children in grades K-2.

You can follow this link to a list of great chapter books to read aloud to students in grades 3-5.

You can follow this link for a list of read alouds aimed at middle school readers.

When reading to high school students, poetry is always a good choice, but I would often find my read-alouds for older students in the pages of the newspaper. I would choose something of local interest or a well-written essay from the op-ed pages to read to the students and often to spur debate. The New York Times gathered a list of recommended articles from its pages for reading aloud to older students. You can find that list here.

So, what do you say? Will you join me in my resolution to read aloud to students every day? It is one of the most powerful uses we can make of our valuable instructional time.

Happy New Year and Joyous Reading to all!

Resource: http://www.education.com/reference/article/reasons-read-aloud-children/

Does Background Knowledge Matter to Reading Comprehension?

Ready for an experiment? Read and summarize the following:

Having crumbled to 214 all out, with Jonathan Trott's 84 not out the glue across an otherwise brittle English innings, the tourists were back in the contest when Paul Collingwood's brace had the hosts wobbling at 100 for five at the turn of the 21st over.

How’d it go? Chances are if you were not raised in England, India, Pakistan or Australia, you had difficulty understanding this report on a cricket match. What is the problem? Obviously, as a resident of a country where cricket is a minor sport at best, you do not have the background knowledge to comprehend a text that any 5^th grader in England would have no trouble with.

So we know that background knowledge does matter. In order to comprehend a text, we connect what we already know with what the text says. The greater the reader's background knowledge the greater the reader’s potential for comprehension and the more likely the reader will find the text interesting. I think about this as an application of  Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development.” We need to provide students with readings that are challenging, but not beyond their ability to comprehend with assistance. As I demonstrated with the cricket passage, any of us can be struggling readers if we are asked to read outside the zone.

Why do I bring this up? The authors of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) seem to be explicitly discouraging the activation and building of prior knowledge for readers.  Indeed the original version of the publisher’s guidelines for the CCSS, explicitly stated it was inappropriate to discuss student background knowledge, have students make predictions about what they would read, or provide purposes for reading a particular text. CCSS author David Coleman’s video demonstration of how to do this type of “close reading” using the Gettysburg Address redoubled the rejection of building context for reading. Coleman posits that the students should simply read the text and struggle with making sense of it.

According to Timothy Shanahan (2013), well known literacy expert, Coleman and the other authors backed off this position in a revised version of the publisher’s guidelines, but many states and school districts had already adopted these guidelines as mandates for instruction.

If indeed the authors have backed off these erroneous and misguided instructional guidelines, it is not apparent in the exemplar lesson plans they are distributing (achievethecore.org). I went to one of these exemplars developed for a seventh grade language arts class. Here are the explicit directions to the teacher of a seventh grade class that is reading Jacques soliloquy on “The Seven Ages of Man” from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

Other than giving the brief definitions offered to words students would
likely not be able to define from context (underlined in the text), avoid
giving any background context or instructional guidance at the outset of
the lesson while students are reading the text silently. This close reading
approach forces students to rely exclusively on the text instead of privileging
background knowledge and levels the playing field for all students as they
seek to comprehend Jacques’ soliloquy.

What??? “Avoid giving any background context”??? “Force students to rely exclusively on the text”??? “Levels the playing field”??? Each of these statements is absurd.

Leaving aside the appropriateness of having seventh grade students read this passage from Shakespeare (the Lexile level of the passage is 1230, which even the CCSS says is high school level reading), we are not to contextualize this text at all? Would it help the reader to know that Jacques is a character in a play? Would it help readers to know that Jacques is a melancholy, brooding philosopher auditioning to be the Duke’s fool? Would it help the reader to know that Jacques’ insight is at best clichéd and at worst just plain wrong? Does it matter that Shakespeare follows Jacques disputation on old age as “sans everything”, with the duke’s aged servant entering ready to continue faithful service? Does this context not prepare the reader to comprehend?

We should force students to rely exclusively on the text? No reader relies exclusively on any text. We are all guided by what we bring to any text, whether it is our vocabulary, our prior knowledge or the reading strategies we have developed along the way. No text stands in a vacuum, no matter how accessible or how obscure.

Finally, and most absurdly, this approach “levels the playing field?” This is an argument for ignorance is bliss. Let’s give kids texts that are impossibly difficult to read, so that they all have great difficulty reading and comprehending and then not give them any prior help so that the playing field is level. I would propose that the best way to level any reading playing field is to make sure that all students have access to the background that will help them understand and read with interest.

Let me say that I have no problem with the “close reading” concept of several readings of a text, of text dependent questions and of students writing after reading a text. These things all seem to be good educational practice. Research would also support the building and activation of prior knowledge as a key aspect of a rich comprehension of text and “close reading” is likely to be more successful if we ignore the “just have them read it” guidelines from the CCSS and do what we know works for students.