Reading the Baseball Game
From the desk of Hope….
My husband, Ron, and I went to a minor league baseball game last week. What a nice night it was – clear sky, 85 degrees and low humidity. Our local team, The Winston-Salem Dash, is not very good but the stadium is absolutely beautiful so we find going to the games a lot of fun. Plus, being outside is a bonus! Somehow Ron and I landed at this particular game alone – no child, no friends, just us. It was strange to be able to have a continuous conversation with each other (I feel sure you know what I mean if you have kids!).
As we were watching and talking about the game, it struck me that I was “reading” the game in a different way than Ron. As I watched the game, I was saying things like:
“We need to get some more points or we are going to lose.”
“That was a triple, what a good hit.”
“I like The Dash uniforms better than the Mavericks.”
On the other hand, Ron was saying things like:
“Do you see the coach over on the side calling all the pitches? This is a young pitcher and a young catcher. He is really working with them on how to communicate with each other.”
“That was such a bad decision. They had a guy picked off between first and second and they chose to try to throw the guy out at home”
“This guy batting, Ian Gac, is 27 years old. He has been playing in the minor league a long time. I wonder what the story is with that?”
Ron was clearly “reading” this baseball game at a higher level than me. I was seeing surface level, literal things happening in the game. I was at the knowledge level of thinking. In contrast, Ron was thinking at a higher level. He was analyzing and evaluating. He was predicting and asking questions.
As I thought more about this, I began to make the connection with teaching reading. Many of our students read texts much like I was reading the baseball game. They think about the text on a lower level — naming characters, settings and problems, noticing literal, less significant events and details. This type of reading and thinking is sub par in today’s world. Our competitive work force requires thoughtful decision-making, critical thinking and proficiency with analytical tasks.
How can we get our students to read and comprehend at a higher level? Over the last fifteen years, many researchers have poured hours into developing strategies that support higher level comprehension. David Pearson led the movement and many fantastic books and resources have been published based on his findings. A few of our favorites are:
Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Ann Goudvis
I Read it But I Didn”t Get It by Cris Tovani
Reading with Meaning by Debbie Miller
Deeper Reading by Kelly Gallagher
If you are working your way through any of these, let us know what you think. We really like to hear about what really happened when you tried some of these ideas and what you learned in the process!