What a Good Idea!

From the desk of Hope…

This title is purposefully meant to be sarcastic.   Now that you know this, go ahead and read it again with the full tone of sarcasm. You can add the head shake and eye roll too!

Alice and I have taken on our first high school project. We are preparing to work with four high schools next year and we realize our task is a big one! We will be helping support high school English teachers in their quest to create students who are life-long, engaged, and strategic readers.  This is a big deal because reading is typically thought of as part of the primary teacher’s job.  Plopping it in the middle of a high school culture is going to require some paradigm shifting to happen.  It is a very exciting time for us as we break new ground and grow as staff developers, but it is some what intimidating.

In preparing for this daunting task we have been immersing ourselves in research, articles, books, watching video tapes and talking to everyone we know about how to make this shift happen cooperatively and seamlessly. As I am reading through the information and current recommendations related to what high schoolers should know and be able to do related to reading, I keep thinking, “no kidding!”

For example, one recommendation is for students to read for meaning and to comprehend text. Read for meaning and comprehend text.  Well, what a good idea!

Do you see where I am going with this? Apparently, according to research, we have higher schoolers who know how to call words but they don’t know what they have read. Also, according to research, we have high schoolers who know how to read but choose not to read.  In the education world we call this “aliterate”.  How sad. Who would want to spend time reading if they are literally just calling words?

In response to these findings, there is an abundance of information out that is intended to help teachers buy into the fact that we should be teaching students how to read and understand what they are reading from the very early stages of literacy development. I am not sure why anyone would have to be sold on the idea that reading for meaning and comprehending it is a good idea.

Here are a FEW current recommendations of effective strategies to improve reading of adolescents in the middle and high school: (Carnegie Report)

• Direct, explicit comprehension instruction: Instruction in the reading process that proficient readers use to understand what they read…..including keeping track of one’s own thinking….

• Motivation and self-direct learning: Building motivation to read and learn……..

• Extended Time for literacy: Approximately two to four hours of literacy instruction and practice…..

• Text-based collaborative learning: Students interacting with each other around a variety of texts.

What good ideas!

I am thinking these are just standards that make sense and should be happening in classrooms because they align with what we know happens in the real world.

How many of you are in a book club? How many of you have to read things for work and then gather around a table to think together? How many of you get interested in a topic or subject and then research to learn more about it?

My question is…where did we get off track? When did we veer away from thinking that reading a good book, talking about it, writing down thoughts, listening as others share their insights and opinions was of so little importance?  Why did we decide it’s OK for students to spend, in some cases according to one researcher, as little as 7 minutes a day in school engaged in these types of lessons?

Let’s focus on increasing authentic reading and writing across the school day…now that’s a good idea!