Shouldn't They Already Know How to Read This?

From the desk of Alice…

I am fortunate to be able to work in middle and high school classrooms as part of my weekly work.  The classes are always full of energy and there is rarely a dull moment.  When I am in these classes, my role is to support the literacy development of the students via the teacher.  Sometimes I am in an English classroom but other times I am in history, science, and even math classes.   Inevitably, in my conversations with the teachers, I am asked about the kids who are struggling with reading in their particular context.  The number one question I get is, “shouldn’t they already know how to read this?”  The short answer is yes but the question is full of teaching points on my part.

Teaching Point #1: Reading is more than word calling.

How are we defining reading in our upper level classrooms?  It is vital for students to not only know how to call words, but also comprehend the text they are working with.  It can be deceiving, but it is entirely possible for students to call words perfectly and not understand or comprehend any of it.  This can be very misleading in our secondary classrooms.  In the Common Core, we want students to go beyond comprehension and actually think critically.  When we talk about reading, let’s talk about the whole thing- not just word calling or mispronouncing vocabulary.  Reading is MUCH larger than that.  It’s easier to support the reader if we know they have issues with pronunciation v. actual understanding.  It’s also much more productive to address the issue of reading when we define it in a multi-dimensional way.

Teaching Point #2:  Text matters.

When the text is difficult and complex, reading proficiency goes down naturally.  For example, shouldn’t I already know how to read my tax forms?  Shouldn’t I already know how to read my insurance policy?  Shouldn’t I already know how to read research abstracts?  I can read critically but when faced with these kinds of texts that I don’t have a lot of experience with and/or don’t read daily, my proficiency goes down.  I have to slow down, I read word for word, and have to reread frequently to understand the text.  Our students are no exception.  They need practice with complex text, they need to slow down, and reread in order to increase their understanding.

Teaching Point #3: Be explicit.

In order for our students in middle and high school classrooms to be successful, we must teach them how to think critically with complex text.  The research on comprehension achievement shows us that explicitly teaching students HOW we make sense of texts in “think alouds” will directly increase their comprehension within that text.  (Brown, Pressley, Van Meter, & Schuder, 1996; Duffy et al., 1987; Mason, 2004; Meichenbaum & Asarnow, 1979; Schunk & Rice, 1991).  We must remember that despite the larger bodies and increasingly mature conversations, these students are not done with learning to read.  We must explicitly teach them HOW to make sense of texts in these classes.  By thinking aloud on the front end of the lesson, we can give them a springboard for wrestling with big ideas, difficult vocabulary, and organizing thinking so they can articulate ideas.

These three points are just the tip of the reading iceberg.  However, if we can be reflective and strategic about these 3 ideas in our post-elementary classrooms, we can start to view our readers in a different light.  Reading is truly an evolving process.  It is not something that we can check off as having achieved at age 6 and are proficient evermore.  Instead of asking “shouldn’t they know how to read this?” let’s ask, “how can I help them read this more efficiently?”  The latter question will help move us ALL forward!