Reading Strategies That Work
As a superintendent responsible for over a dozen schools (both elementary and secondary), and a former language arts teacher, I keep coming back to the primacy of reading in student success. Now more than ever, with young people flocking to the internet and the powerful Google search engine, it is imperative for young people to develop not only strong reading comprehension skills but as well a lifelong interest in reading.
There is a growing body of research that points to the benefits of reading - both in terms of improving student achievement and helping make young people more caring and responsible people:
Resources such as Think Literacy, provide teachers with great pre-reading, reading, and post-reading strategies. Some of my personal favourites are as follows:
1. Anticipation Guide
An Anticipation Guide is a series of questions or statements related to the topic or point of view of a particular text. Students work silently to read and then agree or disagree with each statement. The purpose of the guide is to activate the student's prior knowledge on the subject of the text and whet his appetite for reading it.
Here's a sample anticipation guide I created recently for Larry Dressler's Standing in The Fire, which was a book I led discussions with Ontario Catholic supervisory officers participating in a mentoring program:
1. Anticipation Guide
An Anticipation Guide is a series of questions or statements related to the topic or point of view of a particular text. Students work silently to read and then agree or disagree with each statement. The purpose of the guide is to activate the student's prior knowledge on the subject of the text and whet his appetite for reading it.
Here's a sample anticipation guide I created recently for Larry Dressler's Standing in The Fire, which was a book I led discussions with Ontario Catholic supervisory officers participating in a mentoring program:
2. Skimming
Skimming involves looking only for the main ideas in texts. For example, concentrate only on the topic sentences of paragraphs. In terms of the overall text, focus on the introductory and
concluding paragraphs. In the information age, in which we are bombarded with text through the internet everyday, skimming is as much a life skill as it is a reading skill!
concluding paragraphs. In the information age, in which we are bombarded with text through the internet everyday, skimming is as much a life skill as it is a reading skill!
Skimming
3. U.S.S. R.
Uninterrupted Silent Sustained Reading is a bread & butter strategy for helping young people
discover reading flow - the joy of reading, and develop a lifelong love of reading. Critics argue
that unfocused silent reading during class time is unproductive, but they couldn't be more wrong,
as several studies have shown:
that unfocused silent reading during class time is unproductive, but they couldn't be more wrong,
as several studies have shown:
Of course, for USSR to be successful, teachers must put away their marking and other distractors and
read silently along with their students!
4. Word Walls
The creation of bright and attractive bulletin boards with key and difficult vocabulary from a text
being studied (or electronic versions of the same) is an important strategy in helping students
comprehend the text they are reading. Word walls should be created for in all subjects as an
essential part of reading in the content area.
being studied (or electronic versions of the same) is an important strategy in helping students
comprehend the text they are reading. Word walls should be created for in all subjects as an
essential part of reading in the content area.
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| Science Word Wall |
READICIDE
by Kelly Gallagher
Kelly Gallagher’s thesis in Readicide is stated in the Introduction: “Rather than helping students, many of the reading practices found in today’s classrooms are {ironically} actually contributing to the death of reading.
In Chapter 1, The Elephant in The Room, Gallagher argues that an overemphasis on
standardized testing “is playing a major part in killing off readers” in
schools. (7) First, an obsession with
“shallow” test preparation, maintains Gallagher, sabotages the development of
reading comprehension skills in that it is encouraging equally “shallow
teaching and learning”. (9) Since teachers feel compelled to teach to the
tests, they “sprint” through a wide-range of reading tasks and standards,
sacrificing “deep, rich teaching and learning” and the opportunity for students
to develop the critical literacy skills that they need to become fully
functioning citizens. As well, since
teachers abandon stimulating approaches to literature in their efforts to teach
to the test, reading “becomes another worksheet activity” killing off student
motivation to read. Students conclude
that the primary purpose for reading is to pass tests, “ensuring any chance
they may have had of developing a lifelong reading habit is lost.”(17)
Gallagher argues that the biggest losers from
the overemphasis on testing are those students in the greatest need of help -
struggling readers. They are
particularly vulnerable because when they fail to succeed on standardized
reading tests, they are condemned to a remediation program that involves more
of the same “shallow, mind-numbing” instruction that is both ineffective in
helping them develop meaningful literacy skills and further erodes their
interest in reading. Hence, standardized
testing is widening the reading achievement gap between students!
Gallagher argues that the biggest losers from
the overemphasis on testing are those students in the greatest need of help -
struggling readers. They are
particularly vulnerable because when they fail to succeed on standardized
reading tests, they are condemned to a remediation program that involves more
of the same “shallow, mind-numbing” instruction that is both ineffective in
helping them develop meaningful literacy skills and further erodes their
interest in reading. Hence, standardized
testing is widening the reading achievement gap between students!
Along with the
preoccupation with high-stakes tests, Gallagher also maintains that a not unrelated
lack of authentic reading experiences in
schools is contributing to readicide. He argues that it is particularly important for young people to be exposed
to rich reading opportunities in school since many enter school
suffering from “word poverty” (limited
vocabularies) from linguistically impoverished homes. At school, students need to be immersed in a
“book flood” – have access to a wide range of interesting reading materials.
(32)
Gallagher
emphasizes that rich reading experiences, including the reading of novels and
sustained silent reading time in classrooms
- are needed in schools not only so that students can develop
rudimentary reading comprehension skills (ie. decoding) but also so that they
acquire the necessary background knowledge in a number of areas (ie. history,
civics, etc.) required to become fully functioning citizens. This essential knowledge is best required
through access to newspapers, blogs, and magazines.
Gallagher
emphasizes that rich reading opportunities such as novel reading and silent
sustained reading not only help children develop a lifelong interest in reading
but as well actually improves student achievement in literacy. He cites several studies to support his
contention.
Important advice shared by Gallagher for conducting a
successful reading program in classrooms includes tips such as:
- augmenting novels and other academic reading
with contemporary or “real-world” texts;
- having teachers read silently during sustained
silent reading;
- bringing libraries into classrooms through book floods rather than bring students to libraries;
- combating summer reading loss by encouraging
leisure reading programs.
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| Author Kelly Gallagher |
The third contributor to readicide is intensive over-analysis of
literature and nonfiction. Chopping up
the study of books, by frequent teacher analysis, kills reading flow for
children, preventing them from experiencing a intimate and deep connection to
the book they are reading. Gallagher
uses a great analogy to illustrate this point: Would anyone want to attend a
gripping movie only to have the viewing of it interrupted several times by
someone explaining what it’s all about and assigning worksheet questions based
on it? The over-analysis of aspects of
literature such as themes, symbolism, and characterization create “a tsunami
that drowns adolescent readers” (64) and damages their chances of developing a
lifelong interest in reading. Gallager’s
Kill-a-Reader Casserole recipe on
page 73 is both humorous and ominous.
Over-analysis of literature also “creates instruction that values the
trivial at the expense of the meaningful” (66)
The dangerous practice, according to Gallagher, is that students are
being asked to approach the reading of books from the standpoint of test
preparation and are missing out on the important opportunity to approach books
as vicarious life lessons – what he describes as “imaginative rehearsals” (70) for
life.
The under-teaching of books contributes to readicide just as much as the
over-teaching of them. Although
students should be allowed to read high-interest books without too much teacher
direction, they require support when reading academic texts such as classic
literature. For the latter, teachers
should find the “sweet spot” between
teacher direction and student independent reading.
Teachers should approach difficult texts with a guided tour of the more complex elements. They should provide
“framing” for such texts, which involves pre-reading activities such as a
discussion of the historical context for a story along with background on the
author, a preview of difficult but important vocabulary, and an anticipation guide. They should then allow big chunk uninterrupted first
draft reading followed by second and
third draft teacher-directed small
chunk reading and analysis of key parts of the story.
Readicide is an important book for all
teachers of literature and nonfiction as it provides both a warning against
destroying the love of reading among students (through over-teaching and
obsession with test preparation) and a guide to finding the sweet spot in
reading instruction.
To hear Kelly Gallagher speak about Readicide, click the links below:
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