Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading (#1)
““Two things stand out about successful reading of challenging texts:
First, proficient readers do not proceed strictly from beginning to end: they scan and skim the whole at the start, get into it and move on prosaically enough but suddenly read a clause and return to a passage on the page before, jump to a section header and back again a few paragraphs, find a bold-faced word and make a note in the margin, move to the very end and then back to the clause that instigated all the activity. The author’s compositional choices are not the sole input for the readers’ comprehension. Reader’s enhance the author’s organizational structure through their own work, sometimes heavily influenced by specialized practices of certain domains.
Second, the processes of comprehending require effort. They can be consciously controlled and made public for others during instruction. Metacognitive teacher-student conversations conducted while reading challenging texts in school can address both what the text means and how one works at comprehending texts in general, the two main ideas of comprehension instruction””
Upon reading these two attributes to reading challenging texts successfully, I began to wonder if it would be beneficial to tell my learners these things. We have discussed ways to take tests, such as reading the question before reading the passage, but have never really talked about what to do in the face of challenging texts. Because this year is very focused on reading to learn in my course, I think I will share with them these two bits of advice. In kid-friendly language, I would like to tell them ways they can not become overwhelmed when given a challenging text to read, as well as letting them know that it requires effort but also a collaboration of thoughts and questions and ideas.
““Instruction is not complete until the students can choose to use the new ability along with other skills and strategies on texts that are challenging and serve purposes beyond being materials for reading lessons””
This statement is powerful because it speaks to the idea that we have prepared our learners to utilize skills we have taught on their own in order to learn more content and skills. I study and conduct experiments in my classes based on Angela Duckworth’s “grit” (2007). Within this study, I have found that resourcefulness is more powerful than resources. I would like to continue to reflect on this quote and move my learners more toward the idea of persevering by being resourceful, not just relying on resources to do the work for you. We can teach our learners so much in literacy, but we need to also teach them how to learn without our guidance.
Burns, M. S., Griffin, P., Snow, C.E. (2005). Knowledge to support the teaching of reading. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.