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Education Matters: With literacy and justice for all

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Staff

By Steve Peha

Recently, I visited a number of schools: high schools, middle schools and elementary schools; public, private and religious schools. Each acknowledged the same problem with literacy: Too many kids were so far behind in reading that they couldn’t function in their classes. But when I made suggestions about how to improve things, and modeled these suggestions in teachers’ classrooms, I got distinctly negative reactions to new ideas.

The concept that set teachers off the most was the notion of teaching kids how to choose books they liked and could read. That way, instead of most kids struggling to read texts way above their heads (novels chosen by the teacher or selections from a publisher’s anthology or test-prep packet), each student could read a book that was just right. This would make reading more meaningful for kids and allow teachers to teach important skills through brief one-on-one conferences in a context where kids could immediately apply them. It would also improve student motivation and help them feel more successful.

True enough, it’s hard to teach better. But isn’t it worth it, especially when it comes to literacy? Why are we so resistant? Why do we seem so unmoved by the connection between failure in literacy and failure in school? Why don’t we acknowledge the connection between high school dropouts and low levels of literacy? Why, in something as important as reading, do we justify using approaches (like whole-class novels and anthology selections) that we know don’t work for the kids we’re trying to teach?

When we teach reading, we hold kids’ lives in our hands. And every time we hit them with texts they can’t read (and tell them their grades depend on their understanding), we chip away at those lives until reading becomes odious and punitive. The consequences for kids who fall behind in elementary school can be devastating. By the time they reach middle school, their reading includes larger volumes of social studies, science and math texts written at grade levels for which they are not prepared. And their secondary teachers, almost never trained in reading, can’t help them.

It’s time our nation began to feel an urgency around reading that compelled us to do the right things: Teach kids how to choose their own “just right” texts; teach reading skills and monitor kids’ progress in the context of authentic individual reading; create successful interventions and intervene early at all levels, K-12; make sure all certified teachers have a meaningful and practical background in reading instruction; put the needs of students above those of covering curriculum or preparing for tests.

When it comes to ed reform these days, we all seem to be nurturing dreams of kids becoming college graduates and going on to be the scientists and mathematicians who create our future. But here in the present, we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can get away with anything less than 100 percent literacy. Of course, it’s our least advantaged children who are hurt the most by the old let’s-all-read-the-same-novel-or-selection-from-the-literature-book approach. And yet this approach persists in the majority of our classrooms.

Now, you may be thinking, “I was taught the old-fashioned way and it worked for me.” Or, “My children read just fine and they’re taught that way.” But that’s not the point. A significant percentage of kids learn to read outside of school and others can learn just about anything on their own no matter how poorly they’re taught. But what about the 10 to 20 million kids in our country that our testing data tells us don’t read as well as they should and who aren’t getting better as they get further along in school?

It makes sense to tackle this problem at the beginning. Most schools have an informal goal that all kids will be fluent readers by third grade. But what happens if some kids don’t make it? Send them to fourth grade and hope. And then on to fifth and middle and high school thereafter, all the while postponing our obligation.

Reading delayed is reading denied. Kids who don’t learn to read well in elementary school rarely, if ever, catch up. And just about everyone who’s ever worked in a school, or been a parent of a struggling reader, knows this. If education is truly the new civil right, it’s time we got serious about creating a nation with literacy and justice for all.

4 thoughts on “Education Matters: With literacy and justice for all”

  1. steve rasmussen says:
    February 12, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    Well put. I teach freshmen and sophomores in high school. When asked, most of my kids in classes tell me they used to like reading at some time in the past. What happened? My guess would be that all the joy was beaten out of reading through years of teacher-chosen, too hard texts.

  2. Sue Pickard says:
    February 19, 2009 at 5:55 pm

    I thought this was very well put, also. I teach high school students who are dyslexic. Just today we were having a conversation about Beowulf. WHY do we continue to teach Beowulf. Especially to kids who are struggling. Does it foster a love of reading and literature? Of course not. Most of them cannot even begin to understand it. With all the wonderful literature available, why can we not choose something that would light a fire in our students? I just don’t get it…

  3. Margaret Modjeski says:
    February 20, 2009 at 10:30 am

    I am a reading coach at a middle school. Four years ago I started a reading incentive program where students win books for their classroom libraries which they can read during our school’s independent reading program or at home. I now know with certainty that book choice changes students’ attitudes towards reading. I am constantly surprised at what books students choose. It is also fun to see how excited students are to be able to choose books. (You are probably thinking why don’t these students just go to the school library.) Studies have shown that reluctant readers will read more readily if the books are in their own classrooms. I am now writing a grant where our intensive reading students will be part of a committee to purchase books for all of our classroom libraries.

  4. L.Mallow says:
    March 4, 2009 at 11:55 am

    In special education we are beat over the head to use age appropriate books, but darn it if you have a 12 yr. old reading at the Kindergarten level, a very interesting, clorful children’s book works just fine.

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