How Do We Meet the Framework’s Reading Goals, Part 1?

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The framework calls for 1 million words of running text by 8^th grade and double that, or 2 million words, by the end of high school. What modifications to pedagogy must occur for us to meet or approach this goal?

Substitute independent mastery of text for oral rendering of texts in the classroom.

By the 4^th grade, it is certainly a colossal waste of class time to read entire works of literature, as well as social science and science chapters, aloud in class. One reason this strategy is so prevalent in American classrooms is the pervasive misinterpretation of both the “read-aloud” and “think aloud.” Both of these valuable strategies should be used sparingly. The read aloud exposes students to text which, by its complex ideas, advanced vocabulary and sentence construction, is at the frustrational level for students. Its primary purpose is enable students to acquire a rich background in academic language ahead of their needing it. The think aloud is a strategy whereby the teacher demonstrates the thought processes that go through his mind while reading. It slows the reading process to a crawl, as the teacher pauses frequently to question the text or muse aloud about what it might mean. I have serious reservations about ever employing this highly artificial strategy and am dubious that it has any benefits. However, its sparing use, about 10 minutes at the beginning of a unit, only minimally retards the main goal of independent mastery of text.

I have yet to observe a class where students have acted up while being read to. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the teacher reads, the teacher plays a recorded reading, teacher and students share the reading, or students pass around the reading. The students sit there passively, some paying attention, others not; no side conversations. It occurs to me that teachers have seduced themselves into using oral reading during class as a management tool. I don’t think this is a conscious decision. But oral reading of text occupies part of a period and is often central to the lesson plan of the day. Oral reading may reduce teacher stress and guarantee a portion of the period will pass uneventfully, but I cannot find any foundation for this practice in the framework or the content standards. Again, how many lines of running text, independently mastered, have been sacrificed on the altar of this strategy?

Give up on what researcher Mike Schmoker calls “the crayola curriculum.” After 3^rd grade, leave art to the art teacher. How much text could a student consume during the two full days of class he and his classmates spent drawing ship-trap island from the story “The Most Dangerous Game?” Not that there isn’t anything a student can learn from the exercise of graphically representing ideas which originate in text, but what is the trade-off? I would estimate about 12,000 words of running text?

Minimize collaborative work. Or, adopt the attitude that a little cooperative learning goes a long way. The infusion of cooperative strategies appears to address several student learning needs:

Class sizes are large and teachers have difficulty meeting all of their students’ needs. Cooperative grouping allows students to temporarily assume mutual tutorial roles and to increase their knowledge bases without direct teacher instruction.

The 21^st century economy is at least partially structured on work teams and ‘team work’ is highly valued in the market place. Infusing such strategies in the language arts curriculum, prepares today’s students to be tomorrow’s workers.

My objection to the level of cooperative learning I see in the classroom derives from the following observations:

a. In the market place teams function somewhat differently than they do in classrooms. Often the meetings take place after a great deal of individual work has been accomplished. Teams come together to share what they have learned and pool their talents to advance their work. In classrooms, often the teams are formed first and proceed to do what should be individual work, as in reading a story, or solving a math problem, together.

b. Cooperative groups are associated with significant losses of instructional time. Every teacher has lamented the obvious; no matter how well-designed, there are students who waste time while doing group work. Too often one or two members do all the work designed for four or more students. There are strategies that assure greater student involvement, but that takes us to “c.”

c. Even when instructional time is not wasted, cooperative groups still burn up a tremendous amount of time. Again, students need to read and write so much text, can great chunks of classroom time be justified for what is essentially student conversation, however elevated and on-task that talk may be?

I can hear teachers now: “What am I to do, if you take away the tried and true strategies of oral, or dramatic rendering of text, graphical representations of ideas and cooperative learning? Do you want me to have them just reading and writing all the time? That is not as far off as it sounds. Mike Schmoker states that 50% of instructional time in all disciplines from 4^th grade on should be spent in reading and writing. I will have ideas about how to structure this 50% and the remaining 50% in my next weblog entry.