Teaching reading beyond basic decoding skills is not something many teachers focus on even at the HS level. One thing that I’ve found helpful is to read really challenging texts yourself which can help put you in the shoes of where your students might be. I’ve been working my through a graduate program through SJC and we’ve tackled Aristotle’s Politics and Physics and Kant and Hume and Augustine and others - it’s a bear. What do proficient readers do in these circumstances? There is a classic text “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler (edited by Charles Can Doren - yes, that Charles Van Doren depicted in Quiz Show) which contains some strategies that I just don’t think anyone talks about anymore. You need to pick appropriate texts , selections, etc…. Many kids also just don’t have the background context knowledge to help them piece together unfamiliar passages. It’s a whole host of issues.
I don't know much about early literacy, but the Sold a Story podcast (recommended by Colleen Thorndike in an earlier comment) and the reporting it talks about are helpful in understanding how reading works at those levels--and how it has been taught in recent years.
Such great insight! The students I teach—at an elite institution—struggle, as well. And it does seem worse in the post-COVID era. I also think that, in general, professors are people who have often excelled and didn’t need certain skills broken down. Sometimes, I find myself needing to really figure out all the components of reading academically because it’s second nature to me.
Thanks for this comment. That's so true! In reading about the phonics versus cueing disaster in early literacy education, I've often thought that I would have learned to read no matter how I was taught. And now, of course, I'm barely even in touch with what I'm doing when I read, until I stop to think about it. Difficult to teach someone how to do something that you don't know you're doing!
You reminded of how “mediocre” athletes often make better coaches than “good” ones. The former are often much more conscious of each step they’re taking.
The podcast Sold a Story is very enlightening on how reading is being taught (or not) in many K-12 schools. It really helped me understand what I was seeing in students struggle to fully comprehend whole articles.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful piece. I just happened to be reading Maryann Wolfe‘s READER, COME HOME this weekend, too, and now I’m eager to go back to her book with these insights in mind. (I am also in higher education and a former writing instructor, and so I have been following the broader conversation about reading stamina, etc. with great interest!)
Thanks for this recommendation! I haven't done a lot of reading about reading, so I'm confident there's a lot of good stuff out there I should look into.
Thanks for sharing! I appreciated your willingness to unpack what you meant by 'reading' and 'analysis' into its constituent pieces... which are all doable enough in and of themselves (it reminded me of a Linda Nilson article on breaking student peer review into discrete chunks/questions). As a music teacher, this is a challenge for me to break down the meaning(s) of a big word like 'practice,' what activities and questions are trying to address? The willingness to drill down into the specifics of what key tasks in our discipline entail seems key to navigating students through the learning wildnerness.
Thanks for this! Yes, I can see how this would be applicable to music practice. I'm imagining that a nontrivial number of students have unhelpful practice strategies (just like they sometimes have unhelpful study strategies) and need more detailed guidance.
I remember when I was learning piano I had a bad habit of practicing everything too fast and just fudging my way through difficult passages without slowing down to actually learn them. I mean, I knew what I was supposed to be doing--I just didn't want to do it 😂
Thank you very much for writing about how to teach reading.
Teaching reading beyond basic decoding skills is not something many teachers focus on even at the HS level. One thing that I’ve found helpful is to read really challenging texts yourself which can help put you in the shoes of where your students might be. I’ve been working my through a graduate program through SJC and we’ve tackled Aristotle’s Politics and Physics and Kant and Hume and Augustine and others - it’s a bear. What do proficient readers do in these circumstances? There is a classic text “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler (edited by Charles Can Doren - yes, that Charles Van Doren depicted in Quiz Show) which contains some strategies that I just don’t think anyone talks about anymore. You need to pick appropriate texts , selections, etc…. Many kids also just don’t have the background context knowledge to help them piece together unfamiliar passages. It’s a whole host of issues.
Just a mom teaching my 4-year-olds to read. Buying into the knowledge-building argument. One boy easily got “cat” and “cut” but was like WTF is “cot”?
I don't know much about early literacy, but the Sold a Story podcast (recommended by Colleen Thorndike in an earlier comment) and the reporting it talks about are helpful in understanding how reading works at those levels--and how it has been taught in recent years.
Such great insight! The students I teach—at an elite institution—struggle, as well. And it does seem worse in the post-COVID era. I also think that, in general, professors are people who have often excelled and didn’t need certain skills broken down. Sometimes, I find myself needing to really figure out all the components of reading academically because it’s second nature to me.
Thanks for this comment. That's so true! In reading about the phonics versus cueing disaster in early literacy education, I've often thought that I would have learned to read no matter how I was taught. And now, of course, I'm barely even in touch with what I'm doing when I read, until I stop to think about it. Difficult to teach someone how to do something that you don't know you're doing!
You reminded of how “mediocre” athletes often make better coaches than “good” ones. The former are often much more conscious of each step they’re taking.
Oh interesting. Or how graduate student TAs and instructors sometimes make better teachers than more advanced experts!
Wonderful. Been there. https://open.substack.com/pub/johnnogowski/p/nogo-as-teacher-the-kids-talk-back?r=7pf7u&utm_medium=ios
The podcast Sold a Story is very enlightening on how reading is being taught (or not) in many K-12 schools. It really helped me understand what I was seeing in students struggle to fully comprehend whole articles.
Thank you, Colleen! I desperately need a primer on this.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful piece. I just happened to be reading Maryann Wolfe‘s READER, COME HOME this weekend, too, and now I’m eager to go back to her book with these insights in mind. (I am also in higher education and a former writing instructor, and so I have been following the broader conversation about reading stamina, etc. with great interest!)
Thanks, I'll have to check that out!
I recommend Kelly Gallagher's new book! https://www.heinemann.com/products/e16146.aspx
Thanks for this recommendation! I haven't done a lot of reading about reading, so I'm confident there's a lot of good stuff out there I should look into.
Thanks for sharing! I appreciated your willingness to unpack what you meant by 'reading' and 'analysis' into its constituent pieces... which are all doable enough in and of themselves (it reminded me of a Linda Nilson article on breaking student peer review into discrete chunks/questions). As a music teacher, this is a challenge for me to break down the meaning(s) of a big word like 'practice,' what activities and questions are trying to address? The willingness to drill down into the specifics of what key tasks in our discipline entail seems key to navigating students through the learning wildnerness.
Thanks for this! Yes, I can see how this would be applicable to music practice. I'm imagining that a nontrivial number of students have unhelpful practice strategies (just like they sometimes have unhelpful study strategies) and need more detailed guidance.
I remember when I was learning piano I had a bad habit of practicing everything too fast and just fudging my way through difficult passages without slowing down to actually learn them. I mean, I knew what I was supposed to be doing--I just didn't want to do it 😂