Although it's necessary, secondary teachers do not go into the classroom equipped to help struggling readers. My first tip, therefore, is to educate yourself. I have a pile of books I'm going to recommend, but before I do, consider my thoughts on our situation: we as teachers are put in quite the predicament that teachers before us never considered. We are expected to give ALL children an education and we are expected to have a high success rate in all classes every year no matter what we're handed. This expectation was much different in history. Not all students were educated. Not all students furthered their education past the 8th grade (my grandparents being a prime example). Today we have given children in the United States an amazing gift: free education. With that comes children from poverty situations (who would never have attended school before), children who struggle in the traditional classroom setting (who would've dropped out if allowed, or held back and held back and held back until they did drop out), children like me who are horrid test takers, children good at math and science but terrible with literature, or students with the talent of analyzing literature but not math problems, and the list could go on and on forever. No matter the circumstance of the children in our classroom, we are expected to teach them well. The success of the student has now fallen into the lap of the teacher rather than the individual student.
So what does this have to do with reading?
Literacy was not common among people of lower class and on many occasions children simply learned a trade to prepare them for life on their own. Today's world has changed significantly, and as a result, a secondary teacher's education should as well.
We need to change with the times and I believe that begins with reading.
Every teacher needs to learn the art of teaching reading.
I do not care if you teach math, history, literature, or science, your students would benefit if you taught them how to read a math problem or science textbook effectively. Due to the fact that teachers are ill equipped, students are as well. My classroom statistics prove it. Over half of my students would come to me as 7th graders reading at a 4th grade (or lower) reading level. Those students typically came from the following situations: broken homes, poverty, horrid test takers, unsupportive parents, ill-equipped teachers, etc. etc. Considering our history, these would've been the students to quit.
With this lightbulb moment, I realized I needed help. So I devoured the following books in an attempt to help these students succeed and fill in gaps:
So what does this have to do with reading?
Literacy was not common among people of lower class and on many occasions children simply learned a trade to prepare them for life on their own. Today's world has changed significantly, and as a result, a secondary teacher's education should as well.
We need to change with the times and I believe that begins with reading.
Every teacher needs to learn the art of teaching reading.
I do not care if you teach math, history, literature, or science, your students would benefit if you taught them how to read a math problem or science textbook effectively. Due to the fact that teachers are ill equipped, students are as well. My classroom statistics prove it. Over half of my students would come to me as 7th graders reading at a 4th grade (or lower) reading level. Those students typically came from the following situations: broken homes, poverty, horrid test takers, unsupportive parents, ill-equipped teachers, etc. etc. Considering our history, these would've been the students to quit.
With this lightbulb moment, I realized I needed help. So I devoured the following books in an attempt to help these students succeed and fill in gaps:
- I Read It, But I Don't Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers by Cris Tovani
- Reading to Learn in Grades 5 to 12 by Margaret Early and Dian J. Sawyer
- Rethinking Reading Comprehension by Anne Polselli Sweet and Catherine E. Snow
- What's a Schwa Sound Anyway? A Holistic Guide to Phonetics, Phonics, and Spelling by Sandra Wilde
- And my FAVORITE: When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers
I gained so much from this literature, but this is what I did most often and saw success doing it:
- Use the resources given to you. Learn how they work so you can use it effectively. My school had Accelerated Reader. Despite the conflicting information out there, I went to every training conference possible and used it as they prescribed. They have statistics proving it works as long as it's used as it was designed. I saw success with it and I do recommend it as long as it's used in the manner they intended.
- Think-alouds. You can teach students to read any text as long as you show them how. Show them how you think as you read. Good readers connect. Show them how you do that by telling them what connections you made. Good readers predict. Stop and tell them what you think is going to happen next. Good readers use their background knowledge. As you read out loud take a moment to explain what you already know about something that helps you understand the text better. Good readers visualize. Give them an illustration revealing what you see. Good readers stop when it's confusing and use strategies to help them make sense of the text. Show them what strategies you use when this happens (i.e. when you come across a word you don't know, or you have no knowledge of an allusion the author uses, etc.). Kylene Beers has this amazing quote to remind us of our own struggle, "... remember anyone can struggle given the right text. The struggle isn't the issue; the issue is what the reader does when the text gets tough." By thinking-aloud you are giving them tools to use when the reading gets tough. Thinking while reading is something struggling readers do not do, you need to do it for them, and if you model it day after day after day you'll be amazed when they begin to do it as well.
- Also, when students hear text being read to them, they also begin to understand what a fluent reader sounds like. Model good expression and appropriate phrasing, intonation and pace. When students hear the text being read to them their own fluency and accuracy also improves.
- Repetition. I never, ever, ever required a student to read a text aloud they just saw. If I wanted them to read a text aloud I prepared days in advance so they could read it over and over and over again. They learned how to pronounce words correctly, they learned what those words meant, they read it over and over and over again until they confidently knew what it said and what it meant.
- One vocabulary word per week. Yup. Just one. By the end of the week they became an expert in that word. This is the truth I learned: students learned more words when I taught fewer words. The more was not merrier, the more words taught the less time was spent actually learning each of them. Take the time to teach the important one's. It doesn't have to be just one, but it does need to be less than 10.
- Context Clues. These were vital to vocabulary success. Students need to read beyond the unknown word to make an educated guess on the meaning. Teach students to read the clues surrounding the word to help define it. There are many different types, teach them the following: definition clue, synonym clue, antonym clue, gist clue. Doing this also helps students to make inferences about the passage in its entirety!
