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Archives For November 30, 1999

Reading for Fun, Not Reading for Fun(ds)

July 10, 2013 — 8 Comments

This past week, I wrote a blog post that critiqued the results of The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2013 test. There was a 2% growth in reading scores over the past 41 years for students at age 17.
A 2% increase.
That’s all.
Billions of dollars, paper piles of legislation, incalculable time…..and the result has been an abysmal 2% increase.

In a subsequent post, I wrote how NAEP also provided data to prove independent reading was the key to improving test scores. NAEP reported that students who claimed to read for fun scored higher on standardized tests with the obvious conclusion that the more time a student spent reading, the higher the student’s score. This information, included in a report that demonstrated a failure of reading programs, offered a possible solution for increasing reading scores: adopt a no-cost, read for fun initiative in order to improve results.

I tweeted out the the link to my post:

2013 NAEP Tests show only 2% growth in reading by age 17 UNLESS students “read for fun”

I received this tweet in response:

 http://www.reading-rewards.com is a lovely site to use when you want to encourage kids to read for fun

So, I went to the Reading Rewards website, but I had some concerns. The headline banner read:“The Reward is in the Reading”, certainly a noble sentiment. However, below this banner was the text that read:

Parents & Teachers:
We know all about the rewards that reading offers, but sometimes our more reluctant readers need a little extra incentive. The Reading Rewards online reading log and reading incentive program helps make reading fun and satisfying. Find more about Reading Rewards’s benefits for parents and teachers.

The concept of an incentive program or reading for “rewards” is not reading for fun. Reading for pleasure should be the only incentive, and offering incentive programs can be counter-productive. Consider education advocate Alfie Kohn‘s explanation of his research that illustrates why incentivized reading programs are not successful:

The experience of children in an elementary school class whose teacher introduced an in-class reading-for-reward program can be multiplied hundreds of thousands of times:

The rate of book reading increased astronomically . . . [but the use of rewards also] changed the pattern of book selection (short books with large print became ideal). It also seemed to change the way children read. They were often unable to answer straight-forward questions about a book, even one they had just finished reading. Finally, it decreased the amount of reading children did outside of school.

Notice what is going on here. The problem is not just that the effects of rewards don’t last. No, the more significant problem is precisely that the effects of rewards do last, but these effects are the opposite of what we were hoping to produce. What rewards do, and what they do with devastating effectiveness, is to smother people’s enthusiasm for activities they might otherwise enjoy.

Kohn’s explanation in his A Closer Look at Reading Incentive Programs (Excerpt from Punished by Rewards 1993/1999) illustrates the problems that develop for late middle school and high school teachers (gr 7-12) experience once elementary students have experienced a reward program with their reading. Students who are conditioned to read for any kind of reward develop a Pavlovian response. They learn to expect a reward; once the reward is removed, however, they lose interest.

Sadly, most students are already in a “quid pro quo” educational experience. Even in elementary school, students are conditioned to want a grade for every activity. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons poked fun of this conditioned response for constant feedback in one episode when Springfield’s teachers went out on strike, and a distraught Lisa begged her mother, Marge, to “grade her”:

“Grade me! Look at me! Evaluate and rank me!
I’m good, good, good and oh so smart!
GRADE ME!”

LISA: "Grade me! Look at me! Evaluate and rank me! I’m good, good, good and oh so smart! GRADE ME!"

LISA: “Grade me! Look at me! Evaluate and rank me! I’m good, good, good and oh so smart! GRADE ME!”

While grades are not the currency for this website, Reading Rewards is perfectly positioned to be a commercial enterprise with language on the site promoting the RR “store” and “e-commerce”.  This initial shopping experience may be for some trinket in a teacher’s box, a homework pass, or a pizza party, but the potential for “shopping” on this site is certainly a possibility.

Here is the promotional text for teachers:

Screen Shot 2013-07-10 at 10.43.43 AM

The website advises teachers what items to have for students to “purchase”, and even suggests major retailers i-Tunes and Amazon:

Reward Ideas
Teachers and parents can create any reward they want and define how many RR miles are required to “purchase” each reward. Here are some ideas of Rewards selected by many of our users:

  • Movie night at home
  • Movie in the theater
  • Family game night
  • Sleepover with friends
  • Trip to the dollar store
  • Prize draw from a treasure box
  • Extra tickets for a classroom raffle
  • The right to choose the dessert after dinner
  • Make/decorate/eat cupcake session
  • Amazon credit
  • iTunes credit
  • Game console time

Again, Kohn believes that in teaching students to read, incentives should not be used. Instead he notes:

But what matters more than the fact that children read is why they read and how they read.  With incentive-based programs, the answer to “why” is “To get rewards,” and this, as the data make painfully clear, is often at the expense of interest in reading itself.

So while the key to independent reading is the key to raising reading scores, students should not be raising profits for software companies as well. There are other features on this software that are admirable. The site includes places for reading logs, creating reading wish lists, and peer sharing reviews, but those features could be accomplished on a (free) blog or wiki without the distractions of prizes or rewards.

I do not fault the teacher who was well-intended when she tweeted out this website. She wants students to read for fun. The NAEP report proves that independent reading can effectively raise scores when the reading is self-motivated reading for pleasure. Teachers should question, however, when reading for fun is linked to reading with “funds”.

In Education, Education & Technology, Reading, Teacher , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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NAEP’s Solution to Flat Reading Scores-“Read for Fun”

July 9, 2013 — 6 Comments

The release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Progress Report for 2012  (“Nation’s Report Card”) provides an overview on the progress made by specific age groups in public and private schools in reading and in mathematics since the early 1970s. The gain in reading scores after spending billions of dollars, countless hours and effort was a measly 2% rise in scores for 17-year-olds. After 41 years of testing, the data on the graphs show a minimal 2% growth. After 41 years, Einstein’s statement, “Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results,” is a confirmation that efforts in developing effective reading programs have left the education system insane.

The rather depressing news from NAEP in reading scores (detailed in a previous blog) could be offset, however, by information included in additional statistics in the report. These statistics measure the impact of “reading for fun” on student test scores. Not surprisingly, the students who read more independently, scored higher. NAEP states:

Results from previous NAEP reading assessments show students who read for fun more frequently had higher average scores. Results from the 2012 long-term trend assessment also reflect this pattern. At all three ages, students who reported reading for fun almost daily or once or twice a week scored higher than did students who reported reading for fun a few times a year or less

The irony is that reading for fun is not measured in levels or for specific standards as they are in the standardized tests. For example, the responses in standardized tests are measured accordingly:

High Level readers:

  • Extend the information in a short historical passage to provide comparisons (CR – ages 9 and 13)
  • Provide a text-based description of the key steps in a process (CR)
  • Make an inference to recognize a non-explicit cause in an expository passage (MC – age 13)
  • Provide a description that includes the key aspects of a passage topic (CR – ages 9 and 13)

Mid Range Readers:

  • Read a highly detailed schedule to locate specific information (MC – age 13)
  • Provide a description that reflects the main idea of a science passage (CR – ages 9 and 13)
  • Infer the meaning of a supporting idea in a biographical sketch (MC – ages 9 and 13)
  • Use understanding of a poem to recognize the best description of the poem’s speaker (MC)

Low Level Readers:

  • Summarize the main ideas in an expository passage to provide a description (CR – ages 9 and 13)
  • Support an opinion about a story using details (CR – ages 9 and 13)
  • Recognize an explicitly stated reason in a highly detailed description (MC)
  • Recognize a character’s feeling in a short narrative passage (MC – age 13)

(CR Constructed-response question /MC Multiple-choice question)

Independent reading, in contrast, is deliberately void of any assessment. Students may choose to participate in a discussion or keep a log on their own, but that is their choice.  The only measurement is a student’s willingness to volunteer the frequency of their reading, a form of anecdotal data.

According to the graph below (age 17 only), students who volunteered that they read less frequently were in the low to mid-level ranges in reading. Students who volunteered that they read everyday met the standards at the top of the reading scale.

Graph showing that 17-year-olds who read for fun score higher on standardized tests

#1 Graph showing that 17-year-olds who read for fun score higher on standardized tests

Sadly, this NAEP data recorded a decline in reading for fun over the last 17 years-exactly the age of those students who have demonstrated only a 2% increase in reading ability. The high number of independent readers (“reading for fun”) was in 1994 at 30%.

Steady decline in the number of 17- year-old students who say that they "read for fun."

#2 Steady decline in the number of 17- year-old students who say that they “read for fun.”

So what happened the following years, in 1995 and 1996, to cause the drop in students who read voluntarily? What has happened to facilitate the steady decline?

In 1995 there were many voices advocating independent reading: Richard Allington, Stephen Krashen, and Robert Marzano. The value of independent reading had been researched and was being recommended to all districts.

Profit for testing companies or publishing companies, however, is not the motive in independent reading programs.There are no “scripted” or packaged or leveled programs to offer when students choose to “read for fun”, and there is no test that can be developed in order to report a score on an independent read. The numerical correlation of reading independently and higher test scores (ex: read 150 pages=3 points) is not individually measurable; and districts, parents, and even students are conditioned to receiving a score. Could the increase of reading programs from educational publishers with leveled reading box sets or reading software, all implemented in the early 1990s, be a factor?

Or perhaps the controversy on whole language vs. phonics, a controversy that raged during the 1990s, was a factor? Whole language was increasingly controversial, and reading instructional strategies were being revised to either remove whole language entirely or blend instruction with the more traditional phonics approach.

The sad truth is that there was plenty of research by 1995 to support a focus on independent “reading for fun” in a balanced literacy program, for example:

Yet seventeen years later, as detailed in the NAEP report of 2012, the scores for 17-year-old students who read independently for fun dropped to the lowest level of 19%. (chart #2)

While the scores from standardized testing over 41 years according to the NAEP report show only 2% growth in reading, the no cost independent “reading for fun” factor has proven to have a benefit on improving reading scores. Chart #1 shows a difference of 30 points out of a standardized test score of 500 or a 6% difference in scores between students who do not read to those who read daily. Based on the data in NAEP’s report, reading programs have been costly and yielded abysmal results, but letting students choose to “read for fun” has been far less costly and reflects a gain in reading scores.

The solution to breaking this cycle is given by the authors of The Nation’s Report Card. Ironically, these authors are assessment experts, data collectors, who have INCLUDED a strategy that is largely anecdotal, a strategy that can only be measured by students volunteering information about how often they read.

The choice to include the solution of “reading for fun” is up to all stakeholders-districts, educators, parents, students. If “reading for fun” has yielded the positive outcomes, then this solution should take priority in all reading programs. If not, then we are as insane as Einstein said; in trying to raise reading scores through the continued use of reading programs that have proven to be unsuccessful, we are “doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.”

In Education, Education reform, Independent Student Reads, Reading, Silent Sustained Reading -SSR, Testing , , , , , , , ,
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A Blog’s 3rd Anniversary: Preparing the Mind is the Best Professional Development

July 3, 2013 — 3 Comments

birthday11July 3rd is this blog’s third anniversary.

WrdPress provides a map of where visitors accessed this blog.

WrdPress provides a map of where visitors accessed this blog since 2012.

One way of determining whether this three year venture has been successful is to look at the overwhelming amount of statistical information provided by the host of this site, WordPress.com. To date, the stat page notes that there have been over 70,000 hits, the most popular search term has been Of Mice and Men, the most popular post has been Teaching Elie Weisel’s Night with Choice Books, and the most frequently used category for this teacher, not surprisingly, has been EDUCATION.

The other way to determine the success of this blog, however, is to reflect on how well writing has served as my own professional development for the past 36 months. In writing each post, I have tried to find links that support or refute a position. I have searched and researched all elements of the Common Core State Standards; read journals or policy statements from educators and education reformers; and cited hundreds of quotes, graphics, and statistics to support my ideas. Even if no one read this blog, the writing experience has been important.

Many of the ideas for blog posts come from links provided by other educators on Twitter. Many ideas come from the students in my classes or from news stories that are related to education reform. Then there are the ideas I have while I walk with fellow educator on weekends.
For example, I will notice how the ripples on the pond create an interesting pattern, and I will casually remark, “that reminds me of how students can create ripples when they discuss their book choices!”
“Well, that’s a great idea for a blog post!” she will respond.

I have discovered that I have little control over my need to write; that the impulse to set things into print is hard to ignore. In addition, the motivation to write comes at the most inconvenient times, often late in the evening, and I have seen many digital clocks click into the AM hours of the morning as I polish a piece.
“Are you still awake?” my husband complains.
“Just finishing,” and I huddle to hide the glow of the screen while I reflect and revise.

Nothing has taught me more about how to teach writing than my writing this blog. Nothing.
Nothing has made me appreciate how hard it is to meet the deadlines and requirements of assignments given to students. Nothing.
Nothing has made me more aware of how important developing confident writers is in preparing students for the real world. Nothing.

My friend, who also writes on her own blog, often quotes the scientist Louis Pasteur who said,

“In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.”

On this third anniversary, I am confident that writing on this blog has helped me to become a more informed educator. Writing what I think about education prepares me to say what I think when I am at leadership meetings, or department meetings, or when I am teaching. I am primed to discuss any number of issues related to education because my mind has been prepared, and the chances that I will talk about these education issues is more than good.

On this blog’s third anniversary, I am convinced that the best professional development I have is to write what I think.

In Education, Professional Development, Teacher, Writing , , ,
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41 years Later, a “2% Increase in Reading”. Wait, um…. That’s It?

June 30, 2013 — 5 Comments

I recently had to write a position statement on assessment and evaluation.  The timing of this assignment, June 2013, coincided with the release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Progress Report for 2012. This “Nation’s Report Card” provides an overview on the progress made by specific age groups in public and private schools in reading and in mathematics since the early 1970s.

Since NAEP uses the results of standardized tests, and those standardized tests use multiple choice questions, here is my multiple choice question for consideration:

Based on the 2012 NAEP Report results, what difference(s) in reading scores separates a 17-year-old high school student in 1971 from a 17-year-old high school student in 2012?

a. 41 years
b. billions in dollars spent in training, teaching, and testing
c. a 2 % overall difference in growth in reading
d. all of the above

You could act on your most skeptical instincts about the costs and ineffectiveness of standardized testing and make a calculated guess from the title of this blog post or you could skim the 57 page report (replete with charts, graphs, graphics, etc) that does not take long to read, so you could get the information quickly to answer correctly: choice “D”.

Yes, 41 years later, a 17-year old scores only 2% higher than a previous generation that probably contained his or her parents.

There have been billions of dollars invested in developing reading skills for our nation’s children. In just the last twelve years, there has been the federal effort in the form of Reading First, the literacy component of President Bush’s 2001 “No Child Left Behind” Act. Reading First initially offered over $6 billion to fund scientifically based reading-improvement efforts in five key early reading skills: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The funding of grants for students enrolled in kindergarten through grade three in Title I Schools began in 2002-2003.

There have been individual state initiatives that complement Reading First, funded by state legislatures, such as:

There have been efforts to improve literacy made by non-profit educational corporations/foundations such as The Children’s Literacy Initiative, the National Reading Panel, and a Born to Read initiative from the American Library Association. In addition, there have been a host of policy statements from The National Council of Teachers of English and programs offered by the National Writing Project that have helped to drive attention towards the importance of reading.

All of these initiatives drove publishers of educational materials to create programs, materials and resources for educators to use. Unfortunately, the question of which reading program would prove most effective (Direct Instruction, Reading Recovery, Success for All and others) became a tangled controversy as charges of conflicts of interest between the consultants who had been hired by the Department of Education (DOE) and who trained teachers and state department of education personnel had also authored reading programs for curriculum. Fuel to this controversy was added when a review in 2006 by the DOE’s Inspector General suggested that the personnel in the DOE had frequently tried to dictate which curriculum schools must use with Reading First grant money.

Trying to improve our our students’ reading scores has been the focus so much so that our education systems have been awash in funding, materials, initiatives and controversies since 2001 in our collective to improve reading for students…and the result?

The result is a measly 2% of growth in reading for those leaving our school systems.

The evidence for this statement has been tracked by NAEP, an organization that has been assessing the progress of  9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds in reading. The graphs below taken from the NAEP report measure annual growth at each age level at the high level 250, mid level 200, and low level 150 of reading.  There are other levels measured for highest or lowest achieving students, but the levels measured on the graphs levels are correlated to the following descriptions:

LEVEL 250: Interrelate Ideas and Make Generalizations
Readers at this level use intermediate skills and strategies to search for, locate, and organize the information they find in relatively lengthy passages and can recognize paraphrases of what they have read. They can also make inferences and reach generalizations about main ideas and the author’s purpose from passages dealing with literature, science, and social studies. Performance at this level suggests the ability to search for specific information, interrelate ideas, and make generalizations.

LEVEL 200: Demonstrate Partially Developed Skills and Understanding
Readers at this level can locate and identify facts from simple informational paragraphs, stories, and news articles. In addition, they can combine ideas and make inferences based on short, uncomplicated passages. Performance at this level suggests the ability to understand specific or sequentially related information.

LEVEL 150: Carry Out Simple, Discrete Reading Tasks
Readers at this level can follow brief written directions. They can also select words, phrases, 9 or sentences to describe a simple picture and can interpret simple written clues to identify a common object. Performance at this level suggests the ability to carry out simple, discrete reading tasks.

Screen Shot 2013-06-29 at 7.52.04 PM

The NAEP report does offer some positive developments. For example, from 1971-2012, reading scores for 9-year-olds have seen an increase of 5% in students reading at the lower (150) level, an increase of 15% for students reading at mid-range (200), and an increase of 6% for students reading at the higher (250) level.

Screen Shot 2013-06-29 at 7.52.16 PMSimilarly, reading scores for 13-year olds have increased 8% for students reading at mid-level, and 5% for students at the higher level. Scores for student reading at the lower level, however, saw a negligible increase of only 1%.

At this point, I should note that the NAEP report does contain some positive finding. For example, the measurements indicate that the gaps for racial/ethnic groups did narrow in reading over the past 41 years. According to the report:

Even though White students continued to score 21 or more points higher on average than Black and Hispanic students in 2012, the White – Black and White – Hispanic gaps narrowed in comparison to the gaps in the 1970s at all three ages. The White – Black score gaps for 9- and 17-year-olds in 2012 were nearly half the size of the gaps in 1971.

Unfortunately, even that positive information should be considered with the understanding that most of these gains for racial and ethnic groups were accomplished before 2004.

Finally, for students leaving public and private school systems, the overall news is depressing. Any gains in reading in ages 9 and 13, were flattened by age 17. The growth for students reading at higher level dropped from 7% to 6%, while the  percentage of mid-range readers remained the same at 39%. The gains of 3% were in the scores of lower range readers, from 79% to 82%. Considering the loss of 1% at the higher end, the overall growth in measurement is that measly 2%.

Screen Shot 2013-06-29 at 7.55.37 PM

That’s it. A financial comparison would be a  yield $.02 for every dollar we have invested. Another comparison is that for every 100 students, only two have demonstrated improvement after 13 years of education.

Assessing the last 12 of the 41 years of measuring reading initiatives illustrates that there has been no real progress in reading as measured by standardized tests in our public and private education institutions grades K-12. NAEP’s recounting of the results after considerable funding, legislation, and effort, is as Shakespeare said, “a tale…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Continue Reading…

In Assessment, Curriculum, Education, Education reform, Reading, Research, Testing , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Summer Reading with SYNC Audio: “Of Poseidon” with “The Tempest”

June 10, 2013 — Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2013-06-05 at 4.32.55 PMWhile some of my students have no problem cracking open a good book over the summer, others might prefer an audio text. That is why when I found the SYNC audiobook website, I was delighted to spread the word (and recorded voices) about great literature available all summer long. I have challenged my students to read (listen) with me all summer!

SYNC has organized a summer full of classics paired with young adult (YA) texts that are similar in theme. Each pairing is available only for a download for a short period of time, but once a reader downloads the MP3 files, the audiobook is available for listening at any time.

The software that makes this offer possible is  Overdrive Media Software that can be installed on a computer (compatible with Windows and Mac) or through an Overdrive App on a mobile device (compatible with iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7).

Visit the OverDrive website to download the App or Software.

I have already listened to the full cast production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and enjoyed the dramatization. My familiarity with this play (I teach this every fall to my Advanced Placement Literature students) may influence how I think a student hearing the production for the first time might understand the plot. I hope they can follow some of the plot intricacies.

Screen Shot 2013-06-05 at 4.29.30 PMI was surprised that the play was paired with Of Poseidon, a romantic fantasy involving a independent and beautiful Emma and her strange encounters with the incredibly handsome Gaylen.  I would have paired this book with Romeo and Juliet because the inferences about clan conflicts are too frequent not to imagine “two houses both alike in dignity, in the fair ocean where we lay our scene.” This debut novel by Anna Banks addresses mermaid lore, the legend of Atlantis, and forbidden love on the Jersey Shore. Unlike the TV show, listeners are 75% into the book before the first kiss; there is a great deal of “raising her chin with his fingers” and “cheek-stroking” to keep romantics hopeful. The reader (Rebecca Gibel) was also excellent, lacing some of the more exclamatory phrases with the right amounts of sarcasm or ruefulness.  My only complaint was that this novel is the first in a series. As I got closer to the end of the recording, I began to realize that this novel was the “introductory”, a sentiment seconded by this reviewer:

This book also ends in a most inopportune place. I get it – we’re being set up for the second book – but this book sort of has this massive reveal and then BAM we’re at the end. I’d seen enough people’s reactions, though, to expect it, so I wasn’t quite as upset as some readers have been with the abrupt ending. Still, not a whole lot is resolved in this book, and I have a problem with a book that didn’t seem to have much of a point aside from setting up for the next one. (Merin; Amazon Book Review)

Complaining about a free download, however, seems ungrateful. Like the reviewer, I enjoyed the novel very much, so much that I was annoyed when all the loose ends were not resolved. Obviously, this is one way for SYNC to market additional texts. In this case, the strategy will work; I probably will purchase the sequel.

The schedule for titles downloads during this summer is listed below:

May 30 – June 5, 2013
Of Poseidon by Anna Banks, read by Rebecca Gibel (AudioGO)
The Tempest by William Shakespeare, read by a Full Cast (AudioGO)

June 6 – June 12, 2013
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Book 1: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood, read by Katherine Kellgren (HarperAudio)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, read by Wanda McCaddon (Tantor Audio)

June 13 – June 19, 2013
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, read by Will Patton (Scholastic Audiobooks)
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, read by Robert Ramirez (Recorded Books)

June 20 – June 26, 2013
Once by Morris Gleitzman, read by Morris Gleitzman (Bolinda Audio)
Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr., read by Dion Graham (christianaudio)

June 27 – July 3, 2013
Rotters by Daniel Kraus, read by Kirby Heyborne (Listening Library)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, read by Jim Weiss (Listening Library)

July 4 – July 10, 2013
Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford, read by Nick Podehl (Brilliance Audio)
She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith, read by a Full Cast (L.A. Theatre Works)

July 11 – July 17, 2013
The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann, read by Peter Altschuler (HarperAudio)
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, read by Simon Vance (Tantor Audio)

July 18 – July 24, 2013
Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers, read by Erin Moon (Recorded Books)
Hamlet by William Shakespeare, read by a Full Cast (L.A. Theatre Works)

July 25 – July 31, 2013
The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen, read by Charlie McWade (Scholastic Audiobooks)
The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, read by Steve West (Blackstone Audio)

Aug 1 – Aug 7, 2013
Death Cloud by Andrew Lane, read by Dan Weyman (Macmillan Audio)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Ralph Cosham (Blackstone Audio)

Aug 8 – Aug 14, 2013
Enchanted by Alethea Kontis, read by Katherine Kellgren (Brilliance Audio)
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, read by Miriam Margolyes (Bolinda Audio)

Aug 15 – Aug 21, 2013
Sold by Patricia McCormick, read by Justine Eyre (Tantor Audio)
Let Me Stand Alone by Rachel Corrie, read by Tavia Gilbert (Blackstone Audio)

I am looking forward to a summer full of great audiotexts, and I hope my students will take advantage as well. Thank you, SYNC!

In Books, Education, Reading, Summer Reading, Young Adult YA literature , , , , , , , , , ,
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The 97% Reading Accuracy Rate Now May Mean Reading Problems Later

June 5, 2013 — Leave a comment
 I hear the chatter from elementary school teachers: 
  • They can’t wait for reading!
  • Oh, they love to read!
  • When we have to cancel reading, they are so disappointed.

Yet, what happens when I get the ninth graders in my class? I hear:

  • Reading is so boring.
  • I hate to read.
  • I don’t like reading.

What caused the change in students’ attitude towards reading?

97%

Reading Speed Limit?

I have been attending graduate courses on reading instruction for pre-K-6 in order to find out the reason for the shift in attitudes. One of the textbooks used was Guiding Readers and Writers (Grades 3-6), a 672 page tome packed with information written by authors Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. The 2001 edition reflected the ideal reading and writing workshop schedule; 3.5 hours of uninterrupted reading and writing daily.So, how did the instructional strategies for elementary students in the Fountas and Pinnell book prepare students for grades 7-12 ?

The Fountas and Pinnell strategies use a Benchmark Assessment System that allowed for leveled literacy intervention for very early readers. Texts were rated (A to K) on their difficulty for the reader in fluency and comprehension at instructional or independent levels. Each level suggests a percentage of accuracy that a student should achieve before moving to the next level, for example:

 For levels A to K, a text read at 90%-94% accuracy (with satisfactory or excellent comprehension) is considered an instructional level text. That means that the student can read it effectively with teacher help–a good introduction, prompting, and discussion).

For levels A to K, a text read at 95%-100% accuracy (with satisfactory or excellent comprehension) is considered to be an independent level text. That means that the student can read it without help. Reading at the independent level is extremely valuable because the reader gains fluency, reading “mileage,” new vocabulary, and experience thinking about what texts mean (comprehension).

Fountas and Pinnel are very clear that these percentages should not be fixed, stating:

We wouldn’t want anyone to interpret these percentages in a rigid way, of course. A child might read one text at 91% and then experience a few tricky words in the next book and read it with 89%.

They also note that reading broadly increases a student’s vocabulary, and they suggest that schools could mandate their own policies in insuring that students reading smoothly and easily with satisfactory accuracy and comprehension before moving to the next level.

I heard, however, a number of literacy specialists/instructors from elementary schools in my classes representing different districts in the state explaining, “We hold students to a 97% accuracy rate before moving them on” or “I would not move a student who isn’t reading at a 95%-97% accuracy rate.” Are these literacy specialists/instructors misreading the Fountas and Pinnell book? Furthermore, is a district’s adherence to this 97% accuracy rule hurting students as they transition to the higher grade levels? If a student is directed to read only those books that can be read at 97% or even a 91% or 89% accuracy, what happens when he or she is handed a required text that is above his or her reading level?

The problems in reading accuracy are clearly evident in when students enter middle school, and they are handed textbooks and whole class novels from the literary canon. Richard Allington, a past president of the International Reading Association and the National Reading Conference, wrote an article that directly addressed the problem of difficult texts for the journal Voices from the Middle (May 2007, NCTE) titled, “Intervention All Day Long: New Hope for Struggling Readers “ In this article, Allington makes the argument that districts should not mandate the same grade level texts for readers of varying ability:

This means that districts cannot continue to rely on one-size-fits-all curriculum plans and a single-period, daily supplemental intervention to accelerate struggling readers’ academic development. Districts cannot simply purchase grade-level sets of materials—literature anthologies, science books, social studies books—and hope to accelerate the academic development of students who struggle with schooling. There is no scientific evi- dence that distributing 25 copies of a grade-level text to all students will result in anything other than many students being left behind.

He argues for an extension of the 97% accuracy rate using easier texts and explains that the more difficult texts at the middle and high school levels will have many more words per page than the texts in elementary school. He notes that in a book of 250 and 300 running words on each page, 97% accuracy would mean 7–9 words will be misread or unreadable on every page:

 In a 20-page chapter, the student would encounter 140–180 words he or she cannot read. And typical middle school textbooks have twice as many words per page, creating the possibility that a reader reading at 97% accuracy would be unable to correctly read 14–20 words per page or 250–400 words per chapter.

As a result, Allington argues that struggling readers will not be helped by reading these texts, regardless as to the amount of support.
The very texts that are supposed to be a resource for a discipline’s content, “won’t help them learn to read.”  Many upper grade level texts are  textbooks are  heavy, difficult to read with all the subject specific vocabulary embedded in passages; the different fonts, pictures, and information boxes may confuse a poor reader.

I am, however, a little skeptical about Allington’s point regarding students who miss words in texts. I am not sure that the multiplication factor Allington uses to calculate the number of words missed since words are repeated in a novel.  Yes, a student may miss “purloined” on page 12, and on page 17, but should that word be counted twice? There is a context that eventually brings about an understanding; by the third “purloined” a student may have a better understanding of the word because of that context. As an additional concern, requiring a 97% accuracy rate would stop most middle/high school literature programs that use whole class texts. For example, we teach Romeo and Juliet to our 9th graders, and the accuracy rate for Shakespeare, even for teachers with Master degrees in English, is about 80%. Yet, year after year, as we read the play aloud, students do understand generally what is going on. Perhaps some literature is as the poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “Poetry communicates before it is understood.”

On the other hand, Allington has every reason to be concerned that students entering middle school and high school will encounter texts that are complex with high exile levels.  These texts will not be modified to accommodate struggling readers, instead the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are moving in the opposite direction with Lexile levels being raised at all grade levels. Allington’s concerns are not the concerns for publishers who want to meet the CCSS in order to sell as many textbooks as possible. Ultimately, a 97% accuracy rate is not realistic with the materials in each subject area at the middle school and high school levels.

The students who have been swimming in the shallow end of the reading pool throughout their elementary school experience are suddenly tossed into the deep end of literature and informational texts when they hit middle school. The aforementioned elementary literacy specialists/instructor’s adherence to the 97% accuracy with Fountas and Pinnell benchmark assessments limit students to highly filtered reading experiences as opposed to challenging students to develop their own strategies when they encounter difficult texts. More practice with difficult reading materials should be part of an elementary school literacy regimen, just like a batter at the plate who must learn how to swing at a number of different kinds of pitches; not every pitch comes in the strike zone over the plate, and not every book is at a prescribed accuracy rate.

Requiring every student read at a 97% accuracy rate was not the intention of the Fountas and Pinnell directives, but the directives of others may be contributing to the comments I hear from my grade 9 students that “Reading is so boring” or “I hate to read.” A steady diet of the same level of reading caused by requirements to achieve a 97% (or A+) accuracy may hem in or deaden a student’s independent nature or curiosity. Furthermore, when a student gets to middle school, the requirement to read at 97%, or any literacy rate, is not enforced in all disciplines; students who have been spoon-fed reading materials may feel betrayed. Their 97% or A+ reading excellence is suddenly plunged to lower percentiles, which ultimately results in much lower grades. Any confidence or trust a struggling reader may have developed with purified texts is quickly lost, and “I hate to read” is the result.

Maybe they don’t hate to read; maybe with years of preparation at 97%, they are unprepared for any other speed.

In 9th Grade, Books, Common Core-CCSS, Education, Reading , , , , , , , ,
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Twitter Fail: School Is Boring

May 31, 2013 — Leave a comment
boringMany educators use Twitter to communicate as part of personal learning networks (PLN). I appreciate the means to share messages with other educators, but I am sometimes alarmed by some of the tweets I read. The brevity of 140 characters does not allow for nuances. The tweet is, by design, blunt.
Example #1: Most teachers do not share a professional language. And they don’t share prof lang with students. 
I wonder, “Really? Is there evidence to support this claim?”
Example #2: Freedom—for educators and parents—is necessary, but not sufficient, for excellent schools
I think, “Define Freedom. Define sufficient. Define excellent.”
These tweets are made of some sentiment that begins an argument, but they are so brief and banal that they cut off debate.
Such was the case this week when prominent author and educator Dr. Tony Wagner paraphrased a statement made by Education Secretary Arne Duncan (week May 21, 2013) in a response on his twitter feed.  Wagner is the first Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard; he is a former high school teacher, K-8 principal, and a university professor in teacher education. Wagner’s tweet read:

“‘Too many high school students are dropping out, not because school is too hard, but because it’s too easy @arneduncan’ Wrong! It’s boring!” @DrTonyWagner.

While I disagree with Duncan’s generalization that schools are too easy, I was even more disturbed by Wagner’s response, about school, “It’s boring!”
I hear this complaint enough from students before they read the class novel or before we start the unit. I did not expect to hear it from Wagner.
Students say “this is boring” so much that I will not let them use the word “boring” any more.
But, is school boring?
Is it?
I take issue with Wagner’s claim. I would like to debate this.
As someone who attended Mr. Orontias’s History and Geography class in 1970, I can confidently say I have experienced boring. His 45 minute lecture delivered in a monotone right after lunch was not in a time space continuum; the clock hands did not move.
I know boring.
In contrast, my students’ high school today is not boring. As examples, I offer the following:
  • We have a Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) initiative;
  • We employ student driven learning with choice on reading, topics, and presentation;
  • We include project based assessments and encourage reflection on tests.
We do, however, require that students do schoolwork. They practice math problems. They do research. They must complete reading assignments. They have deadlines. Some of this work is repetitious; some of this work is tedious. Some rote learning may be necessary to develop background knowledge before students can engage in active participation or collaboration.
So, when I hear from students that they are “bored” with school, often what they are saying is “schoolwork is not fun.”
This is not unexpected. A great deal of time is spent everyday in “not fun” activities inside school, just as a number of “not fun” activities are required in the real world.
I sympathize, but the reality is that not every lesson in school is fun. Education objectives require students to work rather than have the teachers be the engine of the classroom.
Wagner is one of the innovative educators who promotes education to incorporate more real world problems, reforming education to prepare students with 21st Century skills in order to engage students in meaningful enterprises. Whatever innovations are developed by education reformers like Wagner, students will experience frustrations, and experience failures. There will be efforts expended by teachers and students successfully and unsuccessfully. Work will be necessary, and some of that work will not be fun. If the goal of schools is to prepare students to learn the value of work, to prepare students for the workforce, work should be applauded, even if the work is not fun, or if the work is “boring.”
Arne Duncan’s statement that high school students are dropping out because schools are too easy is a gross overstatement. How easy will the real world be for those high school dropouts?
Similarly, Wagner’s accusation that high school is boring is infuriatingly terse, using only 20 out of Twitter’s 140 characters. How bored will students be if they drop out and cannot find fulfilling employment?
There are isolated cases of students who may write code for some fabulous new social media or video game that goes viral, but those are isolated. A high school diploma is necessary for even the most menial employment.
Today’s schools are not boring. Today’s schools are preparing students for work environments just like schools have done in decades past. Historically, teachers do not predict the job market, instead they prepare students with the fundamentals so that their students may create the job market. Some of that preparation is not fun; it is work, and in student lingo, it is boring.
Stating this needs more than a pithy remark that negates the efforts of teachers who are engaging students with 21st Century skills, with active rather than passive instruction.
Education has come a long way since my experience in the 1970s because of the efforts of education reformers like Dr. Wagner. Forty years ago, education came in primarily in the form of direct instruction. We sat in rows and listened to lectures, and yes, that was boring.
Except for the day that Mr. Orontias stepped into the wastebasket.
That was not boring at all.
In Education, Education & Technology, Education reform, Professional Development, Teacher, Vocabulary, Young Adult YA literature , , , ,
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The 50/50 Summer Reading Assignment Paradox

May 27, 2013 — 4 Comments

sunThe paradox of summer reading:  Read=pleasure or Read=work.

All students should read at least one book this summer and practice the independent reading skills they have used the whole school year. They should receive credit for reading over the summer, but to give credit means an assessment. An assessment comes dangerously close to committing Readicide,(n): The systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools.

Anecdotally, 50% of students will read for fun. The other 50% will skim or Sparknote to complete an assignment, or they will not read at all for a variety of reasons: “it’s boring”, “too much work”, “I hate to read.”  Many students avoid books creating a “reading-free zone” from June through August. In addition, there are some parents who openly complain that assignments over the summer interfere with family vacation plans.

But there are many parents who understand the importance of reading. They could be frustrated all summer as they responsibly hound their children to do their summer assignments rather than wait until the last minute.

Summer reading is fun for some, but summer reading is a hassle for others. Why bother, indeed?

Well, research clearly demonstrates that summer reading is important in maintaining reading skills at every grade level. A meta-analysis (1996) of 39 separate studies about the effects of summer on student learning came to the conclusion that summer reading was critical to stopping the “summer slide”. Without summer reading, there could be a loss equaling about one month on each grade-level equivalent scale. Students would be playing a cognitive “catch-up” through November each school year.

In “The Effects of Summer Vacation on Achievement Test Scores: A Narrative and Meta-Analytic Review” by H. Cooper, B. Nye, K. Charlton, J. Lindsay and S. Greathouse, there were several key findings:

 At best, students showed little or no academic growth over the summer. At worst, students lost one to three months of learning.
 Summer learning loss was somewhat greater in math than reading.
 Summer learning loss was greatest in math computation and spelling.
 For disadvantaged students, reading scores were disproportionately affected and the achievement gap between rich and poor widened.

There have been studies since 1996 that confirm the findings of the meta-analysis, so, summer reading cannot be optional if students are to maintain their skills and progress as readers. The problem for teachers is how to engage the 50% who will not read over the summer. My English Department has tried the following:

  • One summer, we tried an assigned book route. We used a multiple choice quiz to measure student comprehension. The results were average to below average. Most students hated having to read an assigned book.
  • One summer, we tried the dialectical journal kept by a student on either an independent book choice or an assigned book (see post). The results were mixed with 25% students not completing the journal or completing the journal so poorly that we were chasing students for work past the due date and well into the end of the first quarter.
  • One summer, we tried the “project of your choice” in response to a “book of your choice”, but then we were buried in a pile of projects, with a wide variable in the quality of these projects.

So, this summer (2013) we are again trying something different in the hopes of finding a better measurement for summer reading. We are giving students their choice in reading fiction or non-fiction. The incoming 7th and 8th graders choose a book for the summer, and the school will provide that book. Students who will be entering grades 9 -11, may checkout a book from an extensive list organized by our school media specialist or any other book they choose.

Summer reading will be assessed with a writing assignment when all students return in September. The questions will align with standardized test essay questions (CAPT, SAT) and students may have the book in hand or notes from the book; students who read early in the summer will have the same advantages as students who read later in the summer, or the night before the writing prompt:

Essay question(s) for a work of FICTION read over the summer:
How does the main character change from the beginning of the story to the end? What do you think causes the change?
How did the plot develop and why?
How did the main character change? What words or actions showed this change?

Essay question(s) for a work of NON-FICTION read over the summer:
If this book was intended to teach the reader something, did it succeeded? Was something learned from reading this book, if so what? If not, why did the book fail as a teaching tool?Was there a specific passage that had left an impression, good or bad? Share the passage and its effect on the reader.

This assessment will be given the second week in September, and while there is a concern that writing is not as effective in measuring a student’s reading comprehension, at minimum this assessment will give the English Department members a chance to teach a writing prompt response.

Students who are in honors level or Advanced Placement courses will still have required reading. For example, incoming 9th grade honor students will read The Alchemist and The Book Thief while 12th grade Advanced Placement English Literature Students will be given the choice to read three of the following five titles: Bel Canto, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, The Poisonwood Bible, Little Bee, or A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Before students leave for the summer, we plan on putting books into as many hands as possible. We will encourage students to organize themselves with book buddies, a suggestion from a post by Christopher Lehman, having them organize who they will be reading alongside, someone who they could talk with about their reading. The students have Shelfari accounts and can communicate online during the summer. We will promote our own reading book sites and include an audiobook site SYNC that pairs a young adult novel with a classic each week during the summer. For example, August 1 – 7, 2013 will feature Death Cloud by Andrew Lane, read by Dan Weyman (Macmillan Audio) with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Ralph Cosham (Blackstone Audio). We will post information about summer reading on our websites, and send out Remind 101 notices.

While the research clearly demonstrates that summer reading is important, how students accomplish summer reading assignments during vacation time is a paradox. Should we assess reading for pleasure, or should students be left on their own and possibly lose reading skills?  Quiz them in September or lose them to the summer slide? No right answer, but good evidence to continue the tradition of summer reading.

In Assessment, Books, Education, Independent Student Reads, Summer Reading, Young Adult YA literature , , , , , ,
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Poetry Friday: “Here, Bullet” for Memorial Day

May 23, 2013 — 7 Comments

Since the end of the Civil War, the last Monday in May has been set aside as Memorial Day, a day to honor all Americans who have died in military service for their country. There will be opportunities to celebrate by singing patriotic songs, wave flags in time with bands in parades, and eat barbecue.

There is, however, little to celebrate in the details of a death that occurs in military combat.  The specifics in a soldier’s death are painful to hear or to read, but our discomfort should not prevent us from acknowledging the depth and breadth of each soldier’s sacrifice. Many of the returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are writing about their personal experiences and noting the sacrifices made by their fellow soldiers.  These veterans write memoirs and include stories about friends who were killed. They recall their intimate thoughts when they themselves confronted death. They write about the grisly horrors they witnessed in war. Some write about people they killed in conflict. Some fictionalize accounts of their military experiences.  Brian Turner writes poetry.

Brian Turner was an infantry team leader with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division from November 2003 where he served in Iraq. He already had an MFA from the University of Oregon before he joined to serve seven years in the U.S. Army. His first book of poetry, Here, Bullet, chronicles his time in Iraq. In the video below, he reads the title poem at Bowdoin College (November 29, 2005) in a film by documentary filmmaker Eric Herter, sponsored by From the Fishouse, an online audio archive of emerging poets, http://www.fishousepoems.org.

Here, Bullet

If a body is what you want
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood.

(continue on his site…)

Our 11th graders review this poem and several other Turner poems when they read Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, another piece of literature that is dedicated to the sacrifices made by soldiers during war. O’Brien’s connected short stories about an Army platoon during the Vietnam War also comes from his personal experience. In both works, images are painfully raw; some of the language in each is vulgar. Our students appreciate the authenticity and the authority of these voices in capturing the images of war. In O’Brien’s stories and in Turner’s poetry, war does not provide reasons for celebration other than the celebration of war’s end and the return of soldiers to their homes.

Consequently, Turner’s poetry does not give the reader the parade, picnic, or flag waving poetry that people recall in images about Memorial Day. His poetry is a painful tribute; an agonizing truth that people must remember. His poetry reminds us that our freedom has been purchased at a cost, and that cost may be through another’s suffering. His voice reminds us why we should never forget that cost, why there is a Memorial Day.

In #poetryfriday, 11th grade, Education, War and Conflict , , , , , , , , , , ,
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A Film and Literature Course from a Commencement Address by Sydney Pollack

May 22, 2013 — Leave a comment

‘Tis the season of commencement addresses. Speeches brief and not so brief, exhorting graduates to go forth and improve the world. The people who deliver these addresses are often famous, coming from all walks of life; actors, writers, politicans, musicians, military leaders are de rigor for commencement addresses. One address was given by director, actor, and producer Sydney Pollack at Binghamton University in 2003.

Screen Shot 2013-05-22 at 8.09.07 PM

Sydney Pollack (IMDB.com)

Beginning in the 1960s, Pollack represented a blend of Hollywood celebrity and artist.  His famous films included This Property Is Condemned (1966), the hit comedy Tootsie (1982), and the award winning Out of Africa (1985) which garnered him two Oscars:  Best Direction and Best Picture. Pollack also produced the films The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and Cold Mountain (2003). He was honored with the John Huston Award from the Directors Guild of America in 2000 as a “defender of artists’ rights” before he died in 2008.

Two paragraphs from his commencement address were posted in the NYTimes in a feature piece by Sam Dillon titled Commencement Speeches; Reflections on War, Peace, and How to Live Vitally and Act Globally (6/1/2003). When I read this section of his address, I was inspired to use his ideas as the objective for a film and literature English elective for the senior class.

In two paragraphs, Pollack articulated the power of fiction as a tool for developing compassion:

  “We all live rather prescribed and narrow lives. I’m just this one white guy, 60-something years old. I’ll never be anything else except older. I’ve got one set of kids. I’ve got one wife. That’s it for me. But then, there’s this great, great library of experiences that’s housed in the liberal arts. Fictional worlds created that I can put on like this gown or coat, eyes that I can borrow to see the world.

      I can be a black housewife. I can be a king. I can be a C.I.A. spy. I can be a warrior. I can learn what it is like to be tried and convicted, to confess, to win the beautiful girl, lose the beautiful girl. It’s a way of understanding the world that functions beyond intellect and it teaches and touches through feeling and experience even when that experience is part of the imagination. Compassion finally is the great gift of literature. Fiction, and by that I mean the aesthetic creation of all artificial worlds, must persuade you to interpret the world with compassion.”

The fictional worlds that Pollack created in his films are similar to those worlds created by a reader experiencing fiction. Film, however, demands a combination of sight and sound in order to communicate a story, and the talented Pollack knew how to manipulate those elements to make the viewer surrender self to the emotional highs and lows in a retelling of a story.  For example, his, “aesthetic creation of all artificial worlds” used various points of view to make viewers feel as through they were flying in a biplane over the African Savannah in this clip from Out of Africa:

Making a film is a collaborative activity that includes actors actesses, cinematographers, producers, editors, and directors. Even the credits for the shortest film scroll with a multitude of oddly-named professions: key grips, gaffers, and best boys. Literature, by contrast, is created as a singular, intimate activity; the author’s words stimulating the reader’s imagination. Both creative processes are studied in the Film and Literature course offered to 12th graders.

In the film part of the course, students are made aware of the technical elements in film making. They learn to recognize the differences between diegetic and non-diegetic sound. They learn how to notice a cinematographer’s or film editor’s use of the rule of thirds. They learn to identify long shots, establishing shots, and extreme close-ups. They watch John Ford’s Stagecoach and notice his use of natural lighting in many scenes. They watch Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane and comment on the use of light for transitions from scene to scene. They watch Frank Darabont’s  The Shawshank Redemption and deconstruct the lighting in the mise-en-scene of the prison break.

In the literature section of the course, the students study how Milos Forman recreated the character of R.P. McMurphy from Ken Kesey’s text One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in a film of the same name. They analyze the authentic dialogue of adolescent males in Steven King’s short story The Body, a story that eventually became the film Stand By Me. By the end of the course, the students agree that at the heart of every great movie, all technical elements aside, must be a good story.

Pollack understood how a story is shared in literature between the writer and reader, and he allowed viewers to become the characters: the housewives, kings, spys, warriors he mentioned in his commencement address. He understood that film exacerbates sensory experiences that aid in developing empathy, an empathy that can lead to compassion. In his work in the film industry, he also proved that creating compassion is also the great gift of film since film lets us “borrow eyes to see the world.”

The two paragraphs in Pollack’s commencement address in 2003 served as the genesis to the Film and Literature course now running at my high school, but they could just as easily serve as the objective for any literature course; fiction persuades us to learn compassion. In our increasingly connected, contentious, and competitive world, learning compassion through story is a skill worth developing.

In Curriculum, Education, Film , , , , , , , ,
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