Question about reading -- really??

Fox

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 11:23 am

sequoia wrote:

We read for pleasure -- if something is truly obscure, we'll stop. I started Pickwick Papers in fourth grade and gave it up because I didn't appreciate the humor at the time.

That being said, "grade level" is a joke.

This.

Although I don't have the slightest credential in the teaching of reading, it seems to me that the greatest enemy of good comprehension is boredom. If something truly grabs us, we'll manage to raise our comprehension level just fine.

Bailey White, the former first-grade teacher and writer, has a wonderful essay in her book, Mama Makes Up Her Mind, in which she describes how she captured her students' imaginations with disturbing accounts of sea wrecks. "Once children discover that they can learn something truly terrible by reading, half the battle is won." She explains, "Give me a good shipwreck and I can teach a half-witted gorilla to read."

Raisin

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 11:38 am

Shakespeare is also written in archaic english, so is beyond the grade level of pretty much anyone.

Look, personally my life is complete without Jane Austen, but I am sure there are plenty here who would disagree with me. I never read Shakespeare in school or outside and I don't think anyone can accuse me of not being well read. I don't think any one author is mashiach or essential, but a selection of good quality books that a child enjoys is important. Your kid might love reading science encylopaedias, if so, let him or her.

maybe this teachers approach works for the the majority of children, but not for the eager reader who is several grade levels ahead in reading and comprehension.

oohlala

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 11:45 am

hi, I'm a reading specialist and I think I can shed some light on this. I have no idea what they do at this school, but recently many schools have leveled their classroom libraries by letter, A-Z. A is kindergarten and Z is eighth grade and above. So you might have a third grader reading on level U, which is really the level of an average mid fifth grader. Students are assessed in this system using benchmark books at each level. In order to "pass" the level, students need to be able to read the words AND comprehend adequately. These assessments are somewhat standardized. From assessing the child you get two levels. An independent level, meaning that this is the level the child can read and understand adequately on HIS OWN, and an instructional level. The instructional level is one level higher than the independent level. So, if your third grader is reading on a level U (very impressive) then his instructional level would be V. This means that your child's zone of proximal development (see Vygotsky) in which he will benefit the most and learn will be in that level. Zone of proximal development is the limited area above that which we can do ourselves. In that area, we are most likely to learn and be successful, but not too far above that. So, this means that if your child would read level Z books, chances are he would not get much out of them, might be frustrated, and most likely toss them aside and revisit them in a few months/years.
To sum up--not allowing children to read way above their level is smart because it prevents frustration and confusion. However, in this system, students would get books that match their levels, whatever grade they are in. This system allows for differentiation in the classroom and meeting each kid's needs. It is also based on the educational psych. research of vygotsky.

imasinger

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 11:51 am

oohlala wrote:

Thank you; this is helpful.

But I have a question. What if you have a child that WANTS to read a level Z book, even if s/he doesn't understand the content fully? You say that it might make the child frustrated. But what if the child already has the reading habit, and the frustration doesn't change him/her from being an avid reader?

Is it harmful in any way to have let them do so?

The person with whom I had this conversation expressed great pride in how she was known for turning out classes of kids who loved to read; more so than the corresponding class of the same grade. But my kids love to read, too.

spring13

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 11:53 am

Raisin wrote:

Actually, it's written in linguistically modern English. It's just poetic. Whether or not you read classics for fun doesn't mean that they're not worth approaching at all.

As a former school librarian, I find that its essential to let kids read what they're interested in reading (within reason in terms of age-appropriate content). If they're not engaged for whatever reason, they'll never be readers, and yes, that has long-term implications on their educational prospects. So prohibiting kids with above-grade comprehension and decoding skills from moving ahead is not a sound educational philosophy. I think enrichment activities for above-level kids are lacking in Jewish schools.

PinkFridge

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 12:05 pm

Fox wrote:

sequoia wrote:

Kudos to Ms. White. Too many authors - and Heaven help us, parents - now subscribe to "Give them some scatology...

oohlala

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 12:16 pm

imasinger, kids should read a lot of books in order to become better readers. MOST of those books should be within their independent and instructional level. Usually, reading a lot of books way above those levels is really not productive. Kids usually want to so that they can boast, "I'm reading Harry Potter/Diary of a Wimpy Kid/Hunger Games..." fill in the blank. I wouldn't stop kids from doing this once in a while, as long as most of the books they're reading are on their reading level. If a child really wants to read a very high level book, I usually tell parents that they should read it aloud to the child/family. Then you can discuss the book and he will comprehend it ...this is also great for building higher level comprehension and thinking skills. (You might then give him some chapters to read on his own, once you built background.)

sequoia

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 1:24 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

imasinger wrote:

I just talked to her again about it. She insists that she is doing what is best to create readers, and said that her classes have all turned into wonderful enthusiastic readers.

I made my point about Shakespeare, and she said, "Well, I don't think anyone really needs to bother reading Shakespeare, anyway."

At which point I no longer cared to continue the conversation.

Hey, I think we could get by just fine without dear Will myself.
(Debating going amother for that one. No imamother would convict me Tongue Out

)

You personally don't like him or you don't think anyone should read him? Close the English departments at universities? Smile

I know a frum woman who has a PhD in English lit of that era, so I guess "we" don't all agree.

If he's not your taste that's okay, I mean Faulkner's not my taste...

seeker

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 1:34 pm

imasinger wrote:

oohlala wrote:

I would suggest they read it at home with a parent, but for my guided reading classes in school I want to maximize the lessons' effectiveness by using something closer to their optimal learning level. If there's a book that many in the class are interested in but is too high for most, I'd tell them I'll use it as the next read-aloud but meanwhile please choose something from your level to do in class.

I'm not really worried about frustration. I think a kid who finds a choice book frustrating will just leave it after a chapter or two. I'm more concerned that it will get the kid into guessing habits. It is VERY hard to break poor guessing habits and teach guessers how to really comprehend what the author is communicating - they get this idea in their head that you can just make up whatever meaning you want.

seeker

Mon, Feb 18 2013, 2:01 pm

imasinger wrote:

All right, I do understand how the guessing habit can be problematic. I think.

My DS, 6, who has HFA makes wrong guesses frequently when reading.

But the rest of the family usually guesses right from context clues.

And the reason that I think my DD understood Harry Potter in first grade was because we talked about it. Maybe that is part of this puzzle, too.

Aside to those on the side conversation: Faulkner and Austen are two of my favorite novelists ever. And Shakespeare is way up there, too. If you have never gotten to know and love their work, I encourage you to try again someday.

Right, you use context clues to make educated guesses. You need to understand a lot of the context in order to do that. If I were to pick up a book written in Spanish, even though I may know some words in Spanish, I would not be likely to actually comprehend the real story. Similarly, a kid trying to read a book WAY above their level (however you want to measure that) is going to be either lost or guessing, neither one of which fosters good reading.

If you understand 90% of a text, you can try to fill in the blanks by using context clues. If you understand 40% of the text, you can still try to do that but your guesses would be a lot more random. Random guessing is not going to build better thinking skills.

wif

Tue, Feb 19 2013, 5:58 am

smilethere wrote:

What a wierd way to stump knowledge.
If I wouldn't have read way beyond my age level where would my vocabulary, and historical knowledge be?

True, the deeper meaning might not always be comprehended, but come on where is the desire to learn and stretch the brain?

A side effect is mis-pronouncing words though because there were only ever seen in print Very Happy

An example I used to say magic-I-an, or my-selled for misled etc.

I tought myself how to read at age three, and have a distinctly unpleasant memory of, in righteous indignation, calling a teasing older sibling an "eye-dot" instead of an idiot. Yeah, who was laughed at as the idiot then? #amsototallyoverit

hop613

Tue, Feb 19 2013, 6:55 am

I do believe that in the younger grades it is impirtant for kids to be reading books close to THEIR reading level. Like in the A-Z system mentioned above, students should be reading books close to their level. There is a difference between decoding - which is reading the words, and comprehension - understanding what you read. In the younger grades, it is critical that students work on understanding what they are reading, as well as decoding skills. When I was in a first grade classroom, there were kids who were excellent decoders, and were reading way above a first grade level, but had no clue anything they were reading. While this is great that they are practicing and enjoying reading, if they don't learn how to read for meaning, they will be in a lot of trouble later on. The A-Z leveling system actually takes comprehension into account when determining a students reading level.