After completing this week's readings, I was struck by two related themes--the importance of differentiated instruction (meeting the students at their ability level) and formal assessments' inability to provide any detailed data on these needs. This is a topic that comes up often at the charter school where I am employed. At our school, differentiation is paramount and expected of all teachers regardless of whether they are a subject area specialist or a classroom teacher.
I really appreciated Allington's 2002 article "You Can't Learn Much From Books You Can't Read." As students enter fourth grade, their workloads and expectations change drastically. In many schools, this is when actual letter grades begin, changing classrooms for subject specific lessons, and exposure to text books. This can be daunting for any nine year old, but especially so for struggling readers. Educators spend so much time differentiating based on student need, and all of a sudden, these same students are expected to read difficult grade level text books, requiring new levels of synthesis and comprehension. Allington suggests one possible solution is to move away from these traditional texts towards
multi-sourced and multi-leveled curriculum that [does] not rely on traditional content-area textbooks" (2002 p. 18). This is a practice employed at my school and it is working very well. Traditional texts books have not been thrown out entirely, but rather supplemented with content specific texts on a variety of reading levels. Students are also often taught through a process of managed choice: each student is assigned a portion of a project and they in turn must educate their classmates about the content they were assigned.
Allington's next piece switches gears a bit to focus on struggling readers, and the best practices that are confirmed by research. One statement Allington made that really resonated with me was "U.S. schools will not deliver high-quality lessons if there is a continued reliance on paraprofessionals to deliver reading lessons in intervention programs..." (p.524). Extra instruction is only worth the time and effort if it is quality instruction. Which isn't to say that paraprofessionals are incapable of facilitating quality lessons, but they need to be trained. I also appreciated that Allington discussed the dichotomy that exists between struggling readers who need more practice reading, yet they are given less reading because they struggle--it makes no sense!
If we truly want to help struggling readers satisfy lofty standards such as summarizing, inferring and synthesizing their reading, we must teach them to be readers regardless of their ability level. Isolating skills or focusing solely on fluency does not teach them to comprehend. We must meet them on their level, with texts that interest them and offer opportunities to practice comprehension, engaging them in the same work and deep thinking we expect from our better readers.
Dennis' text, "I'm not stupid": How Assessment Drives (In)Appropriate Reading Instruction", ties Allington's assertions to state mandated testing by explaining that score reports reflect students' abilities to master grade-level content standards as measured by state mandated assessments... this tells us nothing about why struggling readers are struggling. Coiro takes this assertion one step further by discussing the differences between computer-based and written assessments, specifying that "online and offline reading tap different skills. Assessment techniques must take those differences into account" (p. 223). Students need to learn new media literacies that are related to, but different from the synthesis and comprehension skills learned in traditional reading lessons. For example, their ability to pull key words to search for an article is often hampered by their desire to type long detailed questions into a search engine--even skills as simple as "cut and paste" and typing speed can vastly affect student performance on compute-based assessment. In fact, just this year some of our eighth grade honors students failed to complete the practice test because they couldn't type their essays fast enough. And there are larger skills that need to be taught and practiced such as how to synthesize the often vast amount of information gleaned from mulitple websites using different media to present the information, not to mention determining source reliability.
All of this brings us back to Allington and Dennis' original calls to action. Student's need to be taught on their level with appropriate materials if they are to succeed, and the most valuable assessments are the ones that do more than just tell use if they are below, at or above benchmark. Educators need to know why readers struggle, not just confirm that they do.
I really appreciated Allington's 2002 article "You Can't Learn Much From Books You Can't Read." As students enter fourth grade, their workloads and expectations change drastically. In many schools, this is when actual letter grades begin, changing classrooms for subject specific lessons, and exposure to text books. This can be daunting for any nine year old, but especially so for struggling readers. Educators spend so much time differentiating based on student need, and all of a sudden, these same students are expected to read difficult grade level text books, requiring new levels of synthesis and comprehension. Allington suggests one possible solution is to move away from these traditional texts towards
multi-sourced and multi-leveled curriculum that [does] not rely on traditional content-area textbooks" (2002 p. 18). This is a practice employed at my school and it is working very well. Traditional texts books have not been thrown out entirely, but rather supplemented with content specific texts on a variety of reading levels. Students are also often taught through a process of managed choice: each student is assigned a portion of a project and they in turn must educate their classmates about the content they were assigned.
Allington's next piece switches gears a bit to focus on struggling readers, and the best practices that are confirmed by research. One statement Allington made that really resonated with me was "U.S. schools will not deliver high-quality lessons if there is a continued reliance on paraprofessionals to deliver reading lessons in intervention programs..." (p.524). Extra instruction is only worth the time and effort if it is quality instruction. Which isn't to say that paraprofessionals are incapable of facilitating quality lessons, but they need to be trained. I also appreciated that Allington discussed the dichotomy that exists between struggling readers who need more practice reading, yet they are given less reading because they struggle--it makes no sense!
If we truly want to help struggling readers satisfy lofty standards such as summarizing, inferring and synthesizing their reading, we must teach them to be readers regardless of their ability level. Isolating skills or focusing solely on fluency does not teach them to comprehend. We must meet them on their level, with texts that interest them and offer opportunities to practice comprehension, engaging them in the same work and deep thinking we expect from our better readers.
Dennis' text, "I'm not stupid": How Assessment Drives (In)Appropriate Reading Instruction", ties Allington's assertions to state mandated testing by explaining that score reports reflect students' abilities to master grade-level content standards as measured by state mandated assessments... this tells us nothing about why struggling readers are struggling. Coiro takes this assertion one step further by discussing the differences between computer-based and written assessments, specifying that "online and offline reading tap different skills. Assessment techniques must take those differences into account" (p. 223). Students need to learn new media literacies that are related to, but different from the synthesis and comprehension skills learned in traditional reading lessons. For example, their ability to pull key words to search for an article is often hampered by their desire to type long detailed questions into a search engine--even skills as simple as "cut and paste" and typing speed can vastly affect student performance on compute-based assessment. In fact, just this year some of our eighth grade honors students failed to complete the practice test because they couldn't type their essays fast enough. And there are larger skills that need to be taught and practiced such as how to synthesize the often vast amount of information gleaned from mulitple websites using different media to present the information, not to mention determining source reliability.
All of this brings us back to Allington and Dennis' original calls to action. Student's need to be taught on their level with appropriate materials if they are to succeed, and the most valuable assessments are the ones that do more than just tell use if they are below, at or above benchmark. Educators need to know why readers struggle, not just confirm that they do.