Why Reading Levels Continue to Decline–PART I (of 2)

The problem of students who are unable to adequately read their grade-level textbooks is not new; the problem starts in early elementary school and only gets worse as students move up in grade levels.  Unfortunately, the rise of the internet in the past twenty years has only exacerbated the problem.

Let’s look briefly at the pre-internet reading situation in middle-class schools and above (poor schools have additional problems which will not be treated in this particular article).  Looking back, the most important function of the school library was to be filled with books to be used for school research projects which were at the correct reading levels for students.

Not only were grade-level books provided, but there were plenty of below-grade-level books on every topic available to readers who were still below grade-level.  For example, a middle-school student with a lower reading level could still find good primary-level books on any research topic assigned. There used to be hundreds of books available through publishers, on every conceivable topic, for school libraries and public libraries to choose from.  Bookstores made them available to the general public.

Today, funding priorities are focused less on providing new books for the school library–partly because of the explosion of new topics and knowledge in our modern world, and also because of the explosion of information on the internet.  Now funding must be divided between  books, and new library computers.

The market for children’s non-fiction has plummeted since 2005.  Sales to both libraries and bookstores have dropped substantially. Therefore,  fewer nonfiction books for children are being written and published.  Publishers and booksellers decided to drop most nonfiction, and focus primarily on children’s fiction–for which there does continue to be a market.

 The lack of nonfiction is particularly damaging for boys.  They tend to prefer autobiographies, nonfiction, newspapers, and realistic topics. Ever since 2005, as the internet has become more powerful, children’s nonfiction has declined.  This decline is preventing many boys from developing as readers. National standards in Britain and America drive the decline even further, “…as the strictures of the national curriculum have driven many publishers to stop producing anything very original, and how many books on Vikings and rainforests do we really need?”

Starting in middle school–most commonly Grade 6 and above–teachers now direct students to the internet for research, instead of to school libraries. One reason is that science classes are now often researching topics which are not even available in books in the school libraries–things such as genetics, and various types of cells–and this is happening in Grades 6, 7, and 8.

Students are now being asked to research obscure people for reasons of diversity in the classroom, rather than famous people.  This means that the information can only be found on the internet.  Students are now expected to use the internet for all research.  This is now true even in elementary school.  Students may be assigned reports on animals, for example.  Perhaps there are perfectly good books in the school library at the right reading level; however, it has now become “too much trouble” to even check , when one can “just look it up online.”

Using online sources creates a much worse problem–aside from the problem of whether a source is reliable, biased, or incomplete–that is, the problem of reading level!

Below is reading sample from a Grade 5 science text which more than half of students (even in good schools) might find too difficult to read without the teacher’s help.  Why?  Because students are now used to reading only fiction in reading class.  They are not used to the vocabulary in non-fiction; nor are they used to reading expository sentences..

 

Not only have student reading levels declined in real terms, but the sources students are now attempting to use are usually written at far too high of a level for their age.  Students in middle school and high school usually go first to Wikipedia (and are often specifically told to do so by their teachers, particularly in international schools that have much less access to English-language printed material).  Unlike school library books or school text books of old, vocabulary is not controlled for difficulty.  Sometimes the articles are poorly written, and written by scholars who are just trying to impress other scholars with their difficult vocabulary.

Below is a section of what one of my 7th-graders attempted to read for a report on glial cells last year, using Wikipedia.  Most students now need adult help to translate and explain what they are trying to read.  To a poor reader, this may as well be in Chinese:

Those students who can afford it hire private tutors.  My students show up and say, “I have a project or report due next week on glial cells (or guard cells, or an obscure historical figure).  Can you help me?”  Students arrive knowing nothing about the topic, and are expected to research on line, and write a report listing their sources.  So, together we look on line and usually find very scholarly articles, which I, as an excellent reader in my 60s with a graduate degree and decades of experience teaching, sometimes have trouble understanding!  So we pull out little snippets of information from various articles, which I explain in plain English and then mark our source.  Even many Wikipedia articles are written by scholars, seemingly just in order to impress other scholars!

I learned a great trick years ago when I was in a professional writers’ group.  If you need good, concise information on an area or a subject, one of the best ways to find it is to go directly to children’s books, where you can find the information thoroughly distilled and written in clear, easy English.  I use this same strategy now and show students how they can search on the internet using the search terms “my topic + explained for children.”  It doesn’t always work, but it often does.  Sometimes we arrive at a website where something has been clearly explained at a reading level appropriate for middle-school students.

The thing which most excited me about the internet when it first began, especially as an overseas teacher with little access to English-language reading materials, was its potential as a world library at our fingertips.  Sadly, much of this potential is being lost for two reasons.  First, children are not developing adequate non-fiction reading abilities to function in society.  Second, most of what is available on the internet is written at far too high of a level for students to be able to benefit from it.

In most American schools, for the past several decades, the textbook has been seen by teachers as only one resource of many for classroom use.  In fact, years ago, over-reliance on the textbook was almost seen as the mark of a lazy teacher, within the teaching profession.  Unfortunately, the current result of this attitude has now led to teacher over-reliance on the internet, with students who are unable to understand either their textbooks OR the internet!  I personally have come around 180° to the view that students would be better served if they learned and discussed in class everything which is in the textbook.  Now, however, there is a new problem!  Many schools are now moving entirely away from textbooks as a way to save money, and teachers are mostly downloading random worksheets from the internet. Unfortunately, it is students who are again losing out on their education.

Part II of this series will discuss what parents, schools, and teachers can do to address these problems.

–Lynne Diligent

When Did “Social Studies” Replace History and Geography in American Education?

“What ever caused history and geography (the two subjects in which Americans seem to be severely lacking) to be replaced by Social Studies?”  As a social studies teacher by training (who mostly taught outside of the social studies area these past 30 years), I think constantly of this question.

History USED to be taught as a “grand narrative” giving students a global sense of when things happened, and what happened where, and WHY things were happening.  That was apparently replaced by the “units” system in the early 1960s (the system I went through as a student).  The unit system is far easier for teachers who lack sufficient background knowledge to teach the grand narrative, because with units, teachers can learn as they teach.  Teaching with the narrative method takes far more reading, research, and thinking–maybe teachers, or even education as a profession just isn’t up to asking that of new teachers.  The result of this has been that most younger Americans now know neither history, nor geography, compared with other countries, or even compared with earlier times in America.

Looking briefly at social studies standards from New York state (pre-Common Core), it is clear to see that even a student who mastered everything in the curriculum would still end up not knowing history or geography.  What they would know instead is a large amount of disjointed information, such as feudalism, capitalism, the major religions, the neolithic revolution, etc., but without ANY sense of the narrative of history, nor any sense of the locations and boundaries of modern countries (geography), nor any sense of the cultures or modern thinking of these countries–much less, any of the history of those countries!  Therefore, they are unprepared to understand those cultures, and countries’ behavior in the modern world.

Looking at the new Common Core Social Studies for New York State, the standards do a much better job.  However, there is a new problem.  The standards are so extensive that students rush through these time periods without seeing the overall grand scheme of things.  The standards are heavily focused on reading original source material and pulling out facts for writing; in reality, those parts of the curriculum are actually LITERACY standards.  Only the best students are able to measure up to these reading and writing standards.  While I am highly in favor of helping students become more highly literate, not every student is able to attain this level of literacy.  One of the reasons we will always need good teachers is that not every student is able to “teach themselves.”  They need to hear the teacher’s thoughts, insights, and conclusions, in order to stimulate their own thinking and understanding.

One reason social studies has become focused too highly on facts, and less highly on analysis is that it avoids contentious discussions and political issues.

 It’s easy and NON-CONTROVERSIAL to say, “This happened, that happened,” or read non-controversial facts in a text book.  But all of the-important questions are side-stepped.  “Why did ethnic cleansing happen here at this time?”  “Why did the Salem Witch Trials happen?  Could something like this happen again today?  What similarities were there between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism in America, in the 1950s?”  These are examples of the important questions in history, and the types of questions that inspire students toward critical thinking and an interest in history that will make its study useful in their lives.  Unfortunately, questions and discussions of this type often get teachers in trouble with parents, principals, and school boards.  So these important questions are mostly ignored, and students are usually given a barrage of facts, but often without the useful threads to tie them together.

 It would be better to cover fewer facts and fewer original sources at the high school level.  Students would be better served in their lives with general trends and principles looked at, which are then supported by fewer facts and documents; however those facts and documents used would be the most important.  For example, we should be actually reading and discussing the Declaration of Independence point-by-point and how it relates to the world of today, compared to the world it was created in.  We should be reading some writings by the founding fathers and discussing those writings, as well as the hopes and worries the founding fathers had for the future of our country.  These are far more important than reading many obscure documents such as the private correspondence of a minor ambassador in a Middle Eastern culture of 1,000 years ago, that has little bearing on today’s events.  Some things are just more important to know about than others.

 Jumping from time period to time period, and civilization to civilization, is appropriate when we want to look at a general principle and see how it works in various societies.  This style is less appropriate when we want to show cause and effect, or trends throughout generations.  The old narrative method was far superior in helping students to remember what events happened, and why.  It is also easier to remember a story than to remember disjointed events.  What is really lacking in social studies education of today are the master teachers’ summaries for students, and discussions with students, of why we are studying certain facts and events, and what general conclusions we can learn from historic events to use for the future.

The National Council for the Social Studies (founded in 1921, just about the same time as the “narrative style” of history teaching went out of fashion) social studies promotes knowledge of, and involvement in, civic affairs.  Instead of the old narrative method of studying history, they promote today’s curriculum standards which focus on ten areas:

1.)    Culture

2.)    Time, Continuity, and Change

3.)    People, Places, and Environments

4.)    Individual Development and Identity

5.)    Individual Groups and Institutions

6.)    Power, Authority, and Governance

7.)    Production, Distribution, and Consumption

8.)    Science, Technology, and Society

9.)    Global Connections

10.)  Civic Ideals and Practices

Most students now know a smattering about the above topics, but lack the cohesion to tie them together, and know very little about any particular society.  This new form of social studies education has not made students more prepared to be good civic citizens.  Returning to history as a narrative and studying more about the implications of world geography (rather than only studying names of countries and capitals) would be far better!  Few of today’s teachers, however, would be able to teach in this manner.

–Lynne Diligent

Why the Flipped Classroom Has Gone Too Far

 

The flipped classroom is just not appropriate for all subjects, all of the time.  This educational fad has gone way too far, and is being used for the wrong reasons.  Most importantly, it runs into problems when teachers attempt to use it as a time-saving device in order to cover more material, because only a small percentage of students’ reading levels are actually up to grade level.

While the flipped classroom sounds like a new idea, it is actually an old idea.  Several decades ago, it was called preparation–a good name–in Britain, although I am not aware of any specific name for it in America.  It often consisted of reading a selection in a text book before arriving in class, for example, so that one could better benefit from a lecture.

The flipped model works extremely well for math classes.  As an elementary teacher, I would look each day at the following day’s homework section.  I would give about fifteen minutes of instruction and guided practice specifically on what my third graders needed to complete that day’s homework. We did not waste time in class doing homework.

I expected all children arrive in class with their homework complete, in order to be ready for the most important part of the lesson, learning from mistakes.  Right or wrong, they all got nice, big A‘s on the homework for completing it in pencil (including showing all work and carry numbers or cross-outs).  If they did not show their work, or if the work was either undone, or incomplete, they got a large, red F.  Within a short time EVERY child arrived daily with homework done.  We then put pencils away, and got out ink pens which we called “marking pens.”  Each child corrected their own paper.  There was no incentive to erase wrong answers, because the child already had an A, just for completing the homework.  We spent the following 30 minutes going over the problems missed by the largest numbers of students, working them on the board.  Students learned so much when they could see where they went wrong.  In most cases, we found errors such as subtracting the ones place, while adding the ten’s place, in the same problem–or, in forgetting to add in carry numbers, things like that.  In math class, the flipped classroom works fantastically.

Using the flipped classroom as a time-saving device runs into trouble in subjects which require a lot of reading for two reasons.  One reason is that in many good schools, students are feeling overwhelmed with the amount of homework, leading them to take ineffective shortcuts.  Using Spark Notes, and similar services, just do not engage student interest, and students miss the benefit of the literature.

The most important reason the flipped classroom runs into trouble is that students’ reading levels are just not up to grade-level standard in terms of being able to read either text books, or literature, on their own.

This problem is not new.  It was widespread in the 1970s and 1980s.  Secondary teachers in Colorado at that time were required to take Reading in the Content Area.  It was a course designed to help secondary teachers help students who were unable to read their textbooks adequately.  Because of the decline in book reading and adequate reading instruction, together with the rise in technology, in 2013,  more than two-thirds of students in the United States were now below reading level for their grade.

Unfortunately, today, most students, even some of the best students are not even attempting to read literature (or their history, or science, text books).  Most are attempting to find the film online.  Poor readers who attempt to read Spark Notes have trouble understanding even that, and certainly no one finds Spark Notes inspiring.

Many secondary English teachers (including elementary reading teachers, and secondary science and history teachers) are now assigning reading for homework, in order to cover more material and just have discussion in class.  The problem with this is that two-thirds of students are either not able to read effectively, and do not even attempt to read because of feeling overwhelmed.

So what do teachers need to do in order to combat these problems effectively?

First, they need to read the book (or text book section) themselves, in the mindset of a student, thinking about vocabulary which many students may not know, and noting it down.  They need to think about the major ideas and how those ideas relate to life today.

Next, they need to introduce the book or reading selection with a short, inspirational talk, that will make students feel like they can’t wait to read more!  They need to talk about and explain vocabulary (whether it is old-fashioned language or science terms) before students start to read.  History teachers need to think about the problems they are teaching about in a historical context and how those problems relate to life in the world somewhere today. Introduce the similar problems and questions of today and how they are being dealt with in the modern world, then look at the same questions in how they are being dealt with in the novel, or in history, or in the science text book.  Discuss what could happen in the future with the same issues.

Rather than starting a unit with reading the text book or novel, start the unit with a discussion of the students’ life questions about the issues which will arise in the reading selection  Here are three examples:

History:  While studying various political decisions of Roman Emperors, first discuss similar problems in the modern world.  Open with a question, “What do you think about when you hear of an apartment building collapse that kills people because of shoddy building practices?  What should be done?”  Or, “What’s it like to be stuck in rush-hour traffic?  What would it be like if the highway were also clogged with pedestrians, donkey carts, and horse-drawn carriages all at the same time, and it happened four times a day instead of two times a day?”  Then, “Now let’s see how they dealt with these same problems in ancient Rome.”

Rhett loves Scarlet, while Scarlet loves Ashley and uses Rhett, in Gone with the Wind

Literature:  “How many of you have ever had the experience of being in love with someone, only to have that person be in love with a different, third person?”  Then, “The problem of love triangles is universal throughout human history, and that’s what this novel is about.”

Science (Astronomy):  “Does alien life exist on other planets, or in other galaxies?  What do various current scientists think about this, and why?  Which planets and stars are most likely for this?  What kinds of planetary conditions are thought to be necessary?  Could we actually travel to other stars or planets, and how long might it take?”  Then, “Now let’s turn to the text book and begin reading together about the planets.”

Lastly, MUCH more time needs to be devoted to in-class reading (even in high school).  If teachers are concerned about embarrassing some students reading aloud, or if there are poor oral readers, students benefit greatly (even in high school) from the teacher reading aloud well (and adding in inflections and pauses), while they follow along.  It also gives everyone a chance to stop and discuss various points, such as how they feel about actions characters take, or what situations they find themselves in.

Teachers need to inspire and motivate students, and help students to see connections that they would not see on their own.  If the teacher is excited about the material, he cannot help but communicate that love and excitement to the students.

–Lynne Diligent