By: Laura Robb

“Comprehension” is a word that teachers use all the time: Jake’s comprehension is weak; Talia can’t comprehend nonfiction; David comprehends everything he reads.  Comprehension refers to what readers understand in a text while comprehending is the process readers use to develop comprehension.  It’s helpful to confer with students to discover their comprehending process and feelings toward reading.  Analyzing students’ writing about reading also provides teachers with a window into students’ thinking and level of understanding.

        There are many levels to assessing students’ understanding of a text.  Proficient and advanced readers automatically do the following while reading.

•      Interact with the text by conversing with the author: raising questions, predicting, and commenting.
•      Connect parts of the text to their experiences and background knowledge.
•      Connect information and narrative elements within a text.
•      Use context clues to figure out the meaning of difficult words.
•      Transfer what they learned and understood to other learning situations.

Recall of Information

A common sense belief I always share with teachers is that it’s pointless to ask students to read and reread a text at their frustration level.  Recall implies that the learner is able to decode the text, understand, and then remember the information. That will happen when the student has enough background knowledge and the text is close to his or her instructional reading level.  Valentina’s story illustrates how frustration reading affects students.

Conferring: A Snapshot of Valentina

Before administering an Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) to Valentina, a sixth grader, we spent time chatting about her interests.  Valentina loved playing basketball, texting friends, and hanging out with them.  When I asked her how she felt about reading, she volunteered this statement: “I hate reading. I suck at it.” Her reasons were candid, logical, and on point.  Reading three years below grade level, her ELA and content teachers required Valentina to read and reread grade-level texts.  Her words reveal her feelings about these tasks: “If I have to read again and again and can’t understand it, what’s the point?” She shrugged and added, “ They [her teachers] get mad when I write nothing about reading. I can’t write if I get nothing [from the reading].”

After completing and analyzing Valentina’s IRI, I suggested two actions that could improve her reading:

1. Have her read and learn from material at her instructional reading level—preferably books she chose.  Then involve her in meaningful book discussions with a partner or small group who discuss questions they compose.
2.  Accelerate her reading stamina and achievement by teaching her how to self-select books for independent reading because often students like Valentina select difficult books to save face with peers.

Volume Matters

Researchers agree that volume in reading matters.  First, volume can develop a student’s personal reading life which means he or she chooses to read at home.  In addition, volume can enlarge a student’s vocabulary and background knowledge, build fluency, and develop a deep and lasting love of reading.

There are school districts that require students read grade-level texts even if they can’t comprehend them.  Often these students listen to a book on tape or the teacher reads the book aloud to the class.  The problem here is that students aren’t reading and that’s why they slide backward.  Continuing on this trajectory will not support the Valentina’s of this world and will increase the number of students who don’t read and dislike reading.

Reflecting on Valentina’s Story

Fortunately for Valentina, her ELA teacher, received permission from the principal to abandon the district requirement of every student in a grade level, complex text.  Valentina could choose from alternate books her teacher suggested for each unit of study.  She began to self-select books for independent reading and read them.  In the past, Valentina was an ace at fake reading during free choice independent reading time.  Adjustments in her ELA class are definitely a positive step toward supporting Valentina’s reading life, but many questions remain:

•      Would her content teachers find materials she could read and learn from?
•      Were enlarging classroom libraries a top priority?
•      What kind of feedback did Valentina receive from her teachers to increase her efficacy and self-confidence?
•      How often did teachers confer with students like Valentina to continue to monitor, support, and celebrate her progress?
•      What kinds of direct instruction in all classes did Valentina (and other students) need to practice and internalize what good readers do?

Closing Thoughts

We all want our students to love reading.  Alas, roadblocks such as limited or no class libraries and a lack of alternative texts and materials for striving readers derail our wants. Yes, it’s heartening to observe ELA teachers and school administrators adjust instruction.  However, until teachers in all subjects have access to books and materials that meet the instructional needs of their students, progress will remain slow.  We need to bring common sense back to our teaching practices and ensure that we reach every reader in our classrooms and support them on their journey to developing a personal reading life.

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We recommend Differentiating Reading Instruction by Laura!

By Laura Robb

Students enjoy reading partnerships. The comments that follow were part of reflections they wrote after experiencing this relationship:

•      “I love talking about my book to a partner.”
•      “My reading partner helps when I’m confused.”
•      “My partner helps me find books to read.”
•      “I can ask my partner for help.”

Students’ reflections point to the benefits partnerships have for teachers and students. What these comments teach us is the sharing and supporting between partners results in learning, independence, and the development of self-confidence and efficacy.

•      Provides more time for teachers. When students learn to support one another and respond to partners’ needs, the teacher experiences fewer disruptions. This translates into extra time to confer, coach, or scaffold students. It also permits teachers to pull groups for guided reading or to discuss diverse texts of the same genre.
•      Taps into the social aspect of reading. Students love to talk to their peers. Moreover, in middle grades and middle school, students value peer opinions on a range of topics, including books they liked and disliked. Focusing discussions on favorite books and/or suggesting titles to each other can deepen students’ interest in reading.  
•      Develops independence for students. Partners can help each other unpack meaning from a confusing section of text, understand tough words, share background knowledge, and clarify a journaling task. Students have opportunities to get to know how a peer approaches reading and writing about reading. All this practice enables students to solve problems independently.

Organizing Partnerships

        Sometimes students choose a reading partner and other times, the teacher might organize reading partners for a unit of study that runs five to six weeks. Help students understand that if their partner is deep into reading or working on a project, they should feel free to ask another student for assistance.

What follows are suggestions for using partnerships to boost students’ comprehension, fluency, and enlarge their vocabulary.

Pair-Shares: The turn-and-talk strategy invites students to share, with a partner, their thoughts about a book the teacher reads aloud, a strategy such as making inferences, or a video clip, etc.

Poetry Partners.  Each pair selects a poem to practice reading aloud to a partner for four days, and on the fifth day, students perform the poem. Dr. Timothy Rasinski, an expert on fluency, favors this strategy. On the first day, students read their poem to themselves, then out loud to each other, and discuss its meaning. Then, they practice reading the poem out loud each day prior to performance day to develop fluency, expression, and comprehension—and enlarge their vocabulary.

Written Conversations About Reading. Partners can have written conversations on paper or on a computer about teacher read alouds, guided reading books, a lesson, a theme such as stereotypes, and genres such as science fiction. Students set up their written conversation with both names at the top of the paper and jot the book’s title or topic under their names. Students write their name followed by a colon each time they respond. Partners take turns commenting on each other’s ideas, asking an open-ended question, adding information, or offering a different interpretation. Teachers can read these to gain insights into students’ thinking.

Closing Thoughts

Sharing ideas, supporting and helping one another, developing friendships, valuing diverse interpretations combine to make reading partnerships valuable and memorable learning experiences. Always reserve time every few weeks to invite students to reflect on and write about their peer partnership experiences, then discuss these with their partner. What happens is both students read about how they impacted their partner’s learning, and in those moments, students strengthen their self-confidence and resolve to continue to work hard and learn.

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My teaching career started in September 1963.  My husband and I had moved from New York City to Winchester, Virginia after he accepted a job there.  I had been working as a copywriter for an ad agency, but Winchester didn’t have an ad agency. So, at my husband’s urging, I took a job teaching sixth grade in an elementary school in Gainesboro, Virginia, replacing the principal’s wife who was on medical leave.  That made me the only teacher not related to the principal.

Gainesboro was a poor, rural community. Some of the children’s parents worked in the principal’s peach factory while others worked on his land as tenant farmers.  As such, most families were beholden to the principal for earning enough money to feed and clothe their children.

From the first day, the principal and I were at odds.  Corporal punishment was thriving at the school; teachers were equipped with a whip or a paddle or both.  When both first appeared on my desk, I promptly returned them to the principal’s office.  That action started the yearlong battle between the principal and me.  Every morning when I arrived at school, I’d find a whip and paddle on my desk, and I promptly returned them.

My twenty-eight students were shocked that I didn’t keep and use the whip or paddle.  They peppered me with questions:  Weren’t you ever whipped at home? At School? Why don’t you believe in whipping?  They seemed fascinated by what they feared. If they heard a child in another class screaming while being whipped or paddled, they turned shades of gray, sat stiff as toy soldiers, and when the screams subsided sighed deeply.  Yet, they wanted me to keep the whip and paddle in our classroom.

I explained that I didn’t believe in corporal punished. Instead, I preferred to talk to a student who “broke” a rule and negotiate changes in their behavior.  My students looked at me suspiciously, I believe because I came from “the big city.”  However, neither their reactions nor the principal’s persistence changed my mind about hitting students.  As winter approached, my students’ fascination with the daily ritual of returning the whip and paddle to the principal’s office waned.  Thankfully, they became more interested in playing hoops at recess, watching “The Flintstones” on TV, and wishing for snow days.

Their wish came true.  Just before Christmas break, a storm dropped more than a foot of powdery snow on Winchester and Gainesboro.  Two snow days later, my students returned to school dressed in heavy coats, which they hung in the closet and placed their boots on the floor.  All except Wilbur.

Wilbur was close to six feet tall; he had repeated sixth grade twice.  This year was his third time. Although a slow learner, Wilbur was making progress.  He was reading at his instructional level, early fourth grade, instead of at his frustration level, which he had been doing since he entered sixth grade, thanks to the grade-level basal his former teacher had been using.  Nonetheless, my other students didn’t relate to Wilbur because he was older, much taller, and carried the stigma of repeating sixth grade three times.  The result was that Wilbur had no friends.  He stayed on the sidelines during recess, had no school social life, and refused to discuss his feelings with me. I totally understood his reluctance to talk but continued to try.

On that December morning, Wilbur sat tight-lipped and silent each time I gently asked him to put his coat and boots in the closet.  Finally, I walked over to his desk, intending to do it for him.  Quite suddenly, he stood up, punched me in the face, and decked me.  While I was out cold, some students went for the principal who suspended Wilbur for a week, ignoring my pleas to reconsider the punishment.  I felt that I was at fault more than Wilbur.  Being a first-year teacher, I lacked the experience to know that I should not have tried to force Wilbur to obey me.  As I reflect on this story, I’m aware of the irony: I did not believe in corporal punishment, yet a student who couldn’t find the words to express his inner turmoil punched me.

That year, I matured as a teacher and learned three important lessons from Wilbur and my principal.

1. Always respect a student’s response and space, and don’t box yourself into a stance from which you can’t retreat.  I quickly learned to respect a student’s feelings and never push a student to obey a request, especially when he or she is hurting, confused, unhappy, or as in Wilbur’s case, embarrassed and lonely
2. Repeating a grade once doesn’t work.  Repeating a grade three times not only doesn’t work, it is harmful to the student because socialization becomes a huge issue, one that affects his or her self-esteem, self-confidence, and sense of belonging.  Progress can be made through careful interventions and scaffolds as well as by providing additional support during the day and in after-school programs.
3. Don’t compromise your values. Stand firm.  I escalated the principal’s anger and frustration by daily returning his whip and paddle.  For me, both were symbols of control, power, and daily corporal punishment to gain students’ compliance.  Much better to negotiate positive and productive behavior through conversations. Maybe, if I had kept the whip and paddle in the classroom and not initiated the daily battle of wills, the principal would have listened to me when I asked for a more lenient punishment for Wilbur.  I’ll never know.

Making mistakes has helped me learn throughout life.  The mistakes I made during that first year of teaching transformed me into an advocate for students.  Throughout my teaching career, I have opposed retention because all too often, the student experiences the same ineffective curriculum and teaching methods that deterred his or her progress in the first place.  Moreover, the stigmatization a student inevitably faces can affect him or her throughout life.

During my year at Gainesboro Elementary School, I developed a mantra I still embrace as I continue to teach and coach and train teachers in the United States and Canada: At the end of each day, I have to live with my words and actions and feel at peace with them.

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Several years ago I was working in a school district in southern Virginia and one experience still replays in my mind.  I collaborated with a special education teacher engaging seven students in guided reading.  Her materials were eight or sixteen-page books she downloaded and put together—poorly written and illustrated texts that bored students.  The district had put all their money into a basal program with downloadable texts for guided and independent reading; there was no extra money for real books—beautifully written and illustrated books.

Here’s the question to ponder: Why do school districts spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for basal reading programs?  When scores on state tests are low, it’s tempting for districts to turn to programs making seductive promises such as: faithfully implement all parts of this program and test scores will rise.  Grade level programs can’t help children reading three or more years below a specific grade.  Moreover, they also don’t support students reading above grade level improve because in the program these students read at their independent level.  Unfortunately, when students’ reading performance on annual high stakes tests define a school district’s and a state’s success, the quest for the magic bullet begins.

Charlotte Huck, a champion of using the finest children’s literature for reading said: ”We don’t achieve literacy and then give children literature; we achieve literacy through literature.”  Not only do children learn to read with outstanding books, but such books are often their first introduction to art and visual literacy—incredible illustrations and photographs.  Children deserve books that help them make sense of their world, that show them how others have struggled as they struggle now, that use stories to transmit diverse heritages and cultures from one generation to the next, that invite children to reread beloved parts and share these with friends.

Fifteen Reasons Why Children Deserve the Best Books     

By offering students outstanding literature, you can:

1. Nurture their hearts and minds and bond them to books that compel them to reread and share with others.
2. Change their thinking on a topic a culture, and different lifestyles by using story to construct understanding.
3. Boost imagination and creativity using beautifully written books that enable readers to visualize.
4. Expand experiences and knowledge about the world providing books on a wide-range of topics.
5. Take us into the past, present, and future so we can better understand past and present worlds and imagine the future.
6. Build visual literacy so students can make meaning from an illustration, photograph, or diagram.
7. Stir meaningful student-led discussions encouraging readers to raise their own questions and move beyond literal to inferred meanings.
8. Tell the stories of diverse cultures and enable students to develop tolerance and compassion.
9. Enlarge vocabulary, for the more students read, the more they see and understand words used in diverse contexts. Vocabulary is comprehension!
10. Introduce and develop a knowledge of literary language so students can understand complex sentences and appreciate figurative language.
11. Improve stamina and concentration through sustained silent reading of self-selected books.
12. Develop emotional intelligence and empathy through the ability to walk in a character’s shoes and understand life as he or she lives it.
13. Offer readers hope because even the darkest books hold out hope and stimulate a desire to solve challenging problems in the world.
14. Develop literary tastes because students, not programs or teachers, choose books.
15. Show students books are excellent entertainment by reading aloud adding entertaining books to class libraries.

Reminders

Remember, letting students self-select books invests them in the reading.  Remember, volume of reading matters, and enlarging classroom libraries means students have, as one of my eighth  graders stated, “books at their fingertips.”  Remember, your responsibility is to teach every child to read well and cultivate each child’s personal reading life.  You can engage and motivate students to read, read, read when you provide the opportunity and the finest books!

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