Purple vetch and Lady's slipper.
Why Reading
Strategies Usually Don't Help the Better Readers
Last week, I
explained why disciplinary reading strategies are superior
to the more
general strategies taught in schools. That generated a lot of surprised
responses.
Some readers
thought I’d mis-worded my message. Let me reiterate it here:
strategies like
summarization, questioning (the readers asking questions),
monitoring, and visualizing
don’t help average or better readers.
They do help poor readers and younger
readers.
I didn’t explain
better readers don’t benefit, so let me do that here.
Readers read
strategically only when they have difficulty making sense of a text.
Recently, I was
took a second shot at reading the novel, Gilead. I tried to read it a few months ago,
but couldn’t follow the plot. I often read just before sleep and especially
subtle or deep texts
are not usually
best read a few pages at a time like that.
In the meantime,
Cyndie read it with great enjoyment, so now my self-image as
a sophisticated
reader was on the line. For my second reading, I carved out bigger chunks of
time, and marked the text up quite a bit (even writing a summary of the first
several chapters).
This time, I
read with great understanding. Whew!
If the book had
been easy for me, I never would have gone to that kind of trouble.
Let’s face it:
school texts are not particularly hard for average readers and above.
We teach
strategies to them, but they don’t really need them—
at least not
with the texts we use to teach reading.
It may not even
matter much if a student understands a text. Students can often hide out,
letting the
others answer the hard questions, and gaining sufficient info from the
discussions
and
illustrations. No need for strategies under such circumstances.
The new emphasis
on teaching students with more challenging texts—texts not as likely
to be understood
from reading alone—should increase the value of general reading strategies.
Of course, even
good readers sometimes confront challenging texts at school (like ninth grade
biology textbooks). Unfortunately, they often don’t use reading strategies even
with such texts.
My guess as to
what is going on is two-fold: students who usually get by on the basis of
language proficiency alone, have no idea what to do when confronted with such
demands.
They go into
default mode, not using the strategies at all—even though in this context
such strategies
would probably be helpful.
But let’s face
it. Too often, meaning just doesn’t matter at school. Students can often get by
with a
superficial purchase on the content. I once got half credit on an astronomy
exam question that asked how to measure the distance to the Northern Lights (my
answer: use the same method that you’d use to measure the distance to the
moon—a correct answer,
and yet one that
doesn’t require any grasp of the content).
Superficial
understanding is often enough in school. Low readers may not be able to gain
this successfully
by applying their language skills alone, so strategies increase their chances.
Good readers
can, but when the stakes are raised they don’t necessarily adjust and start
using
the general
reading strategies. But no matter how challenging the texts are, if “acceptable
levels”
of performance
are low enough, strategies again won’t be necessary.
Yes, we should
teach reading comprehension strategies, even to good readers.
But we should do
so in an environment that emphasizes the value of knowledge and understanding,
and that
requires students to confront genuine intellectual challenges. Those
disciplinary literacy strategies touted in my last entry seem to have
motivation built in: trying to connect the graphics and the prose in science to
figure out how a process works; or judging the veracity
of multiple
documents in history; or determining which protagonist an author is most
sympathetic
to in literature
tend to be more purposeful and intellectually engaging than turning headers
into questions or summarizing the author’s message.
Shanahan on Literacy http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/
You can TCR specialist and language dictionaries that
are spontaneously
accessed.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what
I’ve read.
I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
A
practical overview of
Turbo Charged Reading YouTube
How to choose a
book. A Turbo Charged Reading
YouTube
Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like
to join my FaceBook group ?
Perhaps you’d like to check
out my sister blogs:
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com gives
many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com
take advantage of business experience and expertise.
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com
just for fun.
To quote the Dr Seuss
himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll
go.”
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