Literacy (writing and
reading) is crucial
By Jerome Dancis
A report
"Reading Next" [1]
notes that: "Some 70 percent of older readers [between fourth and twelfth
grade] require some form of remediation. Very few of these older struggling
readers need help to read the words on a page; their most common problem is
that they are not able to comprehend what they read." This report strongly recommends literacy (reading and
writing) programs for the bulk of middle and high school students; a crucial
element of such a program would be:
"Effective [literacy]
instructional principles embedded in content [for example math class], including language arts teachers
using content-area texts and content-area
teachers providing instruction and
practice in reading and writing skills specific to their subject area".
(Emphasis added.)
A report published by the National
Association of Secondary School [2]
Principals (NASSP) states (http://www.principals.org/s_nassp/sec.asp?CID=858&DID=52759):
"Historically, direct
literacy instruction has been supported up to the third grade. However, there
is a glaring need for it to continue so students can not only read narrative
text, but also learn specific strategies to derive meaning from expository and descriptive text. When literacy
instruction stops early, how can middle and high school students learn the
strategies to read increasingly difficult text and to comprehend more abstract ideas?
If a regular student continues
to need direct instruction to read and comprehend the text found in secondary textbooks, consider the tremendous need for instruction and
intervention that struggling readers must require. And sadly, if students two
to three grade levels behind their peers do not receive intensive literacy
instruction, the results can be devastating because the struggling reader will
not experience success within the content areas. Therefore, it becomes even more
critical that secondary content area teachers better understand and teach specific literacy strategies
to help students read and extract meaning from the written material used to
teach the course content. Conclusions from the RAND Reading Study Group [2002]
clearly support the need for continued literacy instruction at the middle and
high school levels
… * Secondary
students in the United States are scoring lower than students in other
comparable nations. This is especially evident as secondary students deal with
understanding discipline-specific content text."
(Emphasis added.)
This NASSP report quotes a 1999
position statement by the International Reading Association, which argued
for " * Highly skilled teachers who model and
explicitly teach reading comprehension and study strategies across the content
areas".
I have allocated class time to reading instruction for the somewhat complicated sentences and paragraphs, which come up in my college math courses. [3].
How well are the Prince Georges'
County's better graduates prepared for college? The ‘‘better”
graduates are what the Maryland Higher Education Commission has named
"CORE"graduates — namely, those who complete the high school
classes which closely fit the freshmen admission requirements for the
University System of Maryland, including three years of high school mathematics
and four years of high school English.
Almost one in three (31 percent)
of PG county CORE graduates needed to take remedial reading when they entered a
Maryland college in 2004 (up from 19 percent in 1998). The PGCPSS instructional program was
ineffective for these graduates. This situation is not merely deplorable; this
should be unacceptable.
Relatedly my article, should be of interest: "Reading Instruction for Arithmetic Word Problems: - If Johnny can't read and follow directions, then he can't do math" at http://www.math.umd.edu/~jnd/subhome/Reading_Instruction.htm
[Those with middle or
elementary school children might try out appropriate problems on them. The problems are NOT in order of
difficulty. Some lower grade
problems are Problems 6, 6B, 6C, 6D 21, 22, 23, 25, 31. A not so easy Grade 3 problem is
Problem 30.]
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
Excerpts from
Transcript Adolescent Literacy by Jeremy Ayers,
Policy and Advocacy Associate,
Alliance for Excellent Education
Thursday, July 13, 2006; 1:00 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/07/12/DI2006071201543.html?sub=AR
As many as six million middle and
high school students can't read at acceptable levels, according to the Alliance
for Excellent Education. Across the Washington area, thousands of students will
enter high school this fall unable to read at grade level.
2. Most older students struggle
with comprehension, not decoding. Meaning, most older students can read the
words on the page, but they cannot understand it, identify the main idea, or
connect ideas in the passage to other ideas in other passages. Some struggle to
decode, but most struggle to comprehend.
Research is clear that direct,
explicit comprehension instruction improves reading achievement.
In fact, ALL students can benefit
from learning these strategies. Literacy strategies have been shown to improve
not only reading and writing skills but achievement in MATH, science, and other
subjects.
Encouragingly, research shows that
the quality of a teacher makes a big impact on student learning and can
compensate for challenges a students brings with her or him.
Unfortunately, many middle and
high school teachers are not prepared to teach literacy skills. They became
teachers to teach their subjects, not reading. But their students are
floundering in Reading AND in their subjects because they cannot comprehend
their textbooks.
If we are to make a SERIOUS effort
to improve literacy skills schools must do their job. Middle and high schools
must have teachers in all subject areas trained and skilled to teach literacy
strategies in their subject area so that students can better understand and
remember what they learn in each class.
Bowie, Md.: I have a rising eighth
grade daughter. All throughout elementary school, she received A's and above
grade level scores in reading and spelling. However, once middle school
started, we realized that her reading comprehension and vocabulary skills are
actually low. I'm not sure why this was not discovered sooner.
Ayers: We should stop blaming
parents for all the problems that children face.
In fact, your daughter's case
shows that many schools are just not equipped to identify and diagnose reading
problems, especially in the upper grades. This is generally not the school's or
teacher's fault. Most middle and high school teachers and administrators are
not trained to deal with literacy issues. They think the problem is solved in
earlier grades and that students naturally progress.
Research tells us that each
subject has literacy skills specific to that subject. So teachers in EVERY
subject need to know literacy strategies specific to that subject so that
students can understand and remember what they are learning. The University of
Kansas has developed a remarkable model for helping subject-area teachers do
this (http://www.ku-crl.org/).
This is why the federal Striving
Readers program also requires schools that receive a grant help every subject
area teachers learn and use literacy strategies.
If you think about it, students
who are really behind, who really struggle to read will need more than a 45-60
minute reading class each day. They will need help in each class they take, and
probably even beyond the school day with tutoring and supplemental programs.
<><><><><><><><><
Middle, High Schools Find They Must
Expand Programs for Older Students
By Lori Aratani
Thursday, July 13, 2006; B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071201825_pf.html
Teaching reading has long been
considered the job of primary grade teachers. But some educators are calling
for more attention to be paid to the reading needs of middle and high school
students, many of whom are struggling to master this critical skill.
The Alliance for Excellent
Education, a Washington-based education policy research and advocacy group,
estimates that as many as 6 million middle and high school students can't read
at acceptable levels. It's an issue for students well above the bottom of the
class. A report released in March that looked at the reading skills of
college-bound students who took the ACT college entrance exam found that only
51 percent were prepared for college-level reading.
"That is what is the most
startling and troubling," said Cyndie Schmeiser, ACT's senior vice
president of research and development. "The literacy problem affects all
groups -- not exactly in the same ways, but it's affecting all groups
regardless of gender, income or race."
Though struggling students might
be able to read words on paper, experts said, they lack the ability to explain
or analyze what the words mean.
In the past two years, at least a
half-dozen major education associations have released reports on adolescent
literacy, including the National Association of Secondary School Principals and
the National Association of State Boards of Education. State and national test
scores also paint a troubling picture of the reading skills of older students.
In Maryland, 33 percent of
incoming high school freshmen will need extra help in reading, according to
results from the 2006 Maryland School Assessments released last month. In
Virginia, 24 percent of last year's freshmen needed additional support. And
according to 2005 test results in D.C. public schools, 71 percent of middle and
high school students needed special help with reading.
The National Governors Association
has offered states grants to develop programs targeted at older students. And
school systems faced with significant numbers of middle and high school
students unable to read well enough to keep up with their peers already have
begun investing more dollars into programs to aid students.
Starting this fall, educators in
Montgomery County will spend $1.2 million to place reading coaches at its 25
high school campuses -- more than tripling the number the system had last year.
In Anne Arundel, officials will launch a course targeted at high school
students who have difficulty reading. In Virginia, state education officials
have formed a task force that will examine, among other issues, why so many of
its high school students are struggling to read. Fairfax County schools already
offer special courses for high school students who have difficulty reading.
Last year, the Bush administration
launched the Striving Readers program, a $24.8 million effort that targets
middle and high school readers. In the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, the
administration hopes to almost triple the program's funding to $70.3 million.
But educators said that is a drop in the bucket compared with the nearly $5
billion the federal government has spent to help younger kids read since 2002.
"This assumption that
students master all the reading skills they need by the end of third grade just
doesn't fly," said Beth Cady, spokeswoman for the International Reading
Association.
Educators said older students
struggle for many reasons.
The U.S. school population has
rapidly diversified over the past few decades. The number of students who are
learning English has more than doubled, from 2.03 million in 1989-90 to 5.01
million in 2003-04, according to the National Clearinghouse for English
Language Acquisition and Language Instruction Educational Programs. A decade
ago, students who were learning English made up 6.1 percent of the student
population in Montgomery; today, the figure is almost 10 percent.
But it's not just immigrants. A
breakdown of test scores in Maryland, for example, shows that black students,
those enrolled in special education and those who come from poor families are
most likely to lack strong reading skills.
Educators said it's difficult to
pin down one cause. Bad teaching, chaotic home lives, low expectations for some
students, cultural bias, the fact that older students simply don't read enough
-- all have been faulted.
And student attitude can be a
factor.
"By late elementary school,
kids who are struggling readers have developed strategies to avoid
reading," said Sylvia Edwards, a reading specialist with the Maryland
State Department of Education. "They are under the radar, scraping
by."
Even in such affluent,
high-achieving counties as Montgomery, one in five kids reaches high school
reading at a basic level. When broken down by race, the numbers are even more
startling, with 42.1 percent of black students and 47.8 percent of Hispanic
students reading at only a basic level when they reach high school.
In Fairfax, about 15 percent of
students who entered high school last year had difficulty reading. But among
black students, 32 percent were not reading well; among Hispanic students, 33
percent were struggling.
Timothy Shanahan, president of the
International Reading Association and a professor of urban education at the
University of Illinois at Chicago, said many school systems stop emphasizing
formal reading instruction once children leave primary grades. "It's not
like a polio vaccine -- a couple of shots when you're a little kid and then
you're done," he said.
And often, if older kids are
having difficulty reading, their middle and high school teachers lack the
training to intervene. "It's a lot easier in grade school to talk about
learning to read, but if you're talking about it when you get to high school,
then you're acknowledging that we've somehow slipped up," said Bob Wise,
president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and a former governor of West
Virginia.
Shanahan and others said the key
to helping older students is less about the mechanics of reading -- phonics and
such -- than about the nuances of reading, that is, teaching students how to
understand and explain what they read.
Patricia O'Neill, who represents
Bethesda and Chevy Chase on the Montgomery school board, said she fears that if
more isn't done to help kids catch up, they will not be able to graduate from
high school, noting that statewide tests that students must now take to receive
their diplomas include significant amounts of reading and writing.
Wise and others said that unless
more is done, school systems will be forced to spend millions on remediation
programs. And efforts to close the achievement gap between black and Hispanic
students and their white and Asian counterparts could be stymied.
"The focus of state and
federal efforts has been on the early grades, and it needs to start
there," Wise said. "K-3 is necessary for building a strong
foundation, but I wouldn't be much of a carpenter if I build a foundation but
not the rest of the house."
© 2006 The Washington Post
Company
[1] "Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy" at http://www.all4ed.org/publications/ReadingNext/ExecutiveSummary.html
[2] "Secondary Schools" means "middle schools, (junior high schools) and high schools".
[3] Most of the seniors (in engineering), entering my (second semester) linear algebra course, cannot make sense of the statement of the following theorem, even though they learned all the terms in a previous course. Theorem. Linear combinations of solutions, to a homogeneous linear equation, are more solutions to the same equation. I teach my students how to translate this theorem, into mathematical formulas.