Learning About Struggling Readers

In Catching Readers Before They Fall, Johnson and Keier explain that regardless of how reading is taught, some students still struggle. This, they reason, means that the basal readers, phonics software, or textbooks are not always to blame. The problem is that struggling readers have not been given the mental tools they need to succeed. Struggling readers do not think the way successful readers do. They lack a reading process system. I will admit that until now I thought it was completely understandable that teacher's blame their materials or their curriculum for lack of success with students.

A personal reading process system though, is necessary for anyone to make meaning from a text. Johnson and Keier explain that the process is the same for first graders as it is for college students. I agree, having fundamental skills to make meaning of any text is a vital tool in all stages of life. Inside the classroom, students must decode not only the literacy reader but science and math textbooks. These texts only get more complicated as school goes continues. Everyone needs to know how to use the same strategies; catching mistakes, knowing when what you've read doesn't sound right, thinking about the author's message, and reasoning through difficult or unknown words for example. I thought about the reading I do everyday, the reading required at our literacy dig and the strategies presented in these chapters fit those purposes. Reading signs and mail, understanding what your boss is implying in an email, or decoding new technical terms in an instruction manual are things just about anyone will need to do often.

Struggling readers either have not been exposed to these reading process ideas or have not learned to implement them in a helpful way. Johnson and Keier cite P. David Pearson who explains that is does not matter who is at fault for not preparing the struggling student with adequate reading tools. Blaming parents or previous teachers won't make reading easier for the student. Pearson says "Take the students in your class from where they are and move them forward from there." This point of view is a refreshing one. I understand now how many educators might fall into a problematic habit of assuming that the materials are what needs changing, not their perspectives.

Johnson and Keier tell us that it is ideal to start teaching students to use decoding strategies as they read as early as possible, but not every student gets the attention they need in those early years. So, what's to become of the fourth grader who can barely make it through Henry and Mudge? Johnson and Keier tell readers to maintain a safe environment where students know they can make mistakes, work with reading materials from real texts, and keep the student working at the edge of their abilities, later referred to as ZPD or zone of Zone of Proximal Development, coined by Leo Vygotsky. The ZDP is the level at which the student can work successfully with a teacher's help. Any lower and the student gets bored, higher and frustration can take over. I know I've experienced this in various aspects of life. The hardest part of striving to keep students in their ZPD must be knowing where it lies not only for reading, but for all classroom challenges. Again, paying close attention to students, not flaws in materials, is key.

It seems that using the comprehensive literacy framework described in Chapter Five of Catching Readers Before They Fall might be very helpful in this process. A comprehensive literacy framework has several components, each with less teacher support. It starts with reading aloud which allows the teacher to model genuine interest in books and stories. Next is shared reading. This is still a read-aloud but one in which the teacher models comprehension strategies for students. Guided reading is the next component. This allows a teacher to see exactly what a student is doing when presented with a certain text. Teachers can encourage and model specific strategies depending on what types of challenges the student faces while reading. Finally, students read independently. Of course, this allows students to use the strategies they have seen modeled with the fewest supports. By slowly eliminating supports, it can become clear where the student becomes overwhelmed. Furthermore, this is a great system for building confidence in struggling readers.

I see something similar in all of these strategies for helping struggling readers; struggling readers are all similar and different. While this may not initially seem like a helpful connection, stay with me. As a teacher, I believe it is my responsibility to know about how children develop and learn. Because of this, it is useful to know about common struggles for most readers and strategies that have been proven to help make meaning. However, it is also a teacher's responsibility to pay attention to each student as an individual. So, just because standards or past experience say that all first graders will be able to master a certain text the student who doesn't is not flawed, the materials might be fine, and the curriculum could be great. There will always be students who don't fit the mold. I am anxious to become a teacher to get to know which molds each of my students don't fit! Isn't that what keeps the job interesting?

Engaging Early Readers and a Literacy Dig

We recently read an article about a literacy project called the Donut House. A classroom teacher in Kentucky found a way to engage her diverse group of students in an impressive range of literacy experiences through creating and operating a donut shop in their classroom. The students actively participated in every step from hiring a contractor to "build" their shop to finding shareholders to creating operating instructions for making donuts. The students wrote thank you letters, loan applications, lists, invitations, and interviews all to create their donut shop. Hall makes the point in this article that the literacy valued in classrooms (novels, plays, poems, etc.) is not the literacy valued in life. This donut shop brought the literacy of daily life into the classroom.

In this way, students got to develop various literacy skills using real life applications. I assume this teacher did not have to answer "When am I going to use this?" very often during the donut shop activity. In fact, in Chapter 1 of Catching Readers Before They Fall Johnson and Keier emphasize how important it is to know how to engage your students in the material. Furthermore, the authors of this article say that students are able to develop self-worth by practicing these types of real-life applications. I can see how this is possible, especially as the article says, with at-risk students who perhaps do not see themselves as skilled readers or writers.

For class, we went on a "literacy dig" in which we evaluated a local business for it's literacy practices. We were instructed to choose somewhere children might go frequently. Our group chose a local, co-op grocery store. We looked at concrete examples of literacy such as written signs and price tags, advertisements for community events, coupons, and receipts. We also observed that in order to most effectively navigate this place, one would need the social and cultural literacy of a grocery store. For instance, a customer must know to get a basket or cart and begin selecting products off the shelves themselves. A customer must also know though, that for certain items like fresh meat or fish, a store employee must get those items for you. Spoken literacy is prevalent in this store as well. There is a somewhat scripted interaction between the check-out clerk and the customer. The employee will ask if the customer found everything they were looking for and ask if they have a member number. The customer will most likely say that they found everything and tell the cashier their member number if they have one. This conversation is usually casual and polite. We also found that there is a great deal of vocabulary specific to shopping for food, especially at this grocery store which specializes in natural foods. Understanding terms like organic, gluten-free, non-GMO, BPA free, and eco allow better understanding of the products for sale. Further, because this is a co-op business words and phrases like cooperative, stronger together and member-owner are seen in various places throughout the store. So, how does all of this help us teach elementary school literacy better? Like the students did in the Donut House, we had to think about all the different types of literacy we would need to use in order to shop in or work at a business like this.

Our group discussed what running an in-the-classroom grocery store would look like. Students would need to create many of the same types of documents as in the donut shop article such as permits, letters to investors and design plans for the shop. For a grocery store, students would learn to design a logo and slogan, create signage for each department and price tags for the products. They could create a checklist of responsibilities for employees, receipts, and a newsletter for the community. The students would need to think about how best to inform the community of their business which might involve sending letters encouraging certain people to get involved in the planning and investment of the store. Students could also design advertisements and plan a grand opening event. There would be many opportunities to practice written, spoken, and visual literacy based on a necessary real-life task.

We also discussed the cross-curricular opportunities for a project like this. Running a class grocery store could be the basis for various math lessons like using money, creating a budget, addition, subtraction and multiplication in order to plan an inventory, or learning to use a scale in the produce department. Designing a logo, signs and advertisements would be great, practical art lessons. Science lessons could focus on why certain foods expire before others and the importance of keeping foods like dairy and meat in refrigerators.

However, there are literacy skills that are not as well served using real-life applications like the donut shop or a grocery store. Students are not able to create a character, setting or plot from their imaginations in this type of project. Exercises in writing short stories or poems, while not based as much in daily life, give students an opportunity to think outside the structures of a form, list or procedure. If we are going to encourage students to flex their creative muscles we must give a variety of opportunities to do so. I believe a project like the donut shop would be incredibly beneficial to any classroom. Exposing students to the many ways they will need strong literacy skills in their everyday life is very valuable. We must not though, become so focused on literacy skills based in the real, adult world that we skip giving our students the opportunity to create worlds, adventures and heroes of their own devise.

The donut shop project looks like a great way to get kids interested in literacy without dropping a giant reading textbook in front of them. Using a project like that in the classroom would be a wonderful way to practice a wide variety of skills at once. I'm sure planning and working in the donut shop was more engaging for many students than interpreting poems. I hope though that every student also has the opportunity to explore rich literature and the fun of writing their own stories.

Learning to Teach Literacy

As a soon-to-be teacher, I am taking a class about literacy in K-3 classrooms. This is the place where I will be sharing ideas, questions, and observations about what I am learning. I am particularly interested in how to encourage struggling readers, ways to incorporate writing across the curriculum, and reading great children's literature.