How can I help my child to read in high school?

When parents hear a teacher's recommendation to "read with your child at home" or "help your child with her homework," they are likely to understand those processes in ways that are different than what the teacher intended. Parents often feel unprepared or inadequate to help their children with higher-level homework with reading and writing (Epstein, 2010). The Northern Illinois University Literacy Clinic has produced a Raising Readers series, which includes handouts and videos to help parents understand simple, effective ways they can support their children as readers and writers. The resources cover topics like promoting a love of reading, strategies to support comprehension, comprehension of fiction texts, reading vocabulary, what is fluency?

These handouts are available here: http://www.cedu.niu.edu/ltcy/literacyclinic/raisingReaders/index.shtml

Videos on the literacy clinci's You Tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheLiteracyClinic

(adapted from Laurie Elish-Piper's article "Parent Involvement in Reading" in the Illinois Reading Council Journal, Spring 2012)

What is Literature Good For?

Carol Jago, in her recent book With Rigor For All (Heineman), cites six contributions that the study of literature makes to student development:

1. intellectual curiosity as the content of great works of literature offers them teh ways and means of delving into stories, and through these stories, of having a vicarious experience of the human condition far greater than any of them could ever acquire on the basis of luck and firsthand encounters
2. cognitive skills through the study of literature that supports the critical reading of all texts, the precise use of language, and the creation of sound arguments
3. aesthetic sensitivity that helps them recognize and respond to art
4. an intra- and intercultural awareness by reading texts from both their own and other cultures
5. an ethical sensitivity that includes the ability to regulate conduct according to principles and the ability to deliberate about issues both in their own heads and in dialogue with others
6. an existential maturity that allows them to behave as civilized human beings in a world where others are not always so inclined.

Jago draws this list from Shaped by Stories: The Ethical Power of Narratives by Marshall Gregory (2009). According to Gregory, existential maturity “is more easily defined by what it is not than by what it is. It is not self-centeredness; it is not unkindness; it is not pettiness; it is not petulance; it is not callousness to the suffering of others; it is not back-biting or violent competitiveness; it is not mean-spiritedness; it is not dogmatism or fanaticism; it is not a lack of self-control; it is not the inability ever to be detached or ironic; it is not the refusal to engage in give-and-take learning from others; it is not the assumption that what we personally desire and value is what everyone else desires and values” (57)

Modeling instruction after what good readers do naturally

What I really love about this section from Carol Jago's With Rigor for All (pp. 111-112) is both the reminder to tell weaker readers the "secret" (or secrets!) of excellent readers AND the paragraph which follows the list, which reminds us that the core of all these strategies is "the thinking that these tools represent."

In order both to help students comprehend demanding literature and to meet Common Core Standards, I begin with the behaviors of good readers behaviors of good readers According to research by Michael Pressley and Peter Afflerback (1995), excellent readers are extremely strategic readers. Often without realizing that they are doing it, strong readers:

• overview a text before reading
• determine what is most important in what they are reading
• use prior knowledge to make sense of new learning
• predict what is likely to come next in a text
• construct an interpretation of a text as they read
• draw inferences from what they read
• determine the meaning of words they don’t understand, especially when the word seems critical to making sense of the text
• use techniques such as underlining, rereading, note-taking, visualizing, summarizing, paraphrasing, and questioning strategically to focus their reading
• engage in an imaginary conversation with the author
• anticipate or plan for the use of knowledge gained from the reading

Although many remedial reading programs have turned these behaviors into reading strategies, each with its own catchy acronym, I don’t think this is the best method for helping reluctant readers develop the habit of doing these things naturally. Too often the strategies insert a layer of artificiality onto the act of reading. Do you keep a reading log? When was the last time you filled in a wish-bone/fishbone graphic organizer to explain relationships between characters? This is not to say that such tools can’t be helpful for making what is transparent for good readers visible to all students. But too many students think their work is done once they complete the graphic organizer. It’s the thinking that these tools represent, the habits of mind, that we want students ot acquire. Teachers need to be strategic in their use of classroom time so that students spend a brief amount of time practicing strategies and the bulk of their time reading."

Reading Zones

Another reading zone (after last post).... Observing a class on "Story of an Hour"... kids can repeat the story line for line, but not say whether she dies of happiness or sadness when seeing him.

Extra Reading Class Boosts Pupil Skills, but Not Permanently

Extra Reading Class Boosts Pupil Skills, but Not Permanently

See third paragraph, especially

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2010/09/extra_reading_class_boosts_stu.html

Free Phonics lessons/books online

Progressive Phonics are in the Bob-book vein. Just began looking at them. I'll try them with Charlotte.

http://www.progressivephonics.com/~suzettew/

RRQ Fluency article

Reading Research Quarterly April/May/June 2010. "Aligning Theory and Assessment of Reading Fluency" offers a clarified definition of fluency, which includes both automaticity AND prosody.

Literacy Coaching Model that Works

I was impressed at the IRA conference earlier this spring with a presentation from reading teachers at Downer's Grove High School. Their model of literacy coaching involved "literacy coaching" and action research. In May 12's Education Week, there's an article about links between the "Literacy Collaborative" (developed at the Ohio State University) and reading gains. See website here. The "literacy coaching" model seems to be gaining traction. Ironically, on the same page of Education Week is an article titled "Study of Reading Programs Find Little Proof of Gains in Student Comprehension." Short story: professional development of teachers, not canned programs, works.

See the results of the recent study done here. (This is what the Ed Week article references)

See more info here from the Lesley University.

Podcasts for Encouraging Reading

NCTE's ReadWriteThink has a monthly podcast called "Text Messages" that are short book talks about high interests reads. I'm posting it because it might be a good place to get ideas for kids and because it might be a good model for a PROJECT for kids. Find examples here (under "podcasts and videos"). Here's the description at the site:

Text Messages: Recommendations for Adolescent ReadersText Messages is a
monthly podcast providing families, educators, out-of-school practitioners, and
tutors reading recommendations they can pass along to teen readers. Each episode
will feature an in-depth recommendation of one title as well as suggestions of
several other related books or films that will engage and excite teen
readers.