Tag: reading

Forcing the Read

justjenLeave a comment

During my years of teaching second grade, I had many parents who were extremely stressed by their child’s reading progress (or lack of.) While our school had a no homework policy, many of the teachers ignored this policy and sent home reading practice. If you haven’t read my post, The Making of Mediocrity, I’d encourage you to read that before continuing  as it gives background to the information I share in this post. If you have read it, you’ll have some idea of what this reading practice might look like at home:

For the precocious readers, there was certainly no need for assigned reading practice, since these children were already fluent readers. In fact, getting their noses out of books and outside moving their bodies was probably much more of a challenge for these families. Any assigned reading practice for these kids would just be a hoop to jump through. The rule-followers would do it to check the box, the pleasers would do it to keep their teacher’s affection, the kids whose identities relied on being one of the “smart ones” would do it for the evidence that they were superior to their classmates, and those that had other interests would recognize it as the busy work it was and insist on doing their own thing.

For the kids resisting reading and who spent the day struggling to control their bodies in the classroom, forcing reading practice at home, in my opinion, was just plain cruel. Unless you’re a super savvy and creative parent with the excess energy to somehow make decodables fun, this situation is likely to set you up for an ongoing battle with your child. We’ll talk more about this when we look at why homework has strong potential to damage familial relationships. And in the end, what exactly is your child learning by being forced to practice reading? They may make small gains in their reading fluency, but what they’re likely learning is that they hate reading and their desires don’t matter.

For the invested kids who have sophisticated thinking skills but their brains aren’t ready to learn reading, consider how painful this practice must be. Maybe they suffer through the practice then spend time ruminating on how inadequate they are. Or they start finding reasons to opt out of any activity that involves reading so they don’t have to feel stupid. They start to hide emotionally to avoid feeling vulnerable to judgment. I’m sure you can already start to imagine dangerous outcomes to this path.

In all of these situations, the requisite reading practice reinforces emerging and damaging identities. What seems like a fairly benign practice that is intended to strengthen reading skills takes on an insidious undercurrent of psychological shaping. Rarely do the educational “experts” consider the delicate egos that are taking such blows when they recommend that parents force their kids to read for a certain amount of time each evening after school.

The one situation where assigned reading practice may not be harmful is those invested emerging readers whose time has come to learn to read. Yet, even still, boring decodables are not going to foster a love of reading. These children should be choosing materials that inspire them to persevere through challenging passages and reading at home for pleasure, not for the gold star or to check the box.  By offering recognition and rewards, we risk obliterating the child’s internal locus of control.  So I take it back, I don’t believe there is any assigned reading practice that is not potentially harmful to the child.

For those parents who came to me stressed about their child’s reading progress, I encouraged them NOT to force it. Your stress causes your child to stress and be fearful, and there’s no need. Your child will learn to read when his brain is ready for it. If you need some reassurance that it’s okay to relax and let reading happen when it’s meant to for your unique child, please read this article.

Forget about his test scores and the school’s rating. Forget about the teacher’s evaluation. Foster your child’s love of literature and your relationship with your child by reading TO him stories that he finds riveting. Stories that are rich in content that you can use to teach about life and how to be human in a way that fosters stewardship of his health, his relationships, his communities, etc., but mostly help him discover things that light him up and encourage him to engage in life—even if it means not reading. He can suffer reading instruction in the classroom; keep your home a judgment-free place where he can leave all that behind and just be himself.   

The Making of Mediocrity

justjen1 Comment

This started out as the next homework post, but I realized that I needed to explain another concept before diving into Homework Part Three. If you’re new to my site, you may want to read Part One and Part Two. We’re going to take a quick look at reading instruction in schools.

There’s an urgency for educators to ensure that all children be fluent readers by third grade. The reason for this is because at this point, the classroom changes from a place where children are learning to read to now reading to learn. Students may fall seriously “behind” and be unable to do the independent work typically required from 3rd grade on if they’re not fluent readers. You can imagine how difficult and stressful this is for teachers who have a full class of kiddos they need to keep “on track.”

When it comes to learning to read, just like with any skill or knowledge acquisition, there’s a very wide spectrum among children when it comes to ability and readiness. Educators are made to believe that all children should be reading fluently by the age of seven, and if we just find the right approach and spend enough time on the skill, then we can get them all there—unless there’s some learning disability. Let’s examine this educational philosophy through the lens of a 2nd grade classroom.

Now, the 2nd grade classroom teacher is likely to have a small number of very fluent readers who picked reading up easily and as early as 3 or 4 years of age, with little if any instruction. These same kids also tend to be the ones who love to read. They’re independently reading chapter books with engaging stories or using their skill to learn about topics they love by reading non-fiction, informative materials. Imagine these precocious children in a classroom during reading instruction.

This is also an age where we have lots of emerging readers. It’s a relatively new skill for these kiddos and fluency is not yet mastered. In a typical classroom, not taking socio-economic status of the school population into account, this will be the majority of the class. And, of course, within this group, there will still be a wide range of ability and investment in developing the skill.

The invested child is enjoying how reading is opening up her world and giving her access to this new form of information. She’s likely unable to even turn it off, reading every street sign while in the car with her parents and trying to sound out words on product labels.

Is this because her teachers have done a good job of educating her on this new skill? I would argue against that and say, it’s just her time. She was READY to pick up this skill and would have, if not now then very soon, with or without formal instruction. Is she feeling successful right now in school? What about her teacher? There’s a large enough number of children who resemble this girl that we can pat ourselves on the back and say reading instruction works.

Now, let’s take a look at another emerging reader. He’s not so invested. Sounding out words is effortful, and the decodables (which focus on repeated sound patterns) he’s made to read in class are storyless and uninspiring.  He’s bored as a result and likely consuming a good amount of his teacher’s limited energy to keep him from distracting his nearby classmates.

What’s his teacher to do? This kid is at serious risk of being recommended for ADHD medication, and I would argue, the main reason being that he was not inspired to learn to read. This kid is more driven to physical activity right now but was forced through instruction that went totally against his learning instinct. Plus, of course, the fact that his child body is screaming at him to keep moving and this option is not available to him.

Now let’s look at another type of child. I can bring many faces to mind of 2nd grade learners who were highly engaged in classroom style learning and could thoughtfully converse on sophisticated topics, who struggled to “learn” to read. These kids were actually very invested, but their brains just would not cooperate. These kids were NOT READY to be forced through reading instruction and would likely pick up the skill very efficiently when their brains were ready for it.

Unfortunatley, these children were often pulled from those subjects considered less valuable such as art and music where they excelled, to practice those boring decodables. They had high-level thinking skills and used these to contrast themselves with the other “smart” kids in class. What do you think was the typical conclusion? And so begins the systematic dismantling of authentic self-esteem.

I encourage all educators and parents to read this article about how wrong and damaging it is for us to create educational models and pacing guides around the concept of “average.” Here’s an excerpt:

Up until 2002, Rose reports that brain scientists believed that in brain imaging—the use of various techniques to directly or indirectly image brain structure—there was such a thing as an “average brain.”

But Michael Miller, a UC Santa Barbara professor, began to study how the human brain retrieves memory and realized there was no single brain that looked like this mythical average. “We each have unique ways that our brains retrieve information and create memory,” Rose reported.

This has not just played out in neuroscience, but in every advancement and every field, he adds. In education, this is particularly harmful to students because it affects pacing guides, textbooks and how states measure who achieves—and who fails.

You can draw your own conclusions about how damaging it is to the individual to be forced into a one-size-fits-all box. How for teachers this leads to a focus on classroom management rather than relationship with each unique student. I know most educators have the best intentions and are just trying to level the playing field , but by doing so, we’re harming the delicate psyche of so many of our children.

Though it’s already been proven that “average” doesn’t exist, it seems we’re determined to create it. Is this really what we want? Is this really how we create a better world? Through the mediocrity of average? By trying to make sure everyone learns the same thing at the same time instead of appreciating and nurturing the endless nuances of the human population and the beautiful diversity of contributions we have the potential for?

We’re social creatures that rely on each other for survival. I believe we each come wired for a unique contribution to reinforce this interdependence. Is there a way to offer education so that it enhances and encourages individuality? Yes. And it’s far more efficient both in creating effective learning outcomes and use of resources.

Unfortunately, we’d be toppling a bureaucratic beast and cornerstone of our current economy to make the switch. Not to mention demanding a complete cultural shift, which is usually slow and cumbersome. Doesn’t mean you can’t choose a better way for your family. Visit the Alliance for Self-Directed Education if you’re ready to explore approaches that will actually honor your unique child’s strengths and help them develop authentic confidence in their real world skills.

What’s the Harm?

justjenLeave a comment

So, when my son was in second grade, his teacher (like many of the other teachers in this school that had a no homework policy) offered the Pizza Hut reading club where if you spent a certain amount of time at home reading, you would earn a free pizza!

I was furious when I learned she was doing this. I immediately sent her an email asking if we could have a conversation. By the way, my son was one of those many second graders whose brain was not yet ready to easily pick up the skill of reading. Reading was effortful and not fun for him as a result. This is not uncommon among 7 year olds, and even some 8 and 9 year olds. More on this another time…

Back to the phone call. I reminded her that the school had a no homework policy and that by implementing this program, she was breaking that policy. It’s important to note there was a little different relationship here than just teacher/parent. I had been a second grade teacher at this school just the year before. This teacher had been a colleague of mine that had actually taken over my classroom when I decided to not renew my contract.

She said she didn’t think it could do any harm for the kids to earn a free pizza as a way to encourage them to read more. It’s been a few years since this conversation, and I can’t quite remember whether I raised my voice. I know I definitely come across as intense when my passion is driving the conversation. My response went something like this, “It DOES do harm. You are reprogramming my child. I want him to love reading, and you are destroying that possibility by dangling a carrot. He’s learning that reading is hard work that’s only worth doing if you get some kind of reward on the other side of that work.”

I know I was putting her in an impossible position. She mumbled something about all the other teachers doing it, but acknowledged that what I was saying was accurate. Unfortunately, she was also putting me in an impossible position. Do I support my 7 year old son’s teacher and play along or do I encourage him to not participate in something his whole class is doing and visibly tracking?

There are so many things wrong with the Pizza Hut reading program that I’m not even sure where to begin. Here are just a few of the most obvious—that may not be so obvious if you’re in the practice of just trusting the “educators”. Don’t beat yourself up if you are one of those people. It’s likely you went through this same system and you learned not to question the “experts.”  

1. As already mentioned, children are being reprogrammed. They are losing their internal locus of control through the use of rewards and punishments. They’re not learning for the love of learning but instead cramming content as a result of coercion. You can read more about this in yesterday’s post.

2. Pressure to participate in such a program makes those who are struggling with a skill BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT YET READY TO LEARN IT doubt their ability to ever learn it. This starts to take a toll on the identity as children internalize being “behind” other kids their age. We’ll dive deeper into this one when we look at the insidious concept of “average.”

3. Homework. This one also deserves its own post (or two,) but a quick primer. Homework typically requires that the parent become the enforcer of the school’s agenda. This has the potential to damage the family dynamic and make the child feel even more isolated and confused about why school feels so wrong. If we must have our children in this unhealthy school environment all day, it’s even more important that home be a place where the child is encouraged to engage in self-determination which requires autonomy, competence, and relatedness<–not things many kids are getting at school.

4. There’s probably more, but I’ll end with this one. If you’re a parent, have you ever found yourself at odds with your intuition in your role as the school’s enforcer? I do want my readers to pay attention to how all of these practices add up to a systematic dismantling of our intuition. Can you see how the Pizza Hut Reading Club could contribute to the questioning of one’s inner knowing not only for the child, but for the parent, and even the teacher?

To the parents out there whose second grade children are struggling to read: don’t force it! They’re not ready. Some kids are ready to read at three, some not til they’re twelve. If you don’t make reading a chore or worse yet, a source of pain because it’s amplifying perceived defects, they’ll learn it much more efficiently when they’re ready. Let your child follow their interests at home. Read TO your child about things they love or stories that explore issues he’s currently dealing with or curious about or that just make him laugh.

Forget about the school’s rating—that’s why they scare you into thinking your child is behind, but you can’t worry about that. Take care of YOUR kid and your family’s health. And make sure your child knows there’s nothing wrong with him if his some of his peers are reading faster than he is. This second part is the hard one. Your child is immersed in an environment where he’s got a constant awareness of how he stacks up against his same-age peers. And we wonder why social media has so much power to damage our kids. Comparison is constantly reinforced and made high stakes in the school environment.

Stay attuned to YOUR child. As much as your child’s teacher may want to best serve your child, you know him better than anyone. YOU are the expert on your child. Listen to your gut, advocate as best you can for him, and don’t let the school bully you. Oops, did I just say that? Hmm, seems like another post topic…

By the way, really take in this photo that accompanies this post. If you’ve been following my writing, this one should be pretty painful. Feel free to comment!