Alarm bells are ringing across the country over steep declines in mathematics on the latest Nation’s Report Card. Results in reading are equally alarming.
Nearly 40% of fourth graders nationally read below the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) basic level, and about half of Chicago students are performing below that mark. It’s a crisis, but I’m confident we can recover. Let’s not forget that these results reflect how students performed last year compared with their performance in 2019, before COVID-19 upended all our lives. The pandemic took an immense toll on reading.
It wasn’t only children who found it difficult to read during the past two years. Many avid adult readers suddenly discovered that we lacked the stamina and focus to persevere with a book for more than a few pages. Children experienced similar frustrations, and as a consequence, their reading muscles atrophied. These students didn’t forget how to read. They lost the habit of reading.
Students need instruction that supports development of their reading skills that is congruent with their development as readers. Classrooms should teem with books and talk about books. Every day is an opportunity for intellectual delight. We read because we are hungry for what is on the page. Let’s ensure that every language arts curriculum satiates that hunger.
For many young readers, limited experience with the topics in a book or article might inhibit comprehension. The dilemma is that background knowledge is largely acquired through reading. Simply put, those who read more know more. And the more that students learn from the books they read, the less difficult they find the next book. They bring a familiarity with an increasingly wide range of subjects: geography, history, astronomy, flora and fauna.
Children who become avid readers learn about the world with every page they turn. They absorb information about the time and place where stories are set and remember curious, random details. The more students read about a topic that fascinates them — from dinosaurs to black holes — the more easily they comprehend increasingly complex texts about the subject. These readers have built a base of knowledge to which new learning can adhere. This critical background knowledge will in due course help students grasp more challenging reading material.
In her book “The Knowledge Gap,” education journalist Natalie Wexler suggests that schools organize instruction around themes. Working from a collection of books focusing on the same subject — mythology, the human body, insect life cycles — students spend several weeks developing their knowledge about a topic they’re studying. More challenging books are read aloud to students by the teacher. As students discuss what they are learning, ask questions and write about the topic, their knowledge of the subject deepens. They are also learning academic vocabulary they might not come across in everyday life.
In this scenario, students are meeting the language of the academic discipline they’re studying where it lives and breathes — in books. Rather than memorizing 20 words for a quiz on Friday (and quickly forgetting those same words by Monday), students encounter these words again and again.
Readers who possess robust vocabularies understand more of what they read, creating a “Matthew effect” whereby those who already have more receive more. Students who know more words are able to comprehend more easily, and so they read more. The more they read, the more competent they become at unlocking unfamiliar words. Rather than attempting to inoculate students against ever meeting a word they don’t know, we need to teach students what to do when they encounter an unfamiliar word.
When reading across genres and engaging topics is an instructional priority, children develop skills they can use in the pursuit of knowledge. They have good reason to reread a sentence when comprehension breaks down because they are keen to understand what is before them. With guidance from their teacher and a carefully constructed, systematic language arts curriculum, students will become increasingly skilled readers.
The fourth graders who scored below the NAEP basic level last year are in fifth grade today and will soon be headed to middle school. This is the crisis we need to address. Without urgent attention, these children could lose faith in their ability to succeed in school. We must use every resource at our disposal to revitalize reading instruction, to support teachers with professional development in reading and to strengthen students’ reading muscles. Investing in Chicago’s schools in this way is an investment in Chicago’s future.
Carol Jago lives in the Chicago area. She was a middle and high school English teacher for 32 years and is now associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project at the University of California at Los Angeles and a member of the executive board of the International Literacy Association.
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