Literacy Blogs

Teacher question:   I have a question regarding close reading and struggling adolescent readers. What I’ve read about close reading suggests that students should first read the text independently. I’m wondering if this still applies when students are reading significantly below grade level (2-5 years). Is reading the text aloud and modeling thinking (around Key Ideas and Details) during the first read ever appropriate?  Thanks in advance for your response! Shanahan response: Be very careful of what you read about close reading. It is not a teaching technique; when people try to make it into one, they tend to reveal all kinds of biases and ...

Teacher question: I am a Reading Specialist at a parochial school.  I wonder if you can give me some advice regarding one of my 4th grade students. She reads very fluently, however, her comprehension is poor.  We have worked extensively on vocabulary and visualization skills.  Can you make any recommendations? Shanahan response: Let’s assume your description of the student is correct (that is not always the case: sometimes teachers tell me that a student is fluent, but what they mean is that the student reads the words accurately, though often too slowly and without it proper prosody or expression).  If she is a fluent ...

Teacher question: I am looking for some clarification on the guided reading discussion. It would seem by many that you are saying that students do not need to work at their “instructional” level while learning reading skills and strategies. What I think you are saying is that once they are beyond decoding text up to a second grade reading level it is no longer necessary to do this. Sounds like once they get here they are reading and they can then move on to being taught comprehension using more complex text with teacher guidance. Is this what you mean? Or are ...

Blast from the past: Originally posted February 2, 2013; re-issued October 26, 2017. I have gotten similar questions the past few days so thought it a good idea to reissue this one. Teachers keep telling me that the education standards don't mean that kids should be asked to read texts above their instructional levels. I worked on the education standards, and, indeed, they do mean that kids should be learning to take on the complexities of texts that may be beyond their so-called instructional levels. This entry provides some suggestions on how to make this work. Teacher question: I teach 4th-grade general ...

        Any suggestions as to how raising text levels will work for students that are learning English? Are the same ideas relevant? I suspect that it isn’t that different across languages in terms of how this works generally or how well it will work. What needs to be scaffolded might differ, however. Usually second language learners will need more vocabulary support or grammar support than will be needed by native speakers (but there can be a lot of individual variation in this). Second language experts have long expressed concerns about text placements that under shot ELL students’ intellectual ...

Yesterday, I debated the literature-informational text mix recommended by Common Core with Diane Ravitch on Minnesota Public Radio. Not a bad discussion all in all. A few observations: (1) Press and media are starting to get wise to the fact that the common core does NOT require that we diminish literature in the curriculum, but they still want a contention hook as the price of admission for their attention to common core. (2) Many of the observers up in arms over this issue claim that literary interpretation transfers to all other life pursuits. Thus, if you can read Ulysses, you ...

For those of you upset about literature being dropped from the English curriculum, you might want to read this lovely piece written by my friend, Carol Jago. She knows something about the teaching of literature and I think you'll find her insights helpful. This is a must to distribute to middle school and high school English teachers (and their supervisors).  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/10/what-english-classes-should-look-like-in-common-core-era/

           Recently, I wrote here about the issues of informational text and literature. Since then, there seems to be even more controversy and teacher confusion.           In the past, most states required the teaching of literary and informational texts, though they were not very specific about this imperative. The National Assessment has long used a roughly equal mix of literary and informational texts in their testing, a feature replicated by many state tests. During the past decade, elementary reading textbooks have been rebalancing their selections, including more informational text all the time.           Nevertheless, there has long been an ...