Should I Set Reading Purposes for My Students?

Bonjour Sally--

Enchante.

Merci beaucoup, Madame.

tim

4/25/16

ENLB--

Here are a couple of useful papers worth reading on this:

Anderson, R.C., & Biddle, W.B. (1975). On asking people questions about what they are reading. In G. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (vol. 9). New York: Academic Press.

Lindner, R.W., & Rickards, J.P. (1985). Questions inserted in text: Issues and applications. In D.H. Jonassen (Ed.), The technology of text: Principles for structuring, designing, and displaying text (vol. 2, pp. 131-157). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

good luck.

4/25/16

Does the concern with setting a purpose for reading extend to the reading workshop model where students practice making connections, asking questions, visualizing, etc? Or are those purposes broad enough?

4/25/16

Elizabeth--

It just depends on how specific or narrow the prereading questions or tasks. If they narrow student attention--focusing them on a specific character or incident or set of facts, then they are problematic. Preparation for reading should be general and somewhat superficial; response to reading, after reading, can be thorough and analytical.

tim 4/25/16

Great topic.
Question! Does this issue...to set a purpose for reading...relate to 'essential questions' (from Understanding by Design)? Framing a unit of study with an essential question seems to set a purpose for learning (reading, writing, etc). During CCSS implemention a few years ago, I had heard that essential questions didn't match up to the spirit of CCSS. At the time I didn't get much of an explanation, but your post might explain why it's more important for students (and their teachers) to set purposes for reading.
Thanks, Tim.

4/26/16

Textwoman--

I haven't seen those "essential questions" so can't comment on them. Typically when someone complains that questions don't match standards, it tends to be a wording issue so not very important. In this case, I assume the concern was "front loading," the concern that the reading preparation tells too much about the texts. If that is the case, then I do indeed mean those. However, usually an overarching thematic pre-question that is used across several texts is not a big problem (since such questions tend to be pretty general)... but such questions also don't provide much help either).

sorry I can't be more specific.

tim
4/26/16

This is very interesting post. I tend to provide a purpose for my students, but a lot of of the time I will have them do a cold read first. Hopefully during this time they are able to get that initial comprehension then read for another purpose next. But now you have me thinking...

Kristine H
4/26/16

Thanks Tim for a great article. In my district we are required to set a Learning Target for each reading mini lesson for Reader's Workshop and then have our students (mine are 2nd graders) go back to their seats and practice that learning target during their independent reading. They are to show evidence that they worked on it either by writing on a sticky note, reader's notebook, or conversation with their reading partner. Do you believe this is setting them up for failure with comprehension?

Thanks so much,
Amy
4/30/16

Amy--

I suspect that you may improve these students' ability to find specific information (and that is useful), but you are likely disadvantaging the development of a deep, close, or critical reader who would look a text more globally and thoroughly. You are placing the practice of a single skill over carrying out a more coherent and sophisticated read.

tim 4/30/16

I'm trying to take this a little further and connect to other posts of yours I've read. So, in the case of close reading, the first cold read would be without a stated purpose, and the subsequent reads would be for specific purposes that would be broad enough not to be distracting? Or is it okay to be specific as long as you aren't targeting factual comprehension and it's not in the first read?

See June 18: Is it okay to set a purpose for student reading?
Yes, it is very reasonable to give students a purpose for reading (read to find out the differences between lions and tigers, or read to find out how this character deals with hard choices). But these purposes should not reveal a lot of information about the text that the students can find out by reading the text. Of course, if you are reading a text multiple times, each time for a different purpose, you might provide a lot more information on later readings. (This text used a lot of metaphorical language to describe how the characters felt, let's re-read those sections and discuss what the author was accomplishing by doing it that way.)

5/2/16

Margaret--

With purpose the trick is to be either non-specific (read this article about tigers to find out everything that you can or read this story to see what it's about), or to be specific but all encompassing: my example of reading for the differences in lions and tigers makes sense if the article is mainly about that, but it is not so terrific if this was a more encyclopedic consideration of big cats. Don't hesitate to tell kids what the topic is (if the text is informational) and what the genre is (this is from a newspaper, this is a science chapter, this is a mystery story or a poem), but if you get very specific with a purpose you typically start to get between the author and the reader--telling them stuff the author is going to. You also will have a tendency--if the purpose narrows the focus--to guide kids to pay attention to some info and to ignore the rest. If that is the pedagogical purpose, and sometimes it is, that's fine. In most reading comprehension situations I'm more interested in figuring everything out rather than just finding some specific information, but like all readers I do both.

thanks. 5/2/16

I agree with being non-specific in your purpose setting. In working with elementary ELL intervention students, the purpose of reading informational texts and articles is often to build background knowledge. Allowing them to read for understanding and giving them the opportunity to discuss is more worthwhile than completing comprehension questions at the end of the text.

5/8/16

Does this also apply to "objective/learning intentions"?
Can we tell students which strategy they are working on?
I'm still making semse of what I'm learning from your blog. So far I understand that
we need to focus on the text itself and that each text is very different. However, I still
think there is a pattern in student's stregnths and weaknesses, and I'm wondering if I can
share that with them. e.g., Your fluency is great. Your next step is to visualize what you're reading."
Is that bad practice?

Maya--

The key here is to not be too specific in what you want kids to get from a text (unless the point is to go in and find some specific points without paying much attention to everything else -- that kind of searching has some value). Indeed, if you are teaching students to use a particular strategy or to deal with some of the specific language demands of a text (like vocabulary or syntax), it is fine to be specific about that. However, when it comes to the content, if you are too specific, then your readers will concentrate on that information to the neglect of the rest.

tim