Standardized tests and reading comprehension

“There is something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds an inner-city child only eight years old "accountable" for her performance on a high-stakes standardized exam but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbing her of what they gave their own kids six or seven years before.”
― Jonathan Kozol 

     Standardized testing, it tells us whether the students are understanding material and if we taught it to them correctly. Teachers hate it because it is used to evaluate a teacher to tell them if they're a good/bad teacher and because we all know that some students just don't do well on standardized tests! Not to mention, that students don't always demonstrate knowledge through a test! So, we established that standardized tests are not always indicative of knowledge, but currently there's no changes in place to show mastery of content besides the dreaded standardized test. The chapter I read this week provides some awesome techniques on how to help students through the standardized test. Now I know what you're thinking.....

But, I'm not a reading teacher!!!

     It's alright, neither am I! But, that doesn't mean we can't use certain techniques in our classes to help the reading teachers along and most importantly, our students! 

     The text determines that there are 6 categories of reading comprehension test questions.

1. Main Idea Questions - these questions want students to identify the main idea in the text. Usually they ask questions such as "Which of the following would be the best title for the passage" or " The author's most important point in the passage is..." 

2. The vocabulary in context questions - these questions take a vocabulary word that students may be very familiar with but uses it in a different context that students have to derive. For example, pay attention to sighing in this sentence. "You can hear the wind, in the sighing pines, the whistling skitter of the crisp leaves, the swirling leaves in the gust, still restless, not yet settled into their winter bed".  Now, we know that pines don't actually sigh, but we can deduce that it's a whoosh of wind sound.

3. The author's intent question - these questions ask whether students can understand the purpose through word choices. For example, "Highways are blocked, power lines crippled, communities isolated. We live beleaguered under the threat of winter's wind." 

4. The internal organization question - these questions want to know if the student can understand the road signs of a narrative, description, classification, cause and effect, and etc sequences. 

5. The drawing conclusions question - these questions expect students to be able to combine the main idea of the text and the intent question. Can students carry on the writer's thoughts? 

6. The part-to-whole question - these questions how well the student can analyze the text. So how is the detail related to the main idea? 

     Okay, so I know what kinds of questions there are, now what do I do in my class? I don't want to teach to the test because that doesn't help students learn the material. I certainly don't want to be that boring teacher that only teaches to the test! Outlined below are some points the text gives for us to help with those issues as well!

1. Give students plenty of test samples so they create an inventory of high frequency phrases found in tests. 

2. Make it a habit to use the kind of language that the test uses in your explanations and directions.

3. Encourage students to write their own test items, using the six categories of test questions. This is helpful when they've seen many test samples. 

4. Give special attention to complex sentence styles. 

5. Give students the first few words of a question and have them predict how that question is going to develop. 

     I like a lot of these techniques mentioned. I realize that a lot of them are going to be difficult to start putting into play in class, but with practice comes mastery. Stay tuned for next week's blog! 

 

Scaffolding Vocabulary Instruction Part 2

     Last time we discussed the process itself of scaffolding. However, this time around we'll be going into detail on what scaffolding is and what it isn't based on activities. Are you ready?
     Your first situation: Julianna is visually impaired. It is important to note here that being visually impaired does not always mean that your student is blind. It can be a decreased ability to see that interferes with a student's ability to learn.

Was your first idea to read out loud to Julianna as a way of scaffolding? This is not considered scaffolding. But why? Well, is reading out loud to her going to give her the skills she needs to be able to read text on her own in the future? Not very likely. However, you can provide her large-print text, seat her close to the board, write large on the board, and try to use black only ink on the board to make reading easier. Ready to try another?
     Your second scenario: Mitchell has ADHD and struggles with reading large amounts of a text. So in this case, you might think, hey we should break down the reading into small and manageable units. DING, DING, DING! This is considered a scaffolding technique. If you can provide Mitchell small units to read and build up to reading more each time, he has the opportunity to be successful when it comes to reading!
     Your third scenario: Chul Soo is an English Language Learner (ELL).

If you're like me, you've probably previously heard that children are like sponges. If they learn a language early on, they're more likely to retain it. You've probably also heard that students are more likely to learn the language if you throw them into it. This, however, is not the case. You can't give this student the same reading as everyone else and just hope for the best. What you can do, though, is to have your activities easily accessible from home for these students. You can provide key words in advance that the student may struggle with. Finally, providing instructions both in English and their native language may help this student.
     Your fourth scenario: Micah is dyslexic. Now, this one was tough for me. Was it for you? The text states that you can provide cues such as pictures, word pattern, word clusters, and graphic organizers to help Micah extract the main idea of the text. However, these should not replace the text entirely. In fact, eliminating the need for Micah to read actually is a disservice. It can make Micah fall much more behind.

    Your fifth scenario: Anna has limited decoding skills. Now, recall that decoding skills relate to the student's ability to derive definition from the text they are reading. Should you find material that is easy for Anna to derive meaning from? Again, this is not a scaffolding technique. Excusing Anna completely from the text entirely is a disservice and won't help her increase her decoding skills. The text suggest that using a controlled text (a simplified version of the text) alongside the authentic text can be used as a scaffolding technique to assist Anna.
     Your final scenario: Gregory just never does any homework, is disengaged in class, and is failing multiple subjects in the ninth grade. Did that sound familiar? I'm sure there's at least one student in your class who may struggle with this exact scenario. So what to do? Do we wait for Gregory to realize that he has to do some work in class in order to pass? It can be easy to assume that the student is just lazy and will have to learn a lesson sooner or later. However, in this case, scaffolding can occur by ensuring you make a connection between the reading and the students interests. As educators, it's important to find ways to try to engage students. We have to keep a positive mindset that Gregory can succeed and provide encouragement. While this may not seem like a technique, it is definitely a strategy we can ensure we meet. In these cases, we want to be able to have taken every strategy into account to ensure Gregory can succeed.
     Well that's all I have for you guys today. Join me next time for more, But I'm not a reading teacher!

Scaffolding Vocabulary Instruction Part 1

     Chapter 2 in Amy Benjamin's But I'm not a Reading Teacher is titled Scaffolding Vocabulary Instruction. I have chosen to break this up into two parts because the reading is so absolutely RICH! This book is meant to build reading comprehension in students through strategies. We hear about these strategies all the time, but sometimes they're hard to digest all at once. So today's blog will focus on Scaffolding as a strategy. Next week I will dive into specific examples on how Amy Benjamin suggests scaffolding, along with my own experiences.
     Scaffolding is a strategy that we have seen in action throughout our lives. It provides a support to do a task and then allowing the students to be able to do the task on their own. Lev Vygotsky originally came up with scaffolding, but never actually used the word. He coined the term Zone of Proximal Development. This theory tells us that when a skill is too difficult for a child to master, they can use the guidance and encouragement of a knowledgeable person. Which sounds very similar to each other.
   "Scaffolding for reading instruction is not giving students the answers, doing the work for them, reading everything aloud for them, giving hints, or diluting the information, and leaving it at that" (Benjamin, 2007). Amy Benjamin makes an excellent point when it comes to this. Students will not find the confidence and empowerment to use the skills if you constantly give them the answers or walk them through everything. Scaffolding should be able to provide the appropriate cues to students to begin the reading process and derive meaning from the text.
   With scaffolding, you don't just take the student and do all the work up to where you think they can handle the task. You build them up to the task. Some students may require verbal instruction, diagrams, hands on activities, and building background knowledge. So you can take a task, divide it into parts, guide on each individual task, and then have the students do the entire task all in one in the end. These small tasks should be boosting the student up and providing confidence as they proceed. Scaffolding is valuable in its own right when we consider that we only learn and absorb so much information at any given time. If we overload with information, students are more likely to check out and decide they do not want to move further. It causes them to feel discouraged. Scaffolding provides just enough information to keep them engaged and learning.
   So tune in next time to go into much more detail on how we can put scaffolding into action in our classrooms!

What is Reading?

     Reading is something I have always taken for granted. It feels so natural, so easy, and so fun! Do you ever think about how you acquired your reading skills? If you're like most people, you probably don't. But, now you're thinking about it. In everything I've encountered and read (including Amy Benjamin's perspective), reading is a developmental process. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) defines reading as "...a complex, purposeful, social and cognitive process in which readers simultaneously use their knowledge of spoken and written language, their knowledge of the topic of the text, and their knowledge of their culture to construct meaning... A reader's competence continues to grow through engagement with various types of texts and wide reading for various purposes over a lifetime" (NCTE, 2006). What a mouthful! So let's take this apart and put in layman's words.
     So, reading is a complex, purposeful, social, and cognitive process. Complex implies that we have to have different strategies in order to comprehend exactly what we're reading. There are endless strategies that you can and may use while you read a new book, a textbook, an article, or even just this blog!

These reading strategies tend to be some of the few ways we choose to approach an article. What adds even more to this complexity of reading is that all these different strategies lead us comprehension results that come from our emotions, how we relate to what we're reading, our motivation to continue reading, our current and past knowledge, and our ability to engage in critical thinking. With how complex our brains are, it only makes sense reading would be a complex process. Not to mention that it's also a purposeful process. We intentionally put these strategies into play to figure out exactly what we're reading. Amy Benjamin describes us as "a hunter, who should be knowing what to look for and, accordingly, should be employing strategies appropriate for that particular kind of hunting."

     If you're like me, you probably thought, reading isn't a social process! I read on my own and usually in a quiet spot. (Or tell yourself you're reading while you continue to binge watch Stranger Things 2) However, Louise Rosenblatt opened my eyes to something much different. Reading indeed is a social process. When J.K.Rowling wrote Harry Potter, she meant to have you feel a certain way about the many different characters. She wanted the story to create certain images in your head. Did it speak to you? In some stories, it practically screams to you! While much of the material you read may not engage you as much as Harry Potter did, there is always a purpose for everything you read. It's a human connection we don't really think about simply because the person is not right in front of us. Once you've finished reading something, don't you go talk to someone about it?

     When it is all said and done, reading is a cognitive process. Certainly we take meaning from what we read, but we also develop on what we've learned. We take the new information we've acquired and apply it to any previous information we have. Our cultural knowledge can change the way we perceive a particular text depending on whether or not we understand the cultural background. If we encounter a text that presents information we aren't familiar with, we may struggle decoding.
    If we view reading as a complex, purposeful, social, and cognitive process, it is only natural that reading is also a developmental process. We continue to learn with every text we pick up. We add more information to our current knowledge that naturally continue to make us better readers through newly acquired strategies. This particular chapter goes into a lot more details on how the text speaks to us. I really like how Amy Benjamin was able to include Rosenblatt, without actually mentioning her. It seems to take all theories into account when it comes to reading and teaching students in reading. Tune in next time as we begin to explore strategies!