Regardless of the topic at hand such as a math problem, historical event, scientific process, chapter in a novel, short story in a grade 5 text, the best teachers frequently read passages aloud to their class (this takes practice) in a way that conveys clarity, emphasis, and meaning. They pause along the way to soliloquize like Hamlet, make transparent what is going on in their own heads, how they try to parse out the complexities in order to grasp a fuller understanding of the matter. In the process they ask questions of the class to generate student response, perhaps have them write a bit. In this way they show in action how their methods of comprehension, analysis, evaluation play out as they learn. Students of all ages love & benefit from listening to expert teachers who read aloud & show how they themselves engage in the learning process.
I appreciate your last sentence that sums up a large part of this piece. In addition to encountering an overemphasis on the definitions of writing genres at the lower grades- teaching 3rd graders about opinion pieces vs fiction, say- I’m encountering a similar fetish with abstraction in 7th grade science. My middle schooler is committing to memory the differences between dependent and independent variables, and the scientific method, falsifiable hypotheses etc. (which as an engineering major I only encountered in grad school). Why not just first learn about natural phenomena well and in detail. Then later address these topics, illustrating them the actual scientific theories they’ve learned already.
I wonder if you have thoughts or have observed this overly meta approach to learning. My kids don’t seem to fully grasp gravity, but hey they’ve heard about control variables.
I know what you mean. I remember observing a first-grade class where the students were expected to remember that fantasy was a sub-genre of fiction rather than nonfiction. These were basically just meaningless words to them, so it wasn't surprising to me that they had trouble remembering the right answer.
I think this is part of a well-intentioned effort to introduce "rigor" into the curriculum, on the assumption that thinking abstractly is more rigorous. Of course, it can be, but you can't get to the abstract thinking without a solid base of concrete knowledge.
I also think this is part of a longstanding antipathy in the education world towards focusing on factual information and having students retain it. That's thought to be "low-level" thinking and basically a waste of time, since students can (theoretically) just Google that stuff. More abstract concepts and skills are thought to be more useful. In fact, though, skipping over the concrete stuff just makes learning (and successful teaching) more difficult.
Well, this piece is as clear as mud--but that's a good thing. I think we need to muddy the waters and tease out all the terms because this comprehension conundrum isn't clear-cut. Three thoughts:
1) "Teachers will likely need to support students in making inferences, and engaging in a host of other cognitive processes, throughout their school careers, across a range of subjects—not just for a few hours. But instead of thinking of what they’re doing as comprehension strategy instruction, teachers should see it as helping students make sense of whatever they’re trying to read—or trying to learn."
Perhaps our new term is teaching "cognitive processes" rather than comprehension strategies. Since that is what we do--teach students HOW to engage cognitive processes to make sense of complex text.
2) "Even summarizing, which has a lot of evidence behind it, has its limits. If I were having students analyze the imagery in a poem or the foreshadowing in a work of fiction, that’s probably not the strategy I would choose."
When I taught Advanced Placement English literature, we spent a lot of time analyzing poetry, and we always had to determine the "main idea" BEFORE we could look at how imagery or foreshadowing was used to develop that idea.
3) "Usually, students are just told that summarizing means they should “include the important information,” but many will need explicit guidance in order to do that. They may need repeated instruction, practice, and feedback"
This is HUGELY important. In my instructional guide to reading, From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense," I introduce the summary writing section like this:
"Has this ever happened to you? You’re eagerly anticipating reading an article or watching a video about summary writing to get much needed guidance for teaching your students this stubbornly elusive skill, only to encounter a common refrain from the author or presenter: Tell students to choose the most important ideas to summarize. Less often are we guided towards exactly how to teach students, not just tell them, to determine importance so they can make informed choices. Assembling ideas is easier than extracting them in the first place.
Recently, while studying dual coding theory, I came across the idea of concept imagery from the Visualizing and Verbalizing program.
Are you familiar with the role of mental imagery in comprehension?
I love the ideas behind The Knowledge Gap and agree on reading comprehension strategies, but from a cognitive standpoint, comprehension is never just one thing.
It's clear that your views are constantly evolving on this - which is great - but I think you should refrain from giving any advice on the matter. Leave that to the experts.
I agree. It’s unsettling to read something like “most teachers probably agree” or some such statement from a writer who has not taught. One must do surgery to be situated to tell surgeons what they should be doing in their daily practice. Like you, I find this focus on knowledge significant, but it’s counterproductive to bring things back around to “buy my book” or “summarizing my way.” It’s unnerving. The Science of Reading movement—is it a bona fide effort to help or a front for selling materials? A little of both?
I have not received any compensation for co-authoring the book The Writing Revolution--either the first or second edition--and all royalties from both editions go to The Writing Revolution organization, in which I have no financial interest.
It is not MY method of writing instruction. The method was developed by my co-author, Dr. Judith C. Hochman, who is a veteran educator. I do not offer training in the method. That is provided by The Writing Revolution organization, whose faculty are all former teachers.
Can you entertain the possibility that it might not be a cure-all? What troubles me most is how important your message about knowledge is in these times, how powerfully you speak to Science of Reading (I’ve listened to you do speaking events on YouTube, how excited I was that you were making inroads into this rigid, frozen, dogmatic view of reading that polarizes and oversimplifies—and then discover it’s about the writing revolution, summarizing, and vocabulary. Having spent a lifetime struggling to help improve this old factory model that has breathed life into kids like me growing up poor in the rural Midwest, I thought you would be open minded about addressing reductionism. Teaching is a semiprofession, and this pushing of materials and algorithmic teaching prescriptions is going the wrong direction.
"and then discover it’s about the writing revolution, summarizing, and vocabulary"
Having taught at every grade level K-12, I have to say that although writing, summarizing, and vocabulary aren't the only important literacy components--they're right up there on top.
(BTW My instructional guide to reading, From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense, is also non-profit. I wanted to include a variety of tables and infographics from educators and researchers (a picture being worth, etc.) and making it non-profit was the easiest way to gain permission.)
Much depends on how one theorizes writing and conceptual development. I, too, have taught across k12, though not at every grade. My experience includes teaching “remedial” reading and writing at community college for six years and seventh years teaching at California State University in the credential program and in graduate programs. I am troubled for very serious reasons about focusing early literacy on a type of writing that appears to be under theorized given the full weight of the research on emergent literacy over the past fifty years, including Ann Haas Dyson at Berkeley and Donald Graves. And lifting “summarizing” to the status of North Star blows my mind. It’s an intrusion into intrinsic cognition and introduces an extraneous focus. If it were necessary for a literacy task (taking notes during research for a piece of writing done for publication) it would have an objective. But just to teach it as the hallmark of comprehension makes little sense and I believe could diminish intrinsic motivation to read and to write. That of course is not worth much—it’s my two cents. But there is a vast literature that is being widely ignored as people look to simplify and commodify teaching. It’s really difficult to watch.
Very true. Students who “struggle” with literacy, rarely struggle when they are interested in the topic. Make the topic interesting and the comprehension shall follow.
Oh wow, as a speech-language pathologist I have so. many. thoughts. Something that glaringly stood out to me is that comprehension challenges are a hallmark for individuals with language-based learning disabilities. I can tell you that firsthand, making inferences does not always come naturally--kids have trouble with sequencing, which impacts their understanding of cause-effect relationships, therefore impeding the capacity to make an inference.
This piece comes to me as right as I've been thinking a lot about the difference between teaching literacy and teaching literature. Even for young children, I'd argue that they are two separate subjects that get lumped into one, and it's not fair for students or teachers!
It makes me so sad to admit, but I didn't have a good grasp at what reading comprehension actually entailed until after I left the classroom, and like Harriet says in her comment, teachers really aren't taught *how* to teach students to determine what's important. (But they CAN learn how!!)
I'm going to revisit this piece again after I have some time to think about it. I now write about how parents/caregivers can support children's thinking and learning through reading (and writing!) outside the classroom as a way to deepen connection and raise the next generation of joyful, thoughtful citizens, and, like I said, I'm reading this at exactly the right time. What I'm trying to say: thank you!
Regardless of the topic at hand such as a math problem, historical event, scientific process, chapter in a novel, short story in a grade 5 text, the best teachers frequently read passages aloud to their class (this takes practice) in a way that conveys clarity, emphasis, and meaning. They pause along the way to soliloquize like Hamlet, make transparent what is going on in their own heads, how they try to parse out the complexities in order to grasp a fuller understanding of the matter. In the process they ask questions of the class to generate student response, perhaps have them write a bit. In this way they show in action how their methods of comprehension, analysis, evaluation play out as they learn. Students of all ages love & benefit from listening to expert teachers who read aloud & show how they themselves engage in the learning process.
I appreciate your last sentence that sums up a large part of this piece. In addition to encountering an overemphasis on the definitions of writing genres at the lower grades- teaching 3rd graders about opinion pieces vs fiction, say- I’m encountering a similar fetish with abstraction in 7th grade science. My middle schooler is committing to memory the differences between dependent and independent variables, and the scientific method, falsifiable hypotheses etc. (which as an engineering major I only encountered in grad school). Why not just first learn about natural phenomena well and in detail. Then later address these topics, illustrating them the actual scientific theories they’ve learned already.
I wonder if you have thoughts or have observed this overly meta approach to learning. My kids don’t seem to fully grasp gravity, but hey they’ve heard about control variables.
I know what you mean. I remember observing a first-grade class where the students were expected to remember that fantasy was a sub-genre of fiction rather than nonfiction. These were basically just meaningless words to them, so it wasn't surprising to me that they had trouble remembering the right answer.
I think this is part of a well-intentioned effort to introduce "rigor" into the curriculum, on the assumption that thinking abstractly is more rigorous. Of course, it can be, but you can't get to the abstract thinking without a solid base of concrete knowledge.
I also think this is part of a longstanding antipathy in the education world towards focusing on factual information and having students retain it. That's thought to be "low-level" thinking and basically a waste of time, since students can (theoretically) just Google that stuff. More abstract concepts and skills are thought to be more useful. In fact, though, skipping over the concrete stuff just makes learning (and successful teaching) more difficult.
Well, this piece is as clear as mud--but that's a good thing. I think we need to muddy the waters and tease out all the terms because this comprehension conundrum isn't clear-cut. Three thoughts:
1) "Teachers will likely need to support students in making inferences, and engaging in a host of other cognitive processes, throughout their school careers, across a range of subjects—not just for a few hours. But instead of thinking of what they’re doing as comprehension strategy instruction, teachers should see it as helping students make sense of whatever they’re trying to read—or trying to learn."
Perhaps our new term is teaching "cognitive processes" rather than comprehension strategies. Since that is what we do--teach students HOW to engage cognitive processes to make sense of complex text.
2) "Even summarizing, which has a lot of evidence behind it, has its limits. If I were having students analyze the imagery in a poem or the foreshadowing in a work of fiction, that’s probably not the strategy I would choose."
When I taught Advanced Placement English literature, we spent a lot of time analyzing poetry, and we always had to determine the "main idea" BEFORE we could look at how imagery or foreshadowing was used to develop that idea.
3) "Usually, students are just told that summarizing means they should “include the important information,” but many will need explicit guidance in order to do that. They may need repeated instruction, practice, and feedback"
This is HUGELY important. In my instructional guide to reading, From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense," I introduce the summary writing section like this:
"Has this ever happened to you? You’re eagerly anticipating reading an article or watching a video about summary writing to get much needed guidance for teaching your students this stubbornly elusive skill, only to encounter a common refrain from the author or presenter: Tell students to choose the most important ideas to summarize. Less often are we guided towards exactly how to teach students, not just tell them, to determine importance so they can make informed choices. Assembling ideas is easier than extracting them in the first place.
Recently, while studying dual coding theory, I came across the idea of concept imagery from the Visualizing and Verbalizing program.
Are you familiar with the role of mental imagery in comprehension?
I love the ideas behind The Knowledge Gap and agree on reading comprehension strategies, but from a cognitive standpoint, comprehension is never just one thing.
Reading comprehension is a life-long skill most forget after graduating :)
Good point.
It's clear that your views are constantly evolving on this - which is great - but I think you should refrain from giving any advice on the matter. Leave that to the experts.
I agree. It’s unsettling to read something like “most teachers probably agree” or some such statement from a writer who has not taught. One must do surgery to be situated to tell surgeons what they should be doing in their daily practice. Like you, I find this focus on knowledge significant, but it’s counterproductive to bring things back around to “buy my book” or “summarizing my way.” It’s unnerving. The Science of Reading movement—is it a bona fide effort to help or a front for selling materials? A little of both?
Just for the record:
I have not received any compensation for co-authoring the book The Writing Revolution--either the first or second edition--and all royalties from both editions go to The Writing Revolution organization, in which I have no financial interest.
It is not MY method of writing instruction. The method was developed by my co-author, Dr. Judith C. Hochman, who is a veteran educator. I do not offer training in the method. That is provided by The Writing Revolution organization, whose faculty are all former teachers.
Can you entertain the possibility that it might not be a cure-all? What troubles me most is how important your message about knowledge is in these times, how powerfully you speak to Science of Reading (I’ve listened to you do speaking events on YouTube, how excited I was that you were making inroads into this rigid, frozen, dogmatic view of reading that polarizes and oversimplifies—and then discover it’s about the writing revolution, summarizing, and vocabulary. Having spent a lifetime struggling to help improve this old factory model that has breathed life into kids like me growing up poor in the rural Midwest, I thought you would be open minded about addressing reductionism. Teaching is a semiprofession, and this pushing of materials and algorithmic teaching prescriptions is going the wrong direction.
"and then discover it’s about the writing revolution, summarizing, and vocabulary"
Having taught at every grade level K-12, I have to say that although writing, summarizing, and vocabulary aren't the only important literacy components--they're right up there on top.
(BTW My instructional guide to reading, From Sound to Summary: Braiding the Reading Rope to Make Words Make Sense, is also non-profit. I wanted to include a variety of tables and infographics from educators and researchers (a picture being worth, etc.) and making it non-profit was the easiest way to gain permission.)
Much depends on how one theorizes writing and conceptual development. I, too, have taught across k12, though not at every grade. My experience includes teaching “remedial” reading and writing at community college for six years and seventh years teaching at California State University in the credential program and in graduate programs. I am troubled for very serious reasons about focusing early literacy on a type of writing that appears to be under theorized given the full weight of the research on emergent literacy over the past fifty years, including Ann Haas Dyson at Berkeley and Donald Graves. And lifting “summarizing” to the status of North Star blows my mind. It’s an intrusion into intrinsic cognition and introduces an extraneous focus. If it were necessary for a literacy task (taking notes during research for a piece of writing done for publication) it would have an objective. But just to teach it as the hallmark of comprehension makes little sense and I believe could diminish intrinsic motivation to read and to write. That of course is not worth much—it’s my two cents. But there is a vast literature that is being widely ignored as people look to simplify and commodify teaching. It’s really difficult to watch.
I recommend Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading by Graham and Hebert.
Very true. Students who “struggle” with literacy, rarely struggle when they are interested in the topic. Make the topic interesting and the comprehension shall follow.
Oh wow, as a speech-language pathologist I have so. many. thoughts. Something that glaringly stood out to me is that comprehension challenges are a hallmark for individuals with language-based learning disabilities. I can tell you that firsthand, making inferences does not always come naturally--kids have trouble with sequencing, which impacts their understanding of cause-effect relationships, therefore impeding the capacity to make an inference.
This piece comes to me as right as I've been thinking a lot about the difference between teaching literacy and teaching literature. Even for young children, I'd argue that they are two separate subjects that get lumped into one, and it's not fair for students or teachers!
It makes me so sad to admit, but I didn't have a good grasp at what reading comprehension actually entailed until after I left the classroom, and like Harriet says in her comment, teachers really aren't taught *how* to teach students to determine what's important. (But they CAN learn how!!)
I'm going to revisit this piece again after I have some time to think about it. I now write about how parents/caregivers can support children's thinking and learning through reading (and writing!) outside the classroom as a way to deepen connection and raise the next generation of joyful, thoughtful citizens, and, like I said, I'm reading this at exactly the right time. What I'm trying to say: thank you!