Thanks for sharing this post with us! I had two follow-up questions I'm curious to get your thoughts on:
1. You mention that reading comprehension is tied to background knowledge—how can schools balance the need for content-rich instruction with the current emphasis on tested reading skills?
2. Do you see any promising models (districts, states, or programs) that are successfully integrating knowledge-building curricula and showing gains in equity or performance?
"That is, reading scores are low because no one has provided students with the background knowledge and vocabulary they need to understand the passages on the tests."
Thank you for going on to emphasize this:
"One reason is that if students have learned how to use complex syntax in their own writing—structures like subordinating conjunctions—they’re better able to understand that kind of syntax when they encounter it in their reading. Another is that learning to write in more complex ways develops the habits of analytical thinking that you need to understand complex text."
In Introduction to the Special Issue: Mechanisms of Variation in Reading Comprehension: Processes and Products (Scientific Studies in Reading, 2021), Julie A. Van Dyke notes that it’s not just unfamiliar vocabulary that confounds comprehension but "complex syntactic and discourse structures as well."
So far the dismal testing results over years have not shown improve reading skills. If teachers, principals and parents do not take ownership of the problem it's unlikely anything much will change - and these tests don't seem to inspire much ownership, so does it matter? My career was not in education but if the results in the businesses I managed were as bad as the poor reading levels we're seeing I would be wild and stop at nothing to get the right results. Ditto if it were my child who could not read at grade level. But I just don't see much energy in the public education system. I realize there are a multitude of issues these folks are facing but if nothing else is accomplished getting every child to read at grade level should be the one thing that is successful.
I'm not sure the problem is lack of ownership. There's been a LOT of pressure to raise reading scores, particularly from high-stakes state reading tests (NAEP results aren't tied to individual teachers or schools or, in most cases, even districts, so--unlike state tests--they're not about accountability). The problem is more a lack of understanding about what is causing the problem.
Low scores on reading comprehension tests lead to more intensive instruction in reading comprehension, which often only exacerbates the problem rather than ameliorating it. People need to see that the problem isn't too little comprehension instruction but rather too little knowledge-building. And reading comprehension tests send the wrong message.
The stable genius did something equivalent if I remember correctly with respect to covid. If you don’t count the cases they cannot increase.
Natalie,
Thanks for sharing this post with us! I had two follow-up questions I'm curious to get your thoughts on:
1. You mention that reading comprehension is tied to background knowledge—how can schools balance the need for content-rich instruction with the current emphasis on tested reading skills?
2. Do you see any promising models (districts, states, or programs) that are successfully integrating knowledge-building curricula and showing gains in equity or performance?
"That is, reading scores are low because no one has provided students with the background knowledge and vocabulary they need to understand the passages on the tests."
Thank you for going on to emphasize this:
"One reason is that if students have learned how to use complex syntax in their own writing—structures like subordinating conjunctions—they’re better able to understand that kind of syntax when they encounter it in their reading. Another is that learning to write in more complex ways develops the habits of analytical thinking that you need to understand complex text."
In Introduction to the Special Issue: Mechanisms of Variation in Reading Comprehension: Processes and Products (Scientific Studies in Reading, 2021), Julie A. Van Dyke notes that it’s not just unfamiliar vocabulary that confounds comprehension but "complex syntactic and discourse structures as well."
I focus on the importance of "syntactic constraints" in Part 4 of Pathways to Information: Accessing Knowledge by Leveraging Language, Patterns of Language on Parade (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/pathways-to-information-accessing-a31)
So far the dismal testing results over years have not shown improve reading skills. If teachers, principals and parents do not take ownership of the problem it's unlikely anything much will change - and these tests don't seem to inspire much ownership, so does it matter? My career was not in education but if the results in the businesses I managed were as bad as the poor reading levels we're seeing I would be wild and stop at nothing to get the right results. Ditto if it were my child who could not read at grade level. But I just don't see much energy in the public education system. I realize there are a multitude of issues these folks are facing but if nothing else is accomplished getting every child to read at grade level should be the one thing that is successful.
I'm not sure the problem is lack of ownership. There's been a LOT of pressure to raise reading scores, particularly from high-stakes state reading tests (NAEP results aren't tied to individual teachers or schools or, in most cases, even districts, so--unlike state tests--they're not about accountability). The problem is more a lack of understanding about what is causing the problem.
Low scores on reading comprehension tests lead to more intensive instruction in reading comprehension, which often only exacerbates the problem rather than ameliorating it. People need to see that the problem isn't too little comprehension instruction but rather too little knowledge-building. And reading comprehension tests send the wrong message.