I've been through so many books, I thought I new what it took...
To make it...
Television came along
Picture movies
..
No one reads books anymore.
...
...and there went my job as an author
I was going to write a lot of words
...
put them all together ...
...and make, make make
just one good thing before I die.
NOTE: I've taken to try and find an image per chapter, to help me associate with the text. The above image (circa 1989), and corresponding lyrics from a song (I wrote in the late 70s) reflect my own feelings on literacy during that time - that we were at the front-end of complete information overload, and there was nothing that we could do about it.
When I think about challenged readers, I usually think about root causes - improper or absent early reading activites (head start programs, and reading to your kids at night), or students that may have had a disability such as dyslexia, or uncorrected vision problems.
I also think about ESL students.
When the first page of Unrue states:
...for the most part, students on average are reading
at least as well now as they did 30 years ago.
I have to think that things are at least OK on the macro level.
However, since the text goes on to state that 25% of all middle school and high school students are struggling, then perhaps we are indeed amidst a literacy crisis.
I've commented on this chapter heavily in the discussion board for week two, and will add a few additional comments here, to associate the already known with the new material, and use it as a reminder.
Some of the notes I've scribbled in my copy of the text include the following bulleted list of questions:
- Where do you break the chain?
- How long does it take to learn to read effectively?
- Does the time required to become proficient shift as the student falls behind in grade level reading?
- What mechanisms are in place for teachers in public education to work cross domain in collaboration around individual learning issues, or around creating cross discipline material that can be coordinated so that core competency in each discipline does not take second place to basic reading... aka, is there a way to create cross discipline material so that the english/reading specialist facilitates the language arts part of a project, while the math instructor facilitates the numeric analysis and reasoning, while the other instructors prepare material in a way
that combines content from each subject?
I made a few comments in the BBS distinguishing between the types of reading deficiencies, and that the reading programs listed in the text seem to be either more for decoding, or more for reading comprehension, with those at the latter end of the discussion appearing to be more for comprehension than decoding.
Some of my own thoughts reinforce concepts from the book:
- Attack the problem one child at a time - students will need some form of individual help, especially if the problem is serious. While the chapter discusses many techniques for teaching reading comprehension, my feeling is that it will happen when programs are tailored to the individual student.
- It takes 3-5 years to become proficient. 5-7 years to become expert. (These are interesting numbers, becuase they are often used in sports to teach individual skills. There must be something intrinsic about our learning processes that apply both to the academic as well as the kinesthetic!)
- The shift becomes not only one of ability, but also one of self-esteem. In that sense, as the problem persists, the time required for correction may increase.
- I get the sense that public schools still aren't very good at this (collaboration across departments), but I hope to be proved wrong.
As far as tracking methods that work, it is worth mentioning that my company, Media Net Link, has found a niche market for an issue tracking program called AthenaRMS. It is now being used to track the progress of ESL students in the Dublin School district. Hopefully it will help to personalize the instruction and monitoring of progress, so we can indeed learn what works and what doesn't. (See http://AthenaRMS.com for details of the product. There isn't a use case up yet for its application in schools.)
