Spring Literacy Challenge #2: The Reading Process
Are you teaching The Book or the reading process?
We know you have data, more data, and even more data on top of that. We suggest that as you think about the data, and as you consider the weeks leading up to testing season, you take time to consider that question. Are you teaching books, or are you teaching the process of reading?
As long as there are teachers, there will be favorite books of teachers. And having a favorite book is not a bad thing! Books are often ways we make sense of the world. Books could be a door that opened for us to explore new ideas, go to faraway places, or be a much-needed escape.
Research shows that teachers tend to teach the books they identify with and love. However, teaching the books to students is like giving a man a fish. It’s only good until it’s gone. Unfortunately, our love of books can be a double-edged sword. If we are literally teaching the book, then we are falling short in our literacy instruction. And we are inadvertently not teaching a man to fish.
In our work in schools, we have seen teachers cry when they thought another grade was using “their books.” The idea that books belong to one grade implies that books are one and done. It implies that once you read it, you got everything, and you can’t get anything else from it. It implies that books don’t have layers and that rereading is not valuable.
If we are crying over books – or asking a zillion details about the shirt, the dog’s name, and the shoes he wore – then we are missing the point. This is a clear indicator that we love the book and not the actual process of reading.
Reading is thinking.
If we are teaching reading processes, students can get all the information they need about plot, sequence, and setting, and revisit texts over and over again. Along the way, readers develop vocabulary and think critically. We have to trust the process!
As we get more complex in the grades, the standards address more of the author’s craft than specific plot twists and turns. When we get book (or content) blind, we accidentally pull the learning out from under the students. We have conversations around small details instead big ideas. We accidentally give them fish instead of help them learn to fish.
As you reflect on your plans and the work in each lesson, how are you teaching the reading process? Is your default to teach the actual text?
The secret you already know is that you cannot possibly teach students all the texts in the world. And students don’t need you to teach them the book! They need you to teach them how to process the book through the use of strategies and critical thinking.
The good news is there is no shortage of resources to help you, and of course ERG can support you in this as well.
Are you giving out fish this testing season or teaching students to feed themselves?