Defining Reading

Defining Reading

Transacting with a text, both the author and the reader come out differently in the end. Reading is about making meaning, not just decoding.

Fluency: we need to redefine what fluency means. It's not about how fast one reads but also the comprehension, inflection. Programs like Reading Street and DIBLES focus on how fast one reads.

We are conditioned to believe that if we repeat words when reading aloud then we aren't good readers. This isn't the case. It's a strategy that good readers use to make sure they're making meaning.


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Research Ideas

Right now I'm reading Designing Qualitative Research (Marshall & Rossman, 2006) in preparation for Wednesday's class meeting. As scared as I am about the dissertation process I have at the forefront of my brain, developing ideas about what I want to research. I figured I'd record them here under a common tag, and refer to them later.

As I was reading, I made a connection between the process of asking questions specific to and important for the advancement of a particular field, and the reading I did in Smart Answers to Tough Questions (Garan, 2007) about questions on reading. In this section, Garan talks about how silent sustained reading is important for students to build fluency (especially if they're reading something they like), and to move them to becoming better readers. There is a little discussion about Accelerated Reader and how there is insubstantial research both for and against this particular program. There is criticism that the focus is on extrinsic reward for readers, and the questions asked on the quizzes are all surface, Bloom's Level 1 Remember, type questions.

What I wonder is what programs like this do to the dispositions of young readers--especially when the self-selection of books is limited to those books that are on or above their level. Do they become life-long readers? How many of those students who had poor dispositions toward reading and Accelerated Reader as elementary school students end up in the Read180 program or programs like it at the middle and high school level? Does that program (which includes an AR like quiz program called Scholastic Reading Counts) change those dispositions? Or do the students internalize more because they want their elective back?

I realize that many of these questions are specific to the environment in which I currently teach, but I am sure they apply to other districts as well.

 

Garan, E. (2007). Smart Answers to Tough Questions. New York: Scholastic.

Marshall, M. and Rossman, G. (2007). Designing Qualitative Research.  Los Angeles: Sage.

Confusing Harder with Better

Much like the idea in the pro-choice/pro-life debate where if one is pro-choice then one must be an advocate for abortion, in education either people are in favor of higher standards (that is, what the government views as higher standards), or are content with lower standards (Kohn, 2004, p. 41). In practice, this means raising scores on the standardized tests (created by corporations).

Many tests fall into two categories: norm-referenced and criterion-referenced. Here's the difference:

• norm-referenced test: a test where the student's score is compared to a pre-determined population. The student is compared to his peers.
• criterion-referenced test: a test where the student is assigned a category--advanced, proficient, nearing proficiency, a grade A-F--based on a predetermined scale.

Kohn suggests that many of the tests fall into the norm-referenced category. Here's one I didn't know about until I had to look up the difference between criterion referenced and norm-referenced: ipsative assessment

• ipsative assessment: a student's score is compared to itself over time

This is what teachers do in class when providing students with their short-cycle assessment scores and asking them to plot how they score over the course of a year. From what I understand of ipsative assessment, this is what teachers want when they complain about comparing two different groups when determining AYP. We want the same group of students to be compared to themselves throughout time. 

How we evaluate the data generated by tests aside, Kohn suggests that higher scores on standardized tests to indicate standards have been lowered (2004, p. 41). Because students have the ability to pass the test, they must have been taught just how to pass the test, and nothing more. This is a broad generalization. Not all teachers load their students up with facts, treating them like empty vessels into which information is poured. And not all teachers subscribe to the "traditional" method of teaching (lecture style?). 

Here's the kicker, though: "Low scores have become synonymous with good tests" (Kohn, 2004, p. 44). Are we evaluating students, or how well the assessment shows students' failure? Because making the test harder after students in several states failed to pass the same assessment makes a whole lot of sense, but teacher are taught that if most of their students fail the assessment they need to look at two things--both the assessment and the instruction. 


Kohn, A. (2004). Confusing Harder with Better. In What does it mean to be well educated?: And more essays on standards, grading and other follies (pp. 38-45). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.