I have a question.

A friend of mine thinks her reading is not what it should be.

I don't know if that's true, but that's the way she feels.

What should she do?

I was thinking she should try the book Christopher is using this summer, Walter Pauk's Six-Way Paragraphs. Pauk invented the Cornell notetaking system; he also wrote the classic book How to Study in College. I have How to Study, and I like Pauk, so I ordered Six-Way for Christopher.

Six-Way Paragraphs is a quick-and-dirty way to teach kids a version of Eugene Schwartz's reading skills.

The book has 100 short passages - one or two paragraphs - all pretty interesting (Christopher thinks so, too). For each passage the student follows this procedure:


six-way paragraphs
1. read title: think about it & form mental image
2. read the passage through quickly
3. answer (multiple choice) questions quickly using pencil
4. read passage again – slowly this time
5. mark final answers with check
6. check answers against answer key
6. enter your score in diagnostic chart (p. 209)
7. correct your answers (p 203-207)
8. find total comprehension score
9. graph your progress

take corrective action
10. read wrong answers
11. read passage one more time & figure out why your answer was wrong

read each passage 3 times in all
12. first read-through: fast
13. second read-through: slow
14. third read-through: read slowly enough to find the correct answer

So far Christopher has found the passages so easy he's done none of this; he gets the answers right the first time, after a quick reading.

The one question he does miss sometimes concerns the text's "clarifying devices," such as metaphors, repetition for effect, and so on. I love those questions; I'm glad he has to think about them.

I also like the first question on the central idea. Instead of asking the child to choose the correct central idea out of 3 choices, Six-Way Paragraphs has the child identify each possibility as "too broad," "too narrow," or "central idea." Every time Christopher reads one of Pauk's passages and answers the multiple choice questions, he sees again that a good piece of writing has a central idea that's neither too broad nor too narrow, supporting detail and evidence, and clarifying devices.

I like it.

I told my friend about it, and she wants to try it.

But then I started reading E.D. Hirsch, and discovered that Hirsch loathes this kind of instruction, which he calls formalism. Kids today are spending hours and hours and hours identifying central ideas and supporting detail; they even have little mnemonic devices that help them slog through the various comprehension steps. The whole thing sounds dreadful, as Hirsch says.

Here is 9-year-old Zulma Berrios's take on the school day: "In the morning we read. Then we go to Mrs. Witthaus and read. Then after lunch we read. Then we read some more."

[snip]

"Clarify," said Zulma, who began the year reading at the late first-grade level. "When I come to a word I don't know, I look for chunks I do. Reminded. Re-mine-ded."

"Clarify," said Zulma's classmate Erick Diaz, 9, who began the year reading at a second-grade level. "When I come to a word I don't know, I look for chunks I do. Hailstones. Hail-stone-s."

School Pushes Reading, Writing, Reform
By Linda Perlstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A01