how children read

Now that we have across-the-board decline growth in Christopher's scores in just one year's time, I'm trying to figure out how panicked I need to be about his future.

The "challenge" here in Irvington is that we have a spiral curriculum in math and ELA classes that assign novels two years below grade level. This results in predictable not-great achievement by the end of middle school, at which point we throw the kids into ferocious competition and tracking for accelerated and Honors classes.

Only the children who "belong" in Honors and/or accelerated courses gain admission, and the admissions process is grueling. Students have to write essays; parents have to sign letters saying they know their kids are applying to Honors and giving their OK.

No effort is made to recruit students into the Honors track.

Ever.

The goal is to make cuts. Figure out who doesn't "belong."

I've been hearing that word for many, many years here in Irvington.

belong

Last year an Irvington administrator told me that "Irvington is the most heavily tracked district I've ever seen."

Direct quote.

So that's the dilemma.

We're paying $20,000 a year in property taxes for Darwinian gatekeeping.

Plan A has to be figuring out whether there is or is not a decent Catholic boys' school somewhere in Westchester County. At this point I think even Ed would be on board for packing Christopher off to the Jesuits for the next few years.

(He's come a long way, baby.)

Christian claims there's a good one in White Plains, so I'll look into it.


[pause]


wow

They have a parents Crusader Club at Stepinac High School.

That could be good.


[pause]


whoa

Their graduates are going to good schools. (Click on "Admissions"; then Click on "Graduates.")

So....I guess the next step is to check out tuition.

Good Lord.

$6,650

We could do it.


[pause]


hmmm....

Their SAT scores are "above average."

No further info.

That's a bad sign.



Alright, enough of that.^*

As I was saying, I'm trying to figure out how panicked to be what to do now.

Over the weekend, this seemed to mean cruising reading comprehension websites.....

I don't even know what got me going on that, but there you are.

oh!

I remember.

Elaine McEwan's book Raising Reading Achievement in Middle and High Schools: Five Simple-to-Follow Strategies arrived with depressing news: just having your kids read books doesn't seem to be enough.

I haven't finished reading that chapter, but Elaine said she was depressed by the research on this, so naturally I became depressed, too. Being sick in bed with the flu helped.

Elaine (apparently we're on a first name basis, Elaine & me) thinks students have to be "held accountable" for their reading - i.e. they have to do something, such as writing a summary, to show they not only read a book or two, they understood what they read. And they have to read more complicated books this year than they did last year and the year before.

That made sense, but what's a more complicated book?

How complicated are the books C. is reading now?

And how do I find out?

This question led to lots of cruising of readability websites & white papers.....


[pause]


San Diego Quick Assessment (pdf file)

The San Diego Quick Assessment is a dandy tool, I think.

I gave it to Christopher and discovered that his "reading for pleasure" level is grade 6; his "instructional" level is grade 7. I suspect he's going to come out higher than that on the ITBS, but the San Diego was helpful. The two words Christopher couldn't read both belong to science vocabulary, which I think is probably good:^** "relativity" (grade 6) and "capillary" (grade 7).

If you're going to use it with your own child, use this link.



So I cruised the readability stuff....and got out my book on summarizing and finally committed to reading the whole thing....and in brief, semi-lucid waking moments I was trying to figure out how, exactly, I'm going to make sure Christopher reads progressively more challenging material AND is "held accountable," by me, for his progressively more challenging reading, I came across the following passage:

Studies show that children often select books both above and below their current reading level, and this is a good thing. Children can often understand large sections of books that are "too hard" because of their interest in and knowledge of the topic,2 and "easy" books often provide valuable background in a new genre that encourages subsequent reading and makes it more comprehensible (Carter, 2000). Left on their own, children engage in a "back and forth movement" between easy and hard books, reading both below and above their current reading levels (Fresch, 1995). In addition, children gradually read books that are more challenging, without the use of reading levels (Krashen, 2001a). The back and forth movement is actually a sine wave that gradually moves upward.

Stenner appears to agree. in one Metametrics brochure ("The 3 Rs': Using the Lexile Framework"), it states that "one strategy that works well is to have students read an easier text on the same subject in order to provide some background knowledge and vocabulary" (p. 3). And Stenner, Burdick, Sanford and Burdick (2001) advise that "the Lexile Framework should never be the only factor considered when selecting a book" (p. 49).

source:
The Lexile Framework: The Controversy Continues