For decades, there has been a hyper focus on instruction in kindergarten through 3rd grade, and with reason. The developmental timeframe of laying the foundation for students to grow into strong readers and mathematicians is crucial. Attention to the details of the needed appropriate, whole child approaches to these early years of learning should continue with hyper focus. And…. we need to add the same hyper focus to the needs of our upper-grade students. For decades, curriculum is bought and sold with a microscopic lens on how it teaches kids in grades K-3. Keen detail is given to its alignment to evidence in research in these grades. Legislation is written based on what programs some groups decide are worthy of purchase based on K-3 approaches. The cycle of analyzing and purchasing curriculum based on the needs of K-3 continues decade after decade while people scratch their heads about why kids in 8th grade have lower than desired comprehension scores. For decades, there has been a hyper focus on instruction in kindergarten through 3rd grade,
Even when giving advice to teachers, the advice given is far to often from the lens of K-2 instruction. “Have you tried (insert approach that works well in 2nd grade) with your 4th graders?” If only it took 15 minutes to teach conceptual understanding of long division with the area model to then explain why the algorithm works before switching to a small group rotation model. I so wish we could read a ten page short passage with complex vocabulary and literary elements in 15 minutes while also stopping to discuss, analyze, annotate and write about what we are reading. Twenty minutes of phonics instruction? My class would die of boredom and frustration over once again learning about short vowel spellings. A mini lesson for writing would be awesome for a one paragraph description on an animal but for a five paragraph research expository essay? Older kids need more. But for whatever reason curriculum writers and leaders can’t think outside of the K-3 box. Why is this hyperfocus on K-3 a problem? Given the crucial window, shouldn't we be looking at curriculum for that group with a microscopic lens? Yes, of course. And… we need to ensure the curriculum changes and adapts to what students need as they grow into critical thinkers and readers. We see the neglect to adapt across content areas, and when specifically speaking of literacy instruction, neglect throughout Scarborough's Rope. We see it in the misstep between phonics and the shift to morphology. 4th graders are asked to continue to learn the spelling of short vowel spellings in many programs instead of examining our language through the lens of morphology- and if morphology is included it's often an afterthought. We see it in writing where as writing demands increase, the direct, explicit instruction needed to get students there decreases. We see it in vocabulary where as difficulty increases, time spent truly teaching the words remains the same instead of adjusting to upper student need. We see it everywhere and I could write a post on each aspect but will focus on reading in this post. The Problem With Upper Grade Reading Curriculum Traditionally, reading curriculum does a decent to great job addressing the needs of our younger students. Instead of then adapting to the needs of our older students, it attempts to apply the same formula it used for lower grades to upper grades. In this failure, it often neglects to acknowledge the changes in text complexity, time needed to read, and time needed to analyze and discuss the text. This is not a Balanced Literacy vs. Structured Literacy issue. This spans the reading wars. Upper grades have always been neglected, curriculum for this age has over the decades been sloppily put together, and scope and sequences are often not adjusted to the growing needs and rigor of students as they age. Examples, Fountas and Pinnel suggested reading Tuck Everlasting in three days. Three. Days. For the entire novel. Its script prompted teachers to ask three entire questions on a novel with incredibly complex themes and literary elements. This completely ignores the time students would have to sit and attend to just a book, without any stopping for rich discussion. It ignores the needs of kids to stop and analyze what is being read, it ignores any longstanding good practice of using novels in the classroom with the rationale that students shouldn't be spending more than a week reading one text. This idea was probably picked up from past pendulum swings where basals failed to engage kids by spending too much time on one text but- the failure to acknowledge realities of the book's length, let alone other elements to truly teach using it, is stunning. HMH Into Reading, a basal marketed as a solution for Science of Reading-aligned programs, asks kids to engage in long passages, initially reading the text in one sitting. Accomplishing this prescription of read a text in one lesson is viable in younger grades, with short texts, but no acknowledgment is made in the prescription to adjust needed time for longer, more complex texts in upper grades. It's simply the same formula, without acknowledging student needs, demands on time, or even realistic implementation of the asks. (And don't get me started on then having to read that same text over and over again the next 4 days and the disengagement that ensues.) With either extreme, burning through novels at a pace an adult couldn't keep up let alone a classroom filled with 28+ students, or a compilation of shorter texts without critically examining the time needs of the demands is a recipe for disaster. Education's Basal Reader Era We have been here before and we should have learned from the past. Basal readers, which are compilations of short passages and now often just an excerpt from a novel, aren't exactly what kids need. Complaints of boredom are plenty (from the teachers teaching as well as from the students receiving the instruction) and the overwhelming bloat of resources siphon away time from other content areas. This is a problem. Short passages aren't the root of the issue here. In fact, short passages are very much needed in a well-rounded reading scope and sequence. I appreciate this blog post by Timothy Shanahan on teaching with novels. He begins to argue for a need of both/and. A healthy well-balanced curriculum shouldn't be just novels and it shouldn't be just short passages. Kids need a both/and. They need the depth and breadth of a program that incorporates a wide set of texts exposing kids to different ideas, cultures, knowledge, etc. And… they need to dive into a great novel. When used appropriately, novels are (and I hate to describe it this way but it's true…) the magic sauce on top of a well-balanced meal. Sometimes, teachers can use them as the main course- there is absolute magic in a whole class novel. Kids are pulled in and the shared experience of reading, predicting, anticipating, discussing rich characters, analyzing the author's voice (etc. etc. etc.) grabs kids into doing the harder work of engaging in other rigorous texts. Novels cannot and should not always be the main course or the only type of reading kids engage in during whole group instruction. However, when used in combination with a basal, novels in small groups with rich discussion can help kids in the upper grades achieve at or above grade level expectations. With basals now dominating the market, it is crucial that teachers are given room to also incorporate novels. There is nothing inherently wrong with a compilation of short passages. In fact, kids need to be able to both critically analyze shorter texts while also building stamina for longer novels. Both/and That said, there is often a lot wrong with the script that comes with the boxed program. The script is often written through the lens of what kids in K-3 needed. It is often written without thought of time demands needed to accomplish finishing the text, and then writing a well-formulated multi-paragraph analysis on it. The assessments are longer and harder, but the program prescribes the same amount of time for them, despite asking kids to read a complex text, answer a slew of multiple-choice questions, and write a multi-paragraph essay. There is no acknowledgment that asking kids to do this in the upper grades every single week is a demand that isn't developmentally appropriate. Curriculum developers are simply applying the same formula they prescribed to lower grades to upper grades without consideration of anything upper-grade students need. This all needs to change. In a perfect world with well thought out curriculum for all students in all grades, upper grade students would both read novels and short passages. The opportunities to align a novel with other short passages that support enrich overall learning are plenty. There is opportunity to use shorter text to tie in content from science and social studies, further building our students' knowledge base. There is opportunity to maximize the way we spend our time to ensure students are learning to read across content areas while then opening time in the day to do the work of scientists and historians. Yet, with curriculum neglecting to address these needs, we lose so much throughout our day- especially when the idea of fidelity of integrity of the program is pushed. Until large publishing companies acknowledge the needs of our upper-grade students, district and school leaders must empower teachers to go off-script, adjusting to the needs of the kids in front of them. Its currently the only path we have to ensure the success of all students.
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July 2024
"The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see." - Alexandra K. Trenfor |