Considering the Relationship of Student Self-Selected Reading in Middle School and High School on Student Achievement Outcomes in Literacy
Before I launch into this post, consider this question:
What are 3-4 books you read in high school?
Below are a few questions she posed to the audience. I encourage anyone who reads these questions to truly try to answer them (whether you are an educator or not). Because, dear friends, even if you are not an educator, you are a tax payer. You're paying for the education of our youth. If we do not know the answers to these questions, we need to start asking questions.
- How many of your students in grades 7-12 read on level, at what levels?
- Do you have assessment data that show which students are not reading at level? (For teachers: do you know their names?)
- How many students read (and enjoy reading) at the secondary (7-12) level?
- Do the secondary teachers (at your school) know how to teach reading?
- How many secondary English Language Arts teachers teach...
- ...using whole class novels?
- ...using a variety of reading material and genres?
- ...materials organized by theme?
- Do secondary students read self selected reading material every day?
- How long are they able to spend reading this self selected material?
- Where are the reading materials located? (In the school library? In classrooms?)
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If you asked me these same questions about children in grades K-3, I could answer in the blink of an eye. Yesterday, I realized that I need to know the answer of the questions posed above. We get kiddos loving books in grades K-3, and then by ninth and tenth grade a majority of children hate to read.
In one study, 151 6th and 9th graders were interviewed and it was found only 12 students were readers outside of school. Another study (National Endowments for the Arts 2007) reported half of 18-24 year-olds never read a single book for pleasure and just 30% of 13 year-olds read 'almost every day for fun'.
Steven Wolk, an associate professor at Northeastern Illinois University, found that when looking at what students are required to read in 2010, it might as well be 1960. Do you remember the 3-4 books you read in high school? Did they happen to be one of these books?
The Great Gatsby
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Catcher in the Rye
Lord of the Flies
Romeo and Juliet
The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn
Macbeth
Of Mice and Men
Hamlet
1984
Things They Carried
Students of today are reading the same texts as their parents as well as their grandparents. Do you see why kids may be turned off to reading?
What if we let students choose what they read? GASP!?! "What about the curriculum?" you ask. Well, it may be time to revamp the curriculum. If we continue with what we've always done, we'll continue to get the results we've always got. What if students were taught to think critically about texts using universal questions and themes, yet they were able to self-select the texts. If you haven't read these young-adult books, I highly recommend you check them out.
This trilogy is even being made into a movie!
Other titles that will surely be a hit with teens (especially boys) are:
I guess the bottom line is...
We need shake things up a bit.
We need to let students self-select materials.
We need to start meeting our students where they are at.
We need to help students become critically literate.
We need innovative leaders to make this happen.
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