Reversing Readicide

Kelly Gallagher

Schools have become unwitting coconspirators in the decline of reading.

On a recent cross-country flight, I found myself sitting next to the president of a multimillion dollar computer software company. To keep his business competitive, he told me, his organization regularly recruits employees from top universities. When I asked him how his current recruitment efforts were going, he said that over the past few years it had become increasingly challenging to find qualified workers. It isn’t difficult finding smart candidates; the problem is finding smart people who can think.

This conversation often comes to mind as I teach my students at Magnolia High School in Anaheim, California. My current freshmen entered 2nd grade as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became law. Almost their entire school experience has been shaped by test preparation. These students have already spent years in schools where teachers and administrators have confused covering massive amounts of material with teaching students how to think and read critically.

One major drawback of having students spend their formative years memorizing facts is that facts change. Robert J. Sternberg, former president of the American Psychological Association, notes that the “facts” he learned years ago in his introductory psychology course matter little today. Instead of pounding facts into students’ heads, Sternberg (2007/2008) suggests, schools should nurture attributes and skills that are foundational to becoming expert citizens, such as solving problems creatively, working well in teams, and knowing how to lose as well as win.

I fear that in the rush to prepare students for the next round of exams, schools are neglecting attributes like these. And if we are to guide students to become thoughtful adults who possess such qualities, we must face the elephant in the room: U.S. students’ lack of reading proficiency and their general disinclination to read.

The signs are not encouraging. Consider the following points taken from a 2006 report on adolescent literacy by the National Council of Teachers of English:

Young people in the United States are not just substandard readers, they are increasingly reluctant readers—even in their free time. In the National Endowment for the Arts’ comprehensive 2007 survey of American reading, To Read or Not to Read, researchers found that a “calamitous, universal falling off of reading” occurs for many students at around age 13 and often continues through the rest of these students’ lives.

Educators know the commonly cited culprits behind the decline of reading: poverty, lack of parent education, print-poor environments at home, second-language issues, the overscheduling of children, and competition from electronic media. To this list, I would like to add a factor I call readicide, meaning practices educators employ to raise reading scores that actually kill students’ love of reading. Readicide is occurring, ironically, in the one place where a love of reading should be fostered—schools.

How have schools become coconspirators in the decline of reading? I suggest four contributing factors: (1) Schools act as though they value the development of test takers more than the development of readers, (2) Schools are limiting authentic reading experiences, (3) Teachers are overteaching books, and (4) Teachers are underteaching books. Let’s look at how each of these practices leads to readicide, and examine steps teachers can take to counteract them.

Factor 1: Schools develop test takers instead of readers.

A curriculum steeped in test preparation drives shallow teaching and learning. Consider, for example, the monumental task confronting social science teachers in California, who must teach the following standard from the 10th grade curriculum:

Compare and contrast the Glorious Revolution of England, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution and their enduring effects worldwide on the political expectations for self-government and individual liberty.

How long would it take to teach this standard so that students acquire in-depth understanding? A teacher could easily spend an entire year on this single standard—but this is only one of 49 similar standards 10th grade teachers must cover.

I purposefully use the word cover because that is what teachers must do to get students through the amount of material required to generate test scores that will appease administrators, school board members, and parents. Breadth is now winning out over depth in most subjects. Science curriculum frameworks in the United States, for example, are loaded with more topics than frameworks of other countries (Cavanagh, 2009).

It’s good to have standards for what students should know, of course. But when there are too many standards, in-depth teaching gets thrown out the window, and schools start producing memorizers instead of thinkers. And when coverage trumps depth, close reading—the kind students need to develop their ability to read critically— gives way to surface-level, “one and done” reading.

Reversing the Trend

We must ask whether teaching in a coverage mode serves the long-term interests of our students as readers. If we look at students’ critical reading scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) from 2002 to 2009, during the time NCLB has been in effect, we see a slight increase in points for several years, followed by a decline to below the average score for 2002 (Gewertz, 2009). Isn’t it interesting that although many districts tout rising test scores at the local level, reading scores on a key national assessment are in decline?

One recent study, in fact, found that nearly one-third of states have lowered their academic proficiency standards in reading and mathematics to make it easier for schools to make adequate yearly progress under NCLB (Dillon, 2009). Reading scores may be “rising” in districts across the country, but when one looks at a national assessment like the SAT, it seems our brightest students are actually regressing.

Clearly, the “coverage” approach is not working. It’s time to bring depth back into the curriculum. Our students would be much better served if we taught them fewer concepts, slowed down, and taught them to think.

Factor 2: Schools limit authentic reading experiences.

I currently teach five periods of 9th grade English at Magnolia High School in Anaheim, California. More than one-half of my students are socio-economically disadvantaged. The student body is 68 percent Hispanic; more than one-third are English language learners, and nearly 40 languages are spoken on campus.

Although my students have passed innumerable tests in their journey to high school, they are shockingly unaware of what is happening in the world. For example, only a small percentage can tell me the name of the vice president of the United States. Not a single student can name the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and only a handful can define the rights protected by the 4th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On the other hand, almost every student can name the four judges on American Idol. More than half of my seniors last year did not understand that newspapers have editorial sections. These students have since passed all their tests and graduated; they are the next generation in charge.

I point this out not to bash my students, many of whom are exceptionally bright. My concern is simpler: Schools are not doing the job they once did of engaging students in the kinds of reading that enable them to become literate, well-informed adults. Instead, as students progress through our schools, they are forced to read more and more worksheets focused on isolated facts.

Reversing the Trend

continued…. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/mar10/vol67/num06/Reversing_Readicide.aspx