A few months ago, I heard two students talking about the
books they were reading. One said, “I
want to read that book too, but I can’t, because I am a K.” The other student kindly looked at the first
and said, “Well, I’m an M, so you’ll get here in no time.” Our kids hear and interpret the language
that we use.
The more I read about teaching reading, the more convinced I
am that the best way to move our students forward, is to really know them as
readers and how they are developing along the Literacy Continuum (Fountas &
Pinnell). In order to know the specific
skills that I should be focusing on in my instruction with a student
(conferring or small group), I find it most helpful to utilize an assessment
that will provide information around the level that would match their current
characteristics of reading.
Often the next logical step seems to be, I know what this
students’ level is, so now I need to get them reading those texts. However, it seems we might need to pause for
a moment and reconcile the valuable information we have obtained about our reader
with all of the other things we know about reading:
*Readers can access higher level texts on topics that they
have background knowledge in or that peak their interest.
*Kids can read more complex text if they have someone to
talk with about the text.
*We know how to teach our students to pick books that fit
well for them, and we want to continue to foster that.
*One of our most vital goals is to get kids to love
reading. We want them to pick up all
kinds of books to ignite that spark!
*We want to build up, not box up, their identity as a
reader.
So let me ask you this, if everywhere our students go, the
level of the text is already identified, and they are restricted to a certain
level, how does that reconcile with the things we already know about teaching
reading?
Those of you who know me, and how excited I am about the
Benchmark Assessment Kits (Fountas and Pinnell) and all of the information that
you can obtain to target instruction, are probably perplexed as to the
contradiction that appears to be brewing here.
Allow me to clarify my opinion (which has evolved over the last year
greatly as I have dug deeper both in research and also with students). There is a time and place that we need
students to be in a specific level as we provide instruction around specific
skills that are characteristics of that level (hence we have the guided library
leveled A to Z). It’s helpful when we send
books home for students to read independently, that we are confident that it
will be a positive experience (hence we have leveled take home libraries). However, it is also important that students
learn the skill of choosing an appropriate book and have opportunities to
access books at a variety of levels for a variety of purposes (hence your
classroom library, their book shelves, the public library, etc.).
The bottom line is that when necessary, we level books; we
don’t “level kids.” We can apply the
shift of student-first language to reading levels as well when we say, “Jenny
is showing characteristics that match level G.”
Let’s build up their identity as a reader and be purposeful in how we
choose books and how we teach students to choose books. Our students hear what we say, and they interpret
what they hear.
Perhaps that prior conversation could have gone: “Wow, that
book looks interesting and I’d like to read it.
It looks like there are a few words I don’t know on each page though.”
The other student smiled at the first and said, “Would you like to read this
book together? We can talk about any
words we don’t know.”
Let’s set our kids up to be critical thinkers, free from the
confined box of a level identity.
