I do private tutoring and work with families whose kids are struggling in school. Most often I end up working with middle school aged girls. These girls have done really well in school until they hit about year four. They’re generally very bright, good readers and have had excellent marks on their report cards. Then, all of a sudden, they end up with average to low average marks. What’s going on? Why is their academic performance seemingly decreasing???
They know the stuff
For most of these students, they understand the basic language and math skills. There’s no “Back to Basics” needed here. They can do calculations, they read at grade level (in fiction anyways), they have strong background knowledge, they are well behaved and compliant, and they understand how to “do school”. It’s not that their performance is going down, but that the game is changing.
The language flip
Around the grade four reading level (not chronological age, but actual reading achievement level), something happens. Children who are reading a couple of hours a day start to acquire 4-6 new words a day. This is huge, as vocabulary is a huge indicator of future academic success. Most kids will read this much if they’re reading at least 20 mins a day at home, because there’s incidental reading throughout the day (signs, recipes, video game prompts, cereal boxes, etc) and reading in school (instructions, articles, textbooks, buddy reading, independent reading, reading power points/class notes, etc). So, that means that if your child is reading at or above grade level, is doing a good amount of reading at school, and then consistently also read at home, they’re building their vocabulary (or oral lexicon) every day! They’re learning the meaning of new words through the context of reading. They might even understand the meaning of some words that they don’t know how to pronounce properly! I remember that happening to me around that age!
It’s not just about learning words, however, its about which words you’re learning and what meanings you’re learning for them.
The other thing that happens in year four is that we are “done” learning to read (I would argue that this shouldn’t be the case, but this is how it works in most school contexts) and are now expected to read to learn. Reading is now a tool to do other things. Do you think Dr. Sheldon Cooper and the gang just look at boards all day? No. Most people in professional careers do more reading and writing about their work or for their work than they spend doing their work. Moving on from grade four, children are expected to be able to read instructions and understand what they’re expected to do (it’s rarely 42×53), locate information that is applicable to the academic task, read and understand academic (topic specific) text types, represent that information (we don’t just read a textbook and regurgitate rote facts anymore) and finally, use this information to solve complex problems and complete academic writing. These academic tasks require a whole arsenal of skills and strategies, and the ability to use words throughout academic contexts and within academic text types. In other words, if you’ve only ever read novels and story books about rainbows and babysitters, you’re not gonna do so great!
We are expected to use predominantly non-fiction text in order to complete academic tasks. Not only is non-fiction written at a higher reading level, but it has different visual text features (see zoom in poster above), is presented in different text organizations, requires different strategies, approaches and purpose for reading, but it also uses very different language and uses language in different ways. So, again, if you’ve never learned how to approach non-fiction texts (we read them VERY differently), you don’t understand words in academic contexts and you don’t know the ins and outs of non-fiction text types, you’re going to struggle with learning the academic content through reading. You’re going to have a hard time reading instructions for tasks, word problems, and questions on tests. You’re going to be screwed before you even get to the task at hand (again, it’s rarely question and answer) because you can’t work out what the teacher/problem/instruction/prompt/question is asking you to do. When you don’t understand the question or problem, it doesn’t matter how much math, science, geography, art history, you know, you’re not going to be able to work it out!
Last of all, non-fiction (other than non-fiction readers written specifically for early readers) is written above a grade 5 level. Most fiction picture books are written around a grade 3 level (Robert Munch, Geronimo Stilton, etc) and you CAN find fiction trade books in the library or book store as low as mid-grade one level but they’re few and far between (The Nose Book, Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, and the NO David! books) Newspapers, and now websites, are generally written around a grade 5 or 6 level, because that’s the average adult reading level. Most academic texts are written waaaay higher. For example, in Alberta, a team ran the social studies textbooks through a levelling system and some of the pages in the grade five textbook came out at a grade 8 reading level. If you compound this with a child who struggles to read academic words in an academic way, it’s going to become very difficult to learn much from reading.
Girl reading habits
You are what you eat, but your brain is what you read. Most girls choose non-fiction, especially at a young age
When we build our oral lexicon or vocabulary, we build it in the areas that we consistently focus on. We make connections to and from this vocabulary based on the text types, topics and vocabulary uses we read. If a child predominately reads fiction about puppies, princesses and rainbows, there will be lots of language definitions and uses stored in the brain that pertains to these topics and this type of reading. The language stored, however, may be limited. For example, if the child knows the word propose in the context of love and marriage, but not in the context of academia (the scientist proposed 3 solutions…), this may limit or confuse the way in which a scientific text is understood. While this over focus on fiction will be fine in K-3 where the focus is on learning how to read and building foundational skills in mathematics, the addition of academic reading and writing will cause some serious struggles. Furthermore, once we reach year 4, there is very little reading instruction. So, while boys tend to choose more non-fiction (when it’s available) right from grade one and are participating in reading instruction using non-fiction books, many girls miss out on this instruction and exposure simply because they’ve been chosen fiction.
So, what do I do for my girls and boys???
Diversify
When my students choose their weekly independent reading books, they are instructed to choose 6 books at their level, 3 fiction and 3 non-fiction, plus one free choice book. When they choose their weekly library books they are to choose one of each as well. I balance read alouds carefully and ensure that I intentionally choose non-fiction books to model text types for writing instruction and by topic to support our learning in academic subjects. When my sister takes her kids to the public library, she has them choose one fiction and one non-fiction.
Read non-fiction in social, comfy, loving ways just like you would fiction. If kids get used to non-fiction in non-threatening and happy situations, they’re going to be confident and comfortable using it in school!
Multiple marvelous meanings
The more you can play with and express curiosity with words, meanings, and the interesting facets of language, the more your child will be willing to be interested in words. Maryann Wolf, the most amazing neuroscientist and reading expert, encourages us to discuss the multiple marvellous meanings of words. The words that are important might surprise you! Yes, I encourage you to preview the curriculum for your child’s year and follow their teacher’s blog. When you know the topics your child will be encountering in their school year, month, week and day, you can help to front load them on those topics so they’ll be a little more successful and confident right off the bat. I will write an entire post on that later! I’m not talking about subject specific vocabulary though. I’m talking about academic language that transcends topic, subject and discipline. The above “wordle” contains many of the most needed academic terms. If we look at a word like factor, there’s no end to the situations we can use it in.
Factor
-The show Fear Factor
-Factors in math: all of the numbers that can be multiplied to get another number
-Multiple factors that affect a region, environmental issue, political problem, person’s identity or mental health, an artist’s style, the architectural style of a city, the performance of an athlete… the possibilities are endless
-A factor can be an agent or acts on the behalf of another
-Something you must factor into a decision
As you can see, if you only understand the mathematical definition of this word, you’re not going to do well when answering a historical, scientific, economic question with factor in it, even if you understand the other scientific, historical or economic content.
When you discuss the multiple marvellous meanings of words with your child, you open up their ability to understand many different academic texts on a variety of topics. That is so transformative that it will support them well past their week in school, the unit test, or even their school year. It will last them into higher academia, business, commerce, travel and whatever career they choose to pursue.
So... you want your Child to Learn to Read... 