November 2014

Reading Passions

As a kid, I read a lot: historical fiction passed down from my older sister, Hardy Boys mysteries from my brother, and titles I found on my own during weekly trips to the library. Those fiction stories have stayed with me. But what probably had the most obvious influence on my life were the National Geographic magazines that arrived each month in the mail. I remember curling up with them on the sofa, pondering the pictures and captions and occasionally dipping into the articles themselves. These magazines opened the world to me. In my twenties, when I was traveling around the world, those magazine images came to life as I rode on top of a bus in India, watched Balinese women gracefully carry towering offerings to temples on their heads, and Cameroonian women walking along the road with their babies tied to their backs in multicolored pagnes.

I continue to read non-fiction – online and on paper – because by the world and the different perspectives I gain from informational texts fascinate me. One blog that has really captured my attention is Out of Eden. Journalist Paul Salopek is walking the route of our ancestors from Ethiopia to the tip of Chile. He expects it will take about 7 years. As I read his dispatches, I draw upon the knowledge of geography, history, myth, and culture that I have gained from reading widely. Take a look at the blog and read an entry or two. As you read, think about what specific skills and knowledge you are using to understand what Salopek is writing about. What disciplines do you recognize? Economics? Politics? Science? History? How does he engage you as a reader?

At 276, we recognize that strong readers and critical thinkers need to have a well- rounded education and deep knowledge that they can draw upon when they encounter new experiences. At their best, the Common Core Learning Standards can help us achieve this objective. The Common Core in English Language Arts asks schools to engage in several instructional shifts: We are tasked with providing our students with a greater balance between fiction and non-fiction reading and writing. This allows our students to understand the unique features and structures of informational texts, to build knowledge about the world, and to increase their academic vocabulary. We also are required to teach our students how to engage with increasingly complex texts and to reflect on the ideas in these texts through writing. Students are expected to use evidence from the texts to provide evidence for their thinking and to apply this evidence in the construction of arguments.

These shifts are important for our students’ achievement. Research shows that a strong foundation of content knowledge can account for as much as 33% of variance in student achievement on standardized tests. More importantly, the discipline specific vocabulary students acquire through in-depth studies is needed for success in middle school, high school and beyond. And engaging content provides increased incentive for reading. We want our students reading – a lot – every day. Students who read on average 21 minutes a day encounter 1.8 million words a year while those who read on average 1 minute a day (the bottom 10th percentile of readers) are exposed to only 8000 words in print a year.

I am proud of the units of study that we create for and with our students that help them build a solid foundation of knowledge and the skills needed to engage with it. Our students are expected to integrate knowledge across texts from kindergarten on. They analyze ideas, ask probing questions, and construct their own understandings through reading a variety of texts. Whether they are constructing arguments about important social issues in grade 4, integrating ideas about history through crafting historical fiction in grade 7, or learning about the adaptations of dinosaurs in kindergarten, our students are building the content knowledge and the literacy skills needed to be engaged life long learners.