From the Journals :: When Students Struggle Reading

We might consider four distinct reasons some students continue to struggle with basic reading skills.  According to findings in Research in the Teaching of English this month, some students’ difficulty with reading—even when teachers have instructed and students “know” certain reading strategies—because we as teachers often expect the teaching of strategies to be enough.  It’s not.

In a year-long study, Leigh A. Hall discuses not only strategy approaches, but also issues of identity.  She writes: [The student’s] opportunities to grow and develop as a reader were marginalized in [the teacher’s] classroom both by her teacher and herself.”  First, the emphasis on “cognitive, print-centric view of reading” held by students and teachers.  Second, the identification of the student as a struggling reader by the teacher, that is, the naming of the student as such and engaging with her from that perspective.  Thirdly, the student sought to prevent her classmates from not finding out how bad she was as a reader; so, she didn’t ask for help or take risks in class that might help her grow. Finally, the student and teacher had different goals in mind—academic and social—and the competition between the two only hindered progress.

In our own classrooms, we might consider finding ways to discuss with individual students not only how they struggle with reading skills, but with the way their peers view them, as individuals and as readers.  Other conversations to have, perhaps—with individuals or with classes—might include asking how students’ experiences reading online compare to their offline reading, or, how they have grown and changed as readers throughout their experiences in school.  It seems that one lesson to take from Hall’s study is for teachers of English and literacy to step back from common professional assumptions and open a dialogue with struggling readers about struggling and reading.

Still, my constant concern in the emphasis on literacy skills and reading strategies, over the last several years especially, is that it overshadows other aspects of English education.  For example, what of the possibility for aesthetic experiences with literature?  What of pleasure in reading?  A recent English Companion discussion thread got at just this issue.  One thing it reveals is that “good literature” and “books we like to read” are not at all the same, necessarily.  The discussion–a really rich one at that–might take on even more interesting light if we take it into our classrooms and pose it to our students themselves.

For the full study, see:
Hall, L. A. (2008). Struggling reader, struggling teacher. Research in the Teaching of English, 43(3), 286-309.

For related reading, check out:
Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice by Beers, Probst, & Rief

Secondary School Literacy: What Research Reveals for Classroom Practice by Rush, Eakle, and Berger

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