Reading prepares students for living and learning outside the text

Common Core's emphasis on deep analysis of text and discrete literacy skills is misguided and will not ensure the college and career readiness of all students.

These standards do not properly prepare our students for the real world literacy challenges of lifelong learning and employment.

As I previously commented here, the standards demand students think critically as they stay connected and dive into text, while most employers desire workers who think creatively while connecting with people as they dive into their work.

Proficient close readers will spend days determining "how the text works" while productive employees will achieve much more in just a few hours of putting their imagination to work.

Training students to close read is a time consuming process that crowds out other learning activities and leads to a narrowing of the curriculum.

Today many schools are eliminating vigorous extracurricular experiences that help students discover and develop the diverse ways they are “smart”, so they can devote more time to preparing students for rigorous standardized reading and math tests so the state can measure and compare how “smart” they are.

I also previously commented that when it comes to success in college and careers, the ability to independently master complex informational text is far less important than students having learned how to maximize their talents and master themselves.

Higher learning standards should expect students to apply useful literacy skills in more challenging, purposeful, and novel ways, instead of applying impractical close reading skills in rigorous, tedious, and test-based ways.

Our students and our nation would be better served by learning standards that cultivate broadly applicable and transferable literacy skills, rather than focusing on a very narrow and specialized set of reading skills that the lead writer and "chief architect" of the Common Core is so enamored with...

 â€œDavid Coleman stood at a podium reciting poetry. After reading Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” a classic example of the villanelle form, Coleman wanted to know why green is the only color mentioned in the poem, why Thomas uses the grammatically incorrect go gentle instead of go gently, and how the poet’s expression of grief is different from Elizabeth Bishop’s in her own villanelle, “One Art.”

“Kids don’t wonder about these things,” Coleman told his audience, a collection of 300 public-school English teachers and administrators. “It is you as teachers who have this obligation” to ask students “to read like a detective and write like an investigative reporter.”

Dana Goldstein, “The Schoolmaster” The Atlantic 9/19/12

The Common Core emphasizes the use of authentic informational text such as newspaper articles, government reports, text books, technical guides/manuals and journal articles, even though close reading strategies are more appropriate for the intense analysis and criticism of select literary works.

Proponents of the deep analysis associated with close reading readily admit that not all text is "rich and worthy" of close reading. In fact, much of the complex informational text that students must read and understand in college or the workplace requires reading comprehension skills and NOT close reading.

“…A first reading is about figuring out what a text says. It is purely an issue of reading comprehension. Thus, if someone is reading a story, he/should be able to retell the plot; if someone is reading a science chapter, he/she should be able to answer questions about the key ideas and details of the text…

However, close reading requires that one go further than this. A second reading would, thus, focus on figuring out how this text worked. How did the author organize it? What literary devices were used and how effective were they?…

Thus, close reading is an intensive analysis of a text in order to come to terms with what it says, how it says it, and what it means. In one sense I agree with those who say that close reading is about more than comprehension or about something different than comprehension…”

Shanahan on Literacy: “What is Close Reading?” 6/18/12

Education reformers have been promoting and “selling” the Common Core as new and improved learning standards that will prepare all students for college and careers in the 21st century, when close reading, the cornerstone of the ELA Standards, is a 20th century approach to learning and reading instruction.

“Now, it appears, Coleman wishes to impose his own high academic standards on students from kindergarten to high school. Moreover, he has a very deliberate approach to learning, and to reading in particular. He embraces what in the 1940′s and 1950′s was called New Criticism, a movement in U.S. universities that emphasized sticking tenaciously to the text of whatever one is reading.

In other words, all discussion in a classroom about a particular text needs to be based on the text itself (or, alternatively, needs to be compared to another text). New Criticism cautions the reader not to go beyond the text to consider, for example, the biography of the author, the social or historical period in which he/she was writing, or, for that matter, even one’s own personal feelings, attitudes, and experiences in relation to the text.

As Coleman famously stated at an April, 2011 presentation for educators sponsored by the New York State Department of Education: “no one gives a shit what you feel or what you think [about the text you are reading].” He doesn’t want students to take what they are reading and connect it to their own lives, or describe how they feel about what they’re reading”

Thomas Armstrong, “Architect of New National Curriculum: Power in The Hands of One” 9/28/12

The CCSS close reading strategy demands that all students independently “dive into” and master complex informational text and teachers are discouraged from answering student questions or introducing and reviewing prior knowledge with them.

This unproven approach directly contradicts Bloom’s Taxonomy which has clearly demonstrated that students must first acquire knowledge and be able to recall information, before they can progress to the higher cognitive levels of comprehension and understanding.

The directions for the EngageNY Common Core exemplar, “A Close Reading of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address” reveal how the close reading approach does not recognize or acknowledge the importance of Bloom's Taxonomy...

“The idea here is to plunge students into an independent encounter with this short text… Some students may be frustrated, but all students need practice in doing their best to stay with something they do not initially understand. This close reading approach forces students to rely exclusively on the text instead of privileging background knowledge, and levels the playing field for all students as they seek to comprehend Lincoln’s address…The aim is not to have them ask questions but do what they can on their own.”

Close reading enthusiasts claim all students, regardless of individual ability or disability, will not be ready for college and career until they can independently “dive into” and master complex informational text, with limited or no prior knowledge. 

As I commented in my previous post; "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", many adult learners do go on to lead very productive and rewarding lives despite weaker reading or writing skills…

“…But what has become obvious—as evidenced by the sheer number of dyslexic World Economic Forum attendees in Davos and by plenty of research—is not only that dyslexics can be, and often are, brilliant, but that many develop far superior abilities in some areas than their so-called normal counterparts…

What those highly accomplished people wanted to discuss, albeit discreetly, was their reading ability, or, more accurately, the difficulty they have reading—one of the telltale symptoms of the disorder…”

Coudl This Be teh Sercet to Sussecc? American Way, July, 2008

In another post; "Climbing the Common Core Staircase" I commented on the unfortunate timing of the U.S. Department of Education deciding to discontinue funding for Parental Information And Resource Centers in 2011, just as the Common Core State Standards were being rolled out.

Call it a coincidence, but back in September, 2010 the National Institute for Literacy was closed just as new Common Core literacy standards were being discussed and written for our nation.

"As the National Institute for Literacy prepares to close in September 2010, it is discontinuing printing of hard copies of its scientifically based publications by May 31, 2010. These federally funded resources remain ranked among the top 10 most-requested publications by the U.S. Department of Education." 

National Institute for Literacy Publications Closeout - Kaye Beall, 4/7/10

Considering their close relationship with the Department of Education, hard to understand why the National Institute for Literacy was closed and not involved in the process of writing new college and career readiness ELA standards, when they had previously worked on literacy standards for adult learners and workers.

Equipped for the Future is a 1994 adult education initiative by the National Institute for Literacy that identified and defined 16 content and national learning standards that,

"define the knowledge and skills adults need in order to successfully carry out their roles as parents and family members, citizens and community members, and workers. Keeping a focus clearly on what adults need literacy for, EFF identified 16 core skills that supported effective performance in the home, community, and workplace.”

The National Work Readiness Council awards a National Work Readiness Credential that is aligned with Equipped for the Future applied learning standards. According to the National Work Readiness Credential Candidate Handbook…

“The Work Readiness Credential (WRC) is a group of tests designed to determine if candidates have the skills they need to enter the workforce.

A wide variety of workers, supervisors, managers, businesses, and government agencies have worked together to determine what a person needs to know to be a successful employee.

The WRC shows that the person who earns it by passing all four tests has demonstrated knowledge and skills important to successful employment in entry-level positions.

A student, job seeker, or worker who earns the WRC will have a national, transferable certification of skills and knowledge in entry-level employment.”

While close reading focuses primarily on very narrow and specialized literacy skills that require deep analysis and deconstruction of text for academic purposes, the Work Readiness Credential indicates that a student has acquired a much broader, useful, and transferable set of literacy skills for a variety of purposes called; Read With Understanding.

The Guide: Getting Ready for the National Work Readiness Credential  provides  examples of proficient performance including…

Reading a magazine about typical behavior for toddlers, to figure out how to deal with a two-year-old’s tantrums.

Reading a brochure from a health clinic to learn about signs of depression and helpful tips for dealing with it.

Reading OSHA information about noise exposure, to solve a problem at work.

Reading information about voter eligibility in order to decide if one is eligible to vote in an upcoming election.

Reading information about financial aid for higher education to decide whether or not to apply for loans, and if applying for aid, to understand options available.

Reading Material Safety Data Sheets in order to get guidance about safely handling toxic materials in the workplace.

If you compare the Read With Understanding examples listed above to the sample close reading question below that was published in Valerie Strauss’s “Answer Sheet” Blog, it is clear that this contrived and convoluted  question is assessing a very narrow and specialized literacy skill, or as Carol Burris and Bianca Tanis explained;

"Questions such as these are better suited to assess one’s ability to put together a chair from Ikea than they are to assess student’s understanding of what they read."

This academic skill may serve students well when taking future Common Core ELA tests, but it certainly is not a broadly applicable reading comprehension skill that would be useful or transferable to many real life learning and work based reading tasks...

Consider this fourth-grade question on the test based on a passage from "Pecos Bill Captures the Pacing White Mustang" by Leigh Peck.

Why is Pecos Bill’s conversation with the cowboys important to the story?

A) It predicts the action in paragraph 4

B) It predicts the action in paragraph 5

C) It predicts the choice in paragraph 10

D) It predicts the choice in paragraph 11

Learning activities in school should be both meaningful and purposeful. They should help students to acquire practical and functional literacy skills that will support lifelong reading and learning.

Requiring students to complete contrived, concocted and overly complicated close reading assignments to assess literacy skills that are not broadly useful or transferable, is holding students to a HARDER standard of learning not a HIGHER one.

The use of test items that are “distractors” on Common Core-aligned standardized tests should also raise serious concerns and doubts about the efficacy of CCSS assessments.

Common Core tests clearly DO NOT measure higher order thinking skills when a likely or plausible response is marked wrong simply because the student relied on prior knowledge, rather than choose an answer that is taken directly from the text.

 â€œThe questions on the Common Core English Language Arts test are more complex than those found on previous tests that measured previous grade‐level standards.

Correct answers will not “jump out”; rather, students will need to make a thoughtful distinction between the fully‐correct option and the plausible but incorrect options.

To answer ELA questions correctly, students will need to closely read each entire passage, and be prepared to carefully consider their responses to multiple‐choice questions…

As such, it is unlikely that even adults could answer the questions correctly without closely reading the entire passage.”

Frequently Asked Questions: 3-8 Testing Program (pg 9, #21)

In the real world of learning and work outside of school, plausible solutions to novel problems are absolutely worth consideration and further study, but according to Common Core "rules of assessment", such answers are completely wrong.

If ed reformers are serious about improving student achievement and preparing students for success in college and careers, they would abandon their absurd regulations and rules for learning because every teacher knows the best way to engage and inspire young learners is to provide numerous opportunities for students to create, play, experiment, and explore as they soon discover that....  learning rules!

I approached him in a humble spirit: “Mr. Edison, please tell me what laboratory rules you want me to observe.”

 And right then and there I got my first surprise. He spat in the middle of the floor and yelled out,

 â€œHell! there ain’t no rules around here! We are tryin’ to accomplish somep’n!”

 September, 1932 Harper’s Magazine â€œEdison in His Laboratory” by Martin André 

While close reading may be easily measured by a standardized test, these skills are not likely to be utilized in fast-paced work environments where solutions to novel problems are rarely found in the text.

In most cases, employers do not expect their workers to close read text, just comprehend it. Employees applying the time consuming close reading strategy in a fast paced and competitive work environment will most likely lose a client, an account, and even their job.

Close reading supporters claim that the ability to painstakingly deconstruct and dissect authentic text is essential for the workplace while the vast majority of department memos, company directives, monthly reports, and business correspondence require reading comprehension skills as they are not "rich and worthy" of close reading.

Do close reading evangelists really envision an employee responding, when called upon for his or her recommendations regarding the current quarterly sales report…

“Well I’m not really sure if this data is good news or bad news because I did not read the previous quarterly report as that would be providing context and using prior knowledge to help me understand the meaning of this month’s report, and I will need a little more time to go through the report because I am still dissecting the craft and structure of the introductory paragraph and haven’t even started to deconstruct the remaining text and determine what the author is up to.”

In 2011, Equipped for the Future issued a Report on Correspondences between the EFF Curriculum Frameworks and the Common Core State Standards and the report found that…

“The two documents differ in that the Common Core focuses on academic (and to some extent, vocational) purposes for all, while EFF contextualizes skills within a fuller range of adult family-related, work-related, and civic purposes at all levels…

Another key area of difference is in what the â€œstandard” attempts to describe. Each EFF content standard describes a transferable skill process that can be applied to a wide variety of adult purposes and tasks…

In contrast, the Common Core documents target discrete skills and sub-skills which, like other sets of K-12 standards, may lead teachers to focus only on each sub-skill and not also provide learning activities which help students apply and transfer their skills outside of the immediate learning situation…

There is also a difference in the way that Metacognition is addressed, with metacognitive strategies being discussed in the Common Core introductory materials but not in the standards document, and these strategies (surfacing/building on prior knowledge, monitoring learning and adjusting strategies to enhance it, etc.) comprising a prominent feature of the EFF Curriculum Frameworks.”

Close reading enthusiasts claim that K-12 students need to read much more nonfiction and informational text if they are to be ready for college and careers when there is growing awareness that a healthy “diet” of fiction provides plenty of “nourishment” and perhaps, better prepares our students for the cognitive, social, and emotional challenges of college and careers.

From your parents you learn love and laughter

and how to put one foot before the other.

But when books are opened you discover that you have wings. 

~ Helen Hayes

“The imperative to try to understand others’ points of view — to be empathetic — is essential in any collaborative enterprise…

To bring the subject home, think about how many different people you interact with during the course of a given day — coworkers, clients, passing strangers, store clerks. Then think about how much effort you devoted to thinking about their emotional state or the emotional quality of your interaction.

It’s when we read fiction that we have the time and opportunity to think deeply about the feelings of others, really imagining the shape and flavor of alternate worlds of experience…”

~ Anne Kreamer, “The Business Case for Reading Novels” 1/11/12

“I’ve noticed for many years that executives I coach who only read non-fiction tend to be somewhat more two-dimensional in their perceptions of others and of situations; they seem to have fewer options to call upon when making decisions or solving problems…

The research Anne cites resolves my chicken-and-egg quandary: it seems that reading fiction improves your sensitivity to and appreciation of complex human situations; it provides a richer ‘toolkit’ of understanding from which to pull when making decisions and building relationships.

And as our business lives get more complex, faster-paced, less hierarchical and more dependent upon our ability to build support with those around us – that kind of toolkit becomes ever more critical to our success...”

~ Erika Andersen, “If You Want to Succeed in Business, Read More Novels” 5/31/12

Common Core enthusiasts are convinced that close reading of nonfiction and informational text will prepare our students to compete with global learners and workers when other nations are encouraging their students to read more fiction.

“I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It’s simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.

Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you’ve never been. Once you’ve visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different…”

~ Neil Gaiman, â€œWhy our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming” 10/15/13

Suppose a state has a literacy standard; “Students will read and comprehend appropriate texts.” One approach to raising this standard or expectation of learning would be to reword it to read; “ALL students will read and comprehend grade-level texts”  

Many education reformers seem to be advocating academic rigor for the sake of rigor. The notion that close reading of complex informational texts is holding students to a higher learning standard, simply because it is a more challenging and specialized literacy skill to acquire is foolish. 

Requiring students to perform more difficult academic tasks and acquire discrete literacy skills that are not broadly useful or transferable, will not improve student achievement or ensure they will all be "ready" for college and careers.

Learning standards should cultivate the development of purposeful literacy or numeracy skills that are flexible and applicable to a wide variety of real life learning situations.

Neil Gaiman discussed a more effective student-centered approach to reading instruction in his lecture that is referenced and linked to above…

“The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them…

 I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children. Every now and again it becomes fashionable among some adults to point at a subset of children's books, a genre, perhaps, or an author, and to declare them bad books, books that children should be stopped from reading…

 Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian "improving" literature. You'll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant.

 We need our children to get onto the reading ladder: anything that they enjoy reading will move them up, rung by rung, into literacy…”

Continuing down the Common Core “road” with ELA standards that focus primarily on selective and specialized literacy skills instead of broad-based, applicable, and transferable literacy skills, make as much sense as the US Education Department announcing a new initiative to improve U.S. bike riding skills by mandating that all children learn to ride a bike without the use of training wheels, and declaring the new National Standard for being a proficient and globally competitive bike rider is…NO HANDS!

I have previously commented on the importance of passion-driven learning rather than data-driven instruction.

Honoring student voice and providing for greater student choice is also the topic of another post; “Teach Your Children”

Schooling should be about students learning to love, being loved, and cultivating a love of learning, rather than students learning primarily for assessment and to be compared to the performance of others.

"We always find time for what we truly love, one way or another.

Suppose further that love, being an inclusive spirit, refused to choose between Shakespeare and Toni Morrison (or Tony Bennett, for that matter), and we located our bliss in the unstable relationship between the two, rattling from book to book, looking for connections and grandly unconcerned about whether we’ve read “enough,” as long as we read what we read with love…"

~ Jon Spayde, “Learning in the Key of Life”, Utne Reader, 1998

As soon as we associate reading with a test, we've missed the point.

~ Seth Godin