Struggling with the Struggle

“We can’t teach reading with an eye toward social justice if we don’t address both the equity issues and some strategies for working with the students who need the most support.” (Bomer & Bomer, p. 89)

Struggling Readers -- “People who, for one reason or another, misapprehended the reading process and have not put a reading system together that adds up to meaning; these are struggling readers.” (p. 89)

The current education system and society as a whole, relies so heavily on competition and is results-based, meritocratic. Struggling readers, or struggling (name something), begin to see themselves negatively. Eliminating or at least mitigating tacit conclusions students draw as they compare themselves to other students.

When students begin to compare themselves with other students around them – adults do this too – there is significant chance that the students struggling can gain a negative idea about themselves. They can lose confidence and self-worth and they are likely to become embarrassed, nervous, disengaged… their eyes duck down, pleading in their head the teacher not call on them, ensuring not to make eye contact. They feel small, want to be invisible. They feel they are behind…EVERYONE. They may feel they are not smart, something is wrong with them… that they “are not the kind of person who reads” (Bomer & Bomer, p. 91).  How do/can we ensure we to lift up our students rather than allowing them to go down this path?

“This measuring of self against others may be unavoidable in our society, but if reading is taught realistically, in all its diversity, the comparisons need not be this detrimental” (p. 90).

Investigating ourselves as readers opens up conversations – shared inquiry.

Bomer and Bomer suggest using short sessions where all students engage in reading books they find difficult – that they have difficulty finding meaning – to help drive home the realization and understanding within the entire community of students that everyone will and does struggle at some point, in one way or another, as a reader. Bomer and Bomer insist that we, as teachers, must make these sessions brief. If not, frustration sets in for everyone when reading at a “frustration level” (p. 90), and the sense of enjoyment in reading fades for everyone. In large/lengthy doses this could potentially have lasting, undesirable affects as these negative feelings and experience could overtake the positives for those students not necessarily struggling. The goal is to have an open and honest discourse about the struggles of reading, talking about the difficulties each student feels as a reader, enlighten the “whole community to the realization that these struggles are not a function of intelligence, ability, or age” (p. 90), all the while not having the students in need of support feel as though they are being “singled out”, tracked, or grouped by ability. So, how long is long enough? And how do we know and ensure we do not push the students too far?   

Choosing the “Just Right” Books; Developing independent reading agendas; and Building Libraries to Support the Most Vulnerable Readers  

Finding books that best fit struggling readers is essential to their development as readers. If we can find books that suit our struggling readers’ level, we can provide them with necessary boost in confidence, self-worth, and a positive experience with reading. The more positive experience, the more they enjoy to read.   

In cases, developing an independent reading agenda may be necessary. This involves much extra time, thought, and effort -- is it possible for a few students? Several students?

Building libraries -- "In many classrooms, in fact in many schools, books easy enough for struggling readers to get through successfully just aren't there. This is unfair, and it reproduces too-common injustices in the society at large. Money for books is one of the resources schools and teachers must allocate with an eye toward justice. if there is an imbalance, it should be in favor of the most vulnerable, NOT against them. It is hypocritical to attempt to teach for social justice wand democracy without having enough easy books available to struggling readers." (Bomer & Bomer, p. 90).

** What if we don't have any help from the school? How do we build our Libraries to support our most vulnerable readers without breaking the bank?! What are some ideas?

 “If we do not pay attention to how we work with these students, we run the risk of ignoring them entirely, thus setting up conditions in which only some students will benefit. The students already richest in reading capital will get richer while the poor get poorer. In so doing, we would reproduce the unjust callousness toward the vulnerable of the larger society – and of course, very often they are the same people.” (p.89)

Strategies:

Scheduling conferences during reading workshops

Reading and reporting meaning as it evolves throughout a text -- breaking texts into manageable sections, then having the student read a section, report what he/she read, and repeating.

The teacher is involved, guiding the student’s thinking through conversation – allowing the student to process what he/she has read and engage in conversation, thinking aloud, having access to and instant feedback through the teacher’s questioning and thinking. This drives the students to actively engage in the sense making process.  

Parents, family members, and volunteers:

The importance of building relationships with student’s families once again makes an appearance! If we do not have a relationship with our student’s family, if we are not in communication with them and do not know them, how could we possibly know what kinds of reading they do with the student outside of class and how the student preforms at home (or in a setting outside school)? How could we possibly ask them if they could spend a little time working with the student on reading, without sounding condescending? We cannot!

Building those relationships and having frequent communication with parents, guardians, and/or family members allows us to understand the circumstances, the child’s reading habits outside of school, and allows us the opportunity to ask if there is a possibility for a little reading work outside of the classroom and suggested areas/skills/etc. to work on with the student. Similarly it provides the parents, guardians, and/or family members a better understanding of where the child is at and what the child needs work on. Also, this allows for more open and honest dialogue from both/all parties. Then if we learn the parent(s)/guardian/family member is unable to attend to the child’s reading need because of the long hours spent at work to provide for the family – rather than the full responsibility falling on the parents/family/guardians to do so, we can search for volunteers to work with the student.

Establishing and maintaining a classroom community – creating a safe, engaging, and supportive environment for ALL readers!

Do you believe this is possible/realistic in the current system we have? How do we create such a community – ideas, strategies, etc.? How would you introduce this idea to your students?

As we discussed in Dr. O’s class, the concept of community and collaborative learning isn’t necessarily instilled within students, as the system and prior classroom experiences stresses competition. Thus, we must establish and teach our students how to engage in respectful, helpful, positive, supportive, collaborative learning. Instilling the sense of community and togetherness is essential before we can implement / put in to practice the concept of working together. We must show before we do – if we implement this before the students understand why and how, the results might have the opposite results for what we intend.  

** Do you have any ideas for how to setup a lesson where we have stronger readers helping more vulnerable readers? What kinds of lessons plan ideas do you have for matching up powerful readers with more vulnerable readers?

  

*** What are some other strategies/ideas we have learned about in other classes to help struggling readers? OR some strategies/ideas that you have for helping struggling readers? How about struggling writers?

** How can we utilize writing to help struggling readers and vice versa? What about if a student struggles in both?

Struggling Writers:

 “Rubrics, and their “menu” of generic comments, are clumsy in practice and in theory; they tear at the foundations of the rhetorical heart of writing, reducing student essays and our responses to an exercise in purposelessness.” (Wilson, 2007, p.63).

“While a small amount of standardization is necessary for communication, readers and writers depend on the evocative, associative qualities of language to make reading an intensely meaningful, personal experience. I sometimes wonder if dictionaries have done us a grave disservice; they perpetuate the delusion that words can be defined rather than described, imagined, experienced, and conveyed” (Wilson, p.63).

Human Response > Rubric

 

“When we give up rubrics, we’re looking at student’s work through our eyes, not those of the rubric. Unmediated by the rubric, our responses gives students the power to think through what effect they want their words to have rather than how their words measure up to the categories on a rubric.” (Wilson, p. 64).  

This sounds fantastic, and this fits my personality, as I don’t necessarily enjoy following strict guidelines. But giving up the rubric and assessing student’s work in this manner could be difficult for some –Can you see yourself being able to give up a rubric or similar assessment tools and to assess student’s writing by this approach? Does it suit your personality? Do you believe it would be difficult or easy for you to pass on using a rubric and use this human response approach?   

As with many of the other approaches, ideas, methods, and so on we have read about, implementing the human response approach for assessing student’s writing would certainly take extra time and effort on our part as the teacher. How do we juggle our time efficiently and effectively enough to use this approach in our classrooms?

https://www.ted.com/talks/victor_rios_help_for_kids_the_education_system_ignores?language=en&referrer=playlist-blueprints_for_the_next_genera&utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

This Ted Talk revolves more specifically around School to Prison Pipeline, but the social injustices and the equity issues I believe are relevant here.

"We have to provide adequate resources to young people. Grit alone isn't going to cut it. You can sit there and tell me all you want, "Hey man, pick yourself up by the bootstraps." But if I was born without any straps on my boots -- How am I supposed to pick myself up?" 

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References:

Bomer, R., & Bomer, K. (2001). For a better world: Reading and writing for social action. Heinemann, 88 Post Road West, PO Box 5007, Westport, CT 06881. (Chapter 5).

Rios, V. (n.d.). Transcript of "Help for kids the education system ignores". Retrieved from 

https://www.ted.com/talks/victor_rios_help_for_kids_the_education_system_ignores/transcript?referrer=playlist-blueprints_for_the_next_genera&language=en

Wilson, M. (2007). Why I won't be using rubrics to respond to students' writing. English Journal, 62-66.