Kylene Beers' approach to helping struggling readers in secondary schools

¶ … Kids Can't Read

Journal: Beers' When Kids Can't Read

Kylene Beers, Chapters 1 and 2

Beers introduces the subject, which is the problem she faced as a secondary teacher of middle and high school level classes. She was surprised to find out upon entering these levels that the biggest obstacle her students faced was the fact that they simply did not or could not read. The fact that she has dedicated so much time and energy to answering the questions of parents like George, who wonder why their child does not like to or simply is not able to read, shows the kind of dedication a teacher must have in the present day education crisis. It is clear that something is terribly wrong in the world of education: there is disconnect between students and that which they should know. Beers attempts to understand why this is.

I think she makes a very important discovery in this first chapter when she indicates that her students' dislike of reading may be connected to their embarrassment at being poor readers. She recalls how she quit activities because she was embarrassed at being so poor at them. While this may help explain some of the students' feelings toward reading, I do not think it can be used as a blanket statement that covers all students. Indeed, Beers arrives at the same conclusion when she states that there is no single answer for why students can't or won't read: there are many answers.

What I find most compelling about the first chapter is the assumption that Beers makes, which is that teachers want to help students to read, that students actually do want to be taught, and that there is a good and effective way in which these goals can be achieved. While I have no problem accepting any of these assumptions, I know that they cannot be said for all teachers or students or methods of instruction. Nonetheless, it is an admirable and essential struggle that Beers is undertaking and I am looking forward to seeing what she has to say.

In chapter 2, Beers illustrates the problem she was having with George. George is what she calls a dependent reader, one who looks for help from others rather than depending on his own ability to understand what he is reading. In a sense, it seems that George's problem is that he is unwilling to exercise the mental muscle needed to become a better reader. The main problem is not that he is confused (even though he is); the main problem is, rather, that he would prefer to accept what another says is going on in the text than attempt to figure it out himself. He is too passive.

Beers suggests that the teacher should try to help students learn how to figure out a reading by themselves. Beers identifies three challenges struggling students face: cognitive challenges, negative attitudes, and lack of inspiration, pleasure, energy, etc. A good teacher will be one that can help students overcome each challenge.

I believe that Beers has touched on something important in this chapter. It appears that a teacher is no longer simply teaching a subject that he or she knows about. Now a teacher must be more -- a motivator, a friend, and an entertainer. The teacher has a much larger job in store for him. First, he must help students learn how to recognize meanings, comprehend ideas, formulate thoughts, connect one point to another, etc. At the same time, he has to keep in mind the oppression, despair, and conflict that can arise in the student's heart and mind. There is no magic formula that can be entered into the student's brain that will suddenly enable him to be a good reader. The student has to be helped along, as though he were just learning to walk. But just like a child will walk on his own, the teacher must not "baby" the student but encourage him to read on his own.

Sept. 5: Beers, Chapters 3 and 4

In this chapter, Beers describes what it means to say a child can't read. I child who can't read could fall within a range of difficulties, from having a limited sightword vocabulary to and inability to make inferences. Beers' book may best be used a guide for teachers who try to understand the challenges that face their students. Beers lays out a number of possible scenarios facing teachers. For example, if a student can read but cannot comprehend, the child most likely needs help understanding vocabulary, summarizing and making connections. Just because a student can spell and read quickly does not mean the student can really read. It is essential that comprehension accompany reading -- otherwise reading is a waste of time.

I thought this was a particularly good point and one that stands reinforcing. All too often a teacher might skip over checking a student's comprehension in order to move on to other topics. But making sure the student understands what is being read should be the primary objective. Simply "covering" the subjects without assessing the students' ability to understand is counterproductive.

The fact is that children need to want to learn, to want to apply themselves, to want to go from being dependent readers to independent readers. They need to want to know that something can be gained from reading. Beers assumption at the beginning of the book was that children want to learn. As she herself indicates, this is not always the case.

In chapter 4, Beers indicates that simply telling the student what a text means is counterproductive. A better way to teach, so she implies, might be something like the Socratic Method, which is used to engage the student and get him to think about what he has read. It is based on logic, of course. Appealing to a student's reason might help trigger that which needs to fire in order for the student to begin to put himself into the activity of reading. Beers suggests a number of ways to do this, such as: clarifying, comparing and contrasting, connecting, predicting, summarizing, inferencing, questioning, and visualizing.

In order to teach this things it is necessary to show how to do these things. This is an important point that Beers makes. It is not enough to tell students to predict what will happen or to visualize what they are reading. The teacher must show how that is done. One way a teacher can show how to do this is to think out loud while reading. (it appears that simply reading a text with a class and saying your thoughts out loud is helpful and allows the student to see how a text can inspire certain thoughts, predictions, connections, etc.).

Before beginning a text with a class, a teacher might decide which particular strategy he would like to focus on that day -- comparing and contrasting, summarizing, etc. Then the teacher should tell the students which one he is doing. The teacher should read aloud, practice the strategy; use different reading genres throughout the year; let the students themselves try.

This helps struggling readers see firsthand how the activity of reading translates into the activity of comprehending. They get to see someone who knows how to read and comprehend do the very act before their eyes. If they are seeing and truly do want to learn this is the best way, so Beers suggests, and I agree.

Sept. 19: Beers, Chapter 7

Beers assertion that quiet reading does not necessarily mean good or active reading is most likely a correct one. All too often a student can "read" a passage of text without really comprehending what it said. In other words, his eyes could be focusing on the words, but his brain might not be processing the information they are relaying. Beers recommends allowing struggling readers to talk aloud while reading so that they can hear themselves think, ask questions to help support their understanding, and re-read for improvement.

Beers provides several more exercises that might be employed during reading to help the student become more involved in the reading. However, in order for the struggling reader to better comprehend the text it might help if the teacher provides some perspective from which the reader might judge or understand what is happening in the book. For example, it might be beneficial for the teacher to probe the students' understanding of human nature if the book is about characters in literature, or to probe the students' understanding of history if the book is about an historical topic, etc. By seeing where the students are, the teacher can have a better grasp of where they are going.

In other words, an outside reference (provided by the teacher) could help the students make better connections, comments, and questions. Providing a frame or some context may appear to make the students dependent on the teacher, but to a certain extent this should be allowed.

As Beers says, a good teacher should emphasize the importance of rereading. Even good readers practice rereading. One's mind is always drifting off to other subjects when reading and if one does not go back and reread he is likely to miss out on information that may be necessary to helping him to form a proper analysis of the text.

Here Beers suggests a good activity for struggling readers: She advises that they be given a short text and asked to reread it three times, each time rating their understanding from 1-10. They should then talk about why their rating might have increased after each rereading. Some likely reasons might be that they slowed down when rereading, or that they were already familiar with it, or that they knew what part they missed last time and could pay extra close attention to it the second or third time around. The point is to challenge students to refrain from rushing through a text but rather to take one's time and learn to comprehend the text.

Beers also suggests that students think aloud. I think this a healthy activity that encourages good reading skills. They can express their immediate reactions without placing too much emphasis or feeling like they are over-analyzing what they are reading, thinking and feeling. Any over-analysis should be discouraged, especially in longer texts. What should be encouraged, at least initially, is to read solely to understand the plot. In other words, I think Beers next suggestion that students write down phrases that catch their attention and beside them record their thoughts could be helpful in a way but it also could lead to unnecessary diversion and distraction. Emphasis should not be placed upon what they as individuals think about characters or actions but upon what the author is trying to show. This is true comprehension.

Oct. 17: Beers, Chapter 8

Again, Beers provides more strategies to facilitate comprehension -- this time after reading. The first strategy, the scale strategy, is not going to be very helpful for most readers because it places too much emphasis on subjective analysis. The reader should not be asked whether he agrees, strongly agrees, or disagrees with blanket statements. For one, they tend to be superficial and irrelevant. Two, they only ask that the reader give his opinion on something which he has not yet shown he understands. A better strategy by Beers is recommended next and this is the strategy of assessing motive. She calls it: Somebody Wanted but So (SWBS).

SWBS serves as a kind of exercise in summarizing but it forces the reader to comprehend the plot, the conflict and the resolution. Plot typically centers on an action -- a character wanting something and going after it. Conflict arises when that something cannot be attained. Resoultion occurs when the character finds another way to get what he wants or else chooses to want something else. Answering the questions that stem from SWBS is a healthy post-reading exercising that will help the struggling reader bet see whether he has read the story properly or not.

Beers recommends doing SWBS in four columns across a paper, with main characters falling under the heading of "Somebody," their intentions under "Wanted," the conflict under "But," and the resolution under "So." This helps the reader to summarize what he has read and stick to the main and essential points. I think Beers has recommended a brilliant approach to helping students master the art of reading and comprehension with this simple but elegant exercise.

Beers then suggests that students partake in an oral retelling that adheres to a certain rubric. The idea of having a rubric is an intelligent one, but the oral retelling might have a number of pitfalls. First of all, in any classroom it is not going to take long for all the students to pick up on mistakes made by the first retellers and thus develop a good retelling that is based not upon their own reading but upon what others have said of the reading.

Secondly, students who are struggling with reading may also be struggling with shyness, which might lead to a poor retelling. A written retelling might be better in this situation. or, if the teacher insists on an oral retelling, it might be done privately between teacher and student. These are points that ought to be considered.

Beers is correct in asserting that teachers often view comprehension not as a process but rather as a product. Comprehension is both. Answering questions can be helpful, but it does not satisfy the teacher truly interested in gauging whether students comprehend the reading. SWBS is a terrific exercise that could help the process portion of comprehension in after-reading exercises. Answering questions can help in the product portion of comprehending. I would suggest doing both.

Oct. 24: Beers, Chapters 9 and 10

Chapter 9 deals with vocabulary, an important topic in reading and comprehension. Beers suggest that teachers give out fewer vocabulary words each week for study, and that before giving them out the teacher use them during the week prior to assigning them. This will help the students recognize the words and become familiar with them and it is better than assigning a long list of words that neither teacher nor student ever uses.

Beers also suggests teaching word parts and providing the students with visual aids and charts (like a picture of a tree) that they can then fill in with root words (in the trunk) and other words (in the branches) that utilize that root. This exercise may be helpful for younger students. Beers recommends that teachers read aloud to their students. This is a terrific idea and one that should be encouraged at all grade levels, not just lower ones. Students can learn much about reading and comprehending by listening to the way one who understands the text reads it. The teacher should use inflexion, emphasis, and allow his or her thoughts to be vocalized. All of this helps the listener become a better reader.

Having the teacher read out loud in class is a good exercise. But it can be combined with silent reading too. A mix of activities can help any one activity from becoming redundant and tiresome. Silent reading also helps to encourage the students to practice reading on their own. If they are attentive and exposed to a teacher's reading voice, they should be able to read the text in the same voice and bring the words to life just as the teacher does.

Chapter 10 deals with Fluency and Automacity. The latter leads to the former. When one does something automatically, he is on his way to being fluent. If automacity means to perform an action without conscious deliberation, fluency means to move smoothly at a decent pace with appropriate expression. A student who reads slowly and haltingly has not arrived at fluency and needs work developing automacity.

Beers provides a few suggestions on how to do so. A measurement should be taken of the student's automacity by asking him to read a book at his level, stopping the student after a minute, counting how many words he has read, having him read twice more, counting the words and finding the average. This will be his reading rate which can be measured against a chart of average reading rates. This measurement, however, should be accompanied by questions designed to test the reader's comprehension. If the reader cannot answer these, then the reading rate is worthless. However, if the student can show that he has comprehended what he has read then he can work on becoming more fluid in his reading.

Fluidity can be encouraged with the teacher's help. The teacher should focus on the student's ability to recognize sight and high-frequency words -- in short, words that do not follow normal patterns and simply need to be known and other words that appear regularly and should be recognized instantly. To promote fluency, a teacher should prompt the student to understand the words he is having difficulty reading rather than simply tell the student what the word is. Telling the student only encourages dependency. The good reader is one who can actively and independently read and comprehend. Thus, Beers makes some good suggestions in this chapter, emphasizing the need for the student to cultivate an awareness of words as well as the ability to recognize root words, patters, syllabic pronunciations, etc. Whenever the teacher can, he should pronounce words that the students will need to know or become familiar with. I believe this would be a helpful exercise for the teacher to develop.