Teaching
Content Is
Teaching
Reading
Language arts classes sould convey key
background knowledge, wic is te
beating eart of verbal skill. by E.D. Hirsch Jr.
E
very two years the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP), “the Nation’s Report Card,” reports the
nation’s average reading and math scores in grades 4 and 8.
Despite our strong focus on reading under the 2001 No
Child Left Behind law, the recent 2009 reading scores
were not statistically different from those of 2007, which had not been
statistically different from previous scores back in 2002. By contrast,
math scores have shown a clear upward trend in both grades 4 and 8
during the past decade. Why is it so much harder to raise reading
scores than math scores?
The stakes could hardly be higher. Verbal scores are highly correlated
with students’ life chances and contributions to society; Congress was
right to place a strong emphasis on reading under the No Child Left
Behind law. But that emphasis has often resulted in a narrowing of the
language arts curriculum into little more than preparation for reading
tests. This narrowing of education has occurred chiefly because we have
given a narrow, process-oriented slant to what we mean by reading.
We have misconceived the kind of preparation that will actually enable
students to do well on reading tests.
10 Principal n November/December 2010 www.naesp.org
[ m } L a n g u a g e arts
www.naesp.org Principal n November/December 2010 11
A Different
Approach
Teachers, like other people, resist
change, as every principal knows.
But elementary teachers as a group
want the best for their students and
are open to making changes if they
are convinced they are not being sub-
jected to “just another fad.” The following schools placed
a renewed
research findings, once understood, might win emphasis on decod-
their enthusiasm for a new approach to teaching ing. Meanwhile, eighth-
reading—an approach that, by the way, also fits in with the grade scores have shown a slight
decline, and a downward trend has
new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts been even more pronounced in
that have recently been approved by about three-fourths of the states. the grade 12 NAEP scores.
These later reading scores reflect
Prior knowledge of the subject matter the mechanics of literacy, language students’ knowledge accumulated over
of a text is more important to reading arts classrooms should have an equally the years, built up from kindergarten
comprehension than technical read- important aim: to impart to all students and earlier, when listening, not read-
ing skill. You might want to show your the background knowledge they will ing, plays the chief role. Reading skill in
teachers a wonderful 10-minute You- need to gain high verbal skill. young students never exceeds their lis-
Tube presentation by the distinguished reading tests are progressively tening skill. In fact, it’s not until seventh
cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham tests of background knowledge. grade that reading catches up to listen-
called “Teaching Content Is Teaching This fact about tests explains why an ing. In kindergarten and grades 1 and
Reading.” Willingham’s presentation intense focus on reading strategies 2, the activities of sounding out words
explains, among other things, why low- and a neglect of coherent content take up so much of students’ mental
income students do so much worse on has failed to improve test scores. capacity that their listening and speak-
reading tests than middle class students. Professor Joseph Torgesen and his ing abilities far exceed their ability to
At one point in the video, Willingham colleagues at Florida State University read and write. Their ultimate reading
describes an experiment where students made an analysis of the skills reading ability will be limited by their listening
who had done poorly on an ordinary tests are actually probing. In third ability, so it’s essential that we start right
reading test nonetheless did much bet- grade, the emphasis is on fluency and away in the earliest grades to improve
ter than high achievers when the “poor accuracy of turning written symbols their listening and speaking skills by
readers” happened to know more than into sounds and words. In those early enhancing their background knowl-
the “good readers” about the subject tests, the background knowledge edge through listening. A great deal
matter of the passage. required for comprehension is rela- of emphasis in kindergarten through
The critical role of relevant back- tively undemanding. But as the tests third grade should be placed on orally
ground knowledge in language com- progress from grade 4 up to grade 8 imparting the knowledge that will
prehension is one of the important and beyond, decoding skill, though ultimately enhance students’ language
findings of cognitive science in the past necessary, becomes less determinative proficiency.
50 years. If middle class students tend of a student’s test score. With each Instruction in reading strategies
to do better than low-income students subsequent grade, tests become more is of limited value and, beyond 10
on a reading test, it is chiefly because and more assessments of relevant lessons, useless. The educational
more advantaged students have gained background knowledge until finally by research literature is full of evidence
the relevant background knowledge grade 8, they become de facto tests of that teaching reading strategies such
they need to make sense of the pas- general knowledge. This explains why as “questioning the author” and “find-
sages in the test. Therefore, beyond the there was a momentary rise in NAEP ing the main idea” help students
supremely important task of teaching fourth-grade reading scores, when read better. No one doubts this. But
12 Principal n November/December 2010 www.naesp.org
[ m } L a n g u a g e arts
researchers have shown that the domain of knowledge. Hence the key that every teacher in the school has
probable reason for the initial boost function of explicit vocabulary study is come to understand that language
from teaching strategies is to make to explain a few critical words during proficiency is gradual and knowledge-
young students aware that the text the effective teaching of a knowledge dependent, and that we will need to
represents a person speaking to them, domain, making the domain more take a systematic, multiyear approach
thus helping them conceive of the and more familiar. to imparting knowledge both within
text as a verbal communication from language arts and in the other sub-
somebody, not as some exotic, magi- From Principle to Practice jects, with each grade building upon
cal object. Initially that insight—that Schools have performed better in what has been taught in the previous
reading is like oral communication— math partly because the substantive grades. We can’t depend on current
helps young students quite a bit. math knowledge required in state stan- basal programs to do that work for
However, once that basic insight is dards for grades K-8 is clearly stated, us since they consist of rather frag-
gained, its utility is exhausted. In fact, grade specific, and cumulative. In con- mented series of stories, based on
as other researchers have pointed out, trast, while state standards in language the incorrect theory that reading
teaching young children to engage arts define processes, they leave to is an all-purpose formal skill. Some
in self-conscious comprehension and chance the development of the back- basal programs are good for teaching
self-monitoring techniques impairs ground knowledge necessary to build phonics, which is a formal skill, but
student comprehension on the whole verbal skill. This contrast between stan- experts say we should spend no more
because it takes up limited mental dards in math and in reading suggests than one hour a day teaching phonics
space in working memory that would that states should specify the topics for and writing to young children. With
otherwise be directed to textual each grade that will gradually impart two hours typically devoted to the lit-
meaning. the background knowledge needed eracy block, that leaves more than an
Vocabulary growth is glacially slow, for proficient reading. The new com- hour for building needed knowledge.
helped only modestly by explicit mon core standards have recognized How should we use that remaining
vocabulary study, which should be this supremely important principle language arts time effectively?
used sparingly and in connection
with coherent subject matter. It’s
often said that young children learn
15 new words a day. That’s true, but It’s estimated that word learning occurs
only when you start counting back-
ward with successful students after
four times faster in a familiar rather than
they are 17 years old. Depending on in an unfamiliar domain of knowledge.
what will count as a separate word,
the vocabulary size of a good high
school graduate is about 80,000 words. and reflect it in their title: Common In the earliest grades—kindergarten
If you assume that word learning starts Core State Standards for English and grades 1 and 2—content instruc-
at age 2, and that the student has been Language Arts & Literacy in History/ tion should take place through teacher
acquiring words for 15 intervening Social Studies, Science, and Techni- read-alouds and discussion. It is a great
years, that computes to some 15 words cal Subjects. This title represents an waste of time to confine all of early lan-
a day from age 2. But how misleading intellectual shift of monumental and, guage instruction to student-decodable
that math is! one hopes, decisive importance. No texts since students’ listening and speak-
The process is slow and subtle. Each longer is language and reading to ing skills far exceed their reading and
day we learn a tiny bit about hun- be associated exclusively with poems writing skills. Read-alouds and discus-
dreds of words along a broad front. and fictional stories and technical sion on a given topic should last at least
It takes several meaningful exposures processes, though these are important two weeks so that topic familiarity is
to a word before we gain a confident topics too. But as these new standards built up, with consequent speeding up
awareness of its ranges of meaning. rightly emphasize, language arts of students’ vocabulary gain. The aim of
But here’s a key insight: An unfamiliar classes should convey key background these teacher read-alouds should be to
word might be more quickly under- knowledge, which is the beating heart start building up systematically the key
stood if the surrounding context of verbal skill. knowledge and vocabulary that will be
is familiar. It’s estimated that word What, then, can a principal do needed for later language proficiency
learning occurs four times faster in a concretely to put these concepts into in literature, the arts, history/social
familiar rather than in an unfamiliar practice in a school? Let’s assume studies, civics, science, and technical
www.naesp.org Principal n November/December 2010 13
[ m } L a n g u a g e arts
subjects, as the new common core if they are given the coherent curricu- of education and humanities at the
standards recommend. lum and the support materials they University of Virginia.
This coherent focus on definite need, they will gain a justified confi-
topics in literature, the arts, history,
and science—at least two weeks spent
dence that they can create knowledge-
able students from all backgrounds
Principal
on each topic to who will be able to participate in the Online
Common Access the following web resources
StandardS induce the necessary larger world as readers, speakers, by visiting Principal magazine online:
for all topic familiarity— and citizens. An exciting side benefit www.naesp.org/NovDec
What does it
mean for you, should continue in of the knowledge-based, cumulative
students, faculty, later grades. But as approach to reading described here Watch Daniel T. Willingham’s
and schools?
presentation titled “Teaching Content Is
fluency of decoding is that it brings the whole faculty
Teaching Reading.”
increases, reading and discussion together and embraces the collective
should increasingly depend on stu- efforts of all teachers. The language “There’s No Such Thing as a
dent-read texts. The whole multiyear skills and the knowledge that will be Reading Test” describes why a
sequence of knowledge domains from required to make students effective reading test is really a knowledge test.
kindergarten through eighth grade readers by eighth grade cannot be
In “The Challenge of Advanced Texts:
ought to be worked out in advance learned in a single year, but are the The Interdependence of Reading and
and coordinated with the rest of the cumulative results of a collective Learning,” a top reading researcher
school curriculum so that the build up and cooperative effort. We are all explains the most recent research on
of knowledge and vocabulary can be in this together. vocabulary learning and verbal skill.
systematic and cumulative.
Examples of materials and methods
If teachers are given the critical E.D. Hirsch Jr. is founder and chairman
for a knowledge-based early reading
research findings about the knowl- of the board of the Core Knowledge program are available on the Core
edge foundations of verbal skill, and Foundation and professor emeritus Knowledge Foundation’s website.
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14 Principal n November/December 2010 pk8mbr810_princpl Principal
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