Do Successful Readers and Struggling Readers
Educators almost always refer to students, when speaking of reading, in terms of the grade-level at which they read. But is this really an accurate (or even productive) way to think of reading skills? I’m going to define a successful reader as someone who can comfortably read and understand anything (as long as they have enough prior knowledge to understand it).
Given the above definition, doesn’t it follow that someone who is a successful reader can read materials even when they are written at adult levels, as long as the reader has the appropriate prior knowledge to make sense of it? Wouldn’t it be better to simply say that someone is a successful reader, or not?
If you ask me to read a book at the 8th grade-level on nuclear physics, I’m going to need help. Not because I struggle with the reading process, but because I don’t have enough prior knowledge. If you ask a nine year old (who is a successful reader), to read an adventure story that is written at the 5th grade-level, he might be able to easily do it. But that same nine year old might struggle with a 5th grade-level science text because he doesn’t have prior knowledge around concepts, or vocabulary choice, or possibly even the complexity of the syntax. He doesn’t read at a grade-level. His neural pathway for reading is complete and correct, and as he grows and learns, he will have the prior knowledge he needs to handle more complex text precisely because he is already a successful reader.
Now if we determine that someone doesn’t read well (can not be classified as a successful reader), we can speak to grade-leveled materials that might be manageable and therefore helpful to use as an intervention for a particular struggling reader. However, this still does not mean that this reader reads at the 3rd, 5th, or 7th, grade-level. The truth is that our reader is going to struggle whenever he or she reads anything. If we make the materials simplistic enough, coping strategies could kick in and he or she might sound pretty good and even understand the text. But this does not mean that our reader should be classified as successful with 4th grade material and unsuccessful with 5th grade material. Nor does it mean that we should tell the parents of our reader that their child is reading one or two grade levels below where he or she should be. I think we need a paradigm shift.
Once we have assessed that our reader is a struggling reader, we need to have some criteria for choosing materials that will allow us to successfully intervene and help the reader make the neural pathway changes necessary to take him or her off the “struggling reader continuum.”
At least this is food for thought. What are the ramifications of changing how we help readers and parents understand the problem, if we change the way we speak of this issue? What about how it might affect self-esteem if we spoke of moving on a continuum rather than reading 2 and 3 grades below grade-level? What would it mean to educators to think of this issue in new terms? These are the questions one ponders in the world of reading!
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Agree.
I agree that using the terms of successful and struggling readers is a more accurate way to describe students reading skills. In the teaching profession you commonly hear reading 2-3 grades above or below grade level. I agree with you that it isn't accuracte terminology. At our school we use a widely used basic literacy skills test, in which they are timed on their fluency. For the student to be reading at grade level they need to have some prior knowledge about the subject matter in which they are reading. Some students may have the prior knowledge and some may not. It doesn't mean that the students who do not have the prior knowledge aren't successful readers. It simply means they don't have any knowledge of that subject matter. When they gain that knowledge, I am sure that on the timed fluency test that the test results will show that they are at grade level on a piece of paper. If they don't have the prior knowledge, then of course their fluency score is not going to be at their grade level. It doesn't mean that they aren't a successful reader.
Agreed :-)
I've always wondered what was specifically meant by reading at the "7th grade level", for example. It never made real sense to me. Are there defined sets of vocabulary and grammar rules for each grade? Even well-defined sets can mean little when context and meaning are considered, making what would be 7th grade reading more like post-graduate level. Minimalist art comes to mind for some reason....
Love the site, love the project, love the enthusiasm. Keep it up!
A follow-up to Matt's comment
Isn't it also interesting how we say a book is written at a certain grade level? By the time you get to a book that is meant for a 6th grader, every 100 words will probably come out to a different grade level. In other words, some of the book is at the 8th grade level and some at the 4th. When we are choosing materials for an assessment or an intervention there are criteria we need to pay attention to. But when it comes to helping a reader, we need to make sure that he or she simply doesn't remain on the a continuum that is labeled "Struggling Reader."