How can you support reading and literacy in your school? James Bowens, head of brand and product marketing at Education Perfect, outlines three steps to whole-school reading progress.
For most of us, reading is a relatively simple concept. In fact, up until recently, most educators involved in secondary schools wouldn’t have spent too much time worrying about whether or not their incoming students have basic reading skills.
However, we are now beginning to understand just how complex and diverse student needs can be when it comes to reading proficiency. In order to develop effective school reading programs in secondary schools, it is vital to conduct a thorough inquiry to understand who you are dealing with.
Step 1 – Accurate Reading Profiles
In 2019, the Victoria State Government released a beautifully intuitive document which unpacks the variety of causes for literacy challenges faced by students. Citing the Simple View of Reading (Gough and Turner, 1986), the guide suggests classifying students according to four reading profiles:
- Profile A – Adequate word decoding and adequate oral language comprehension;
- Profile B – Poor word decoding but adequate oral language comprehension;
- Profile C – Adequate word decoding but poor oral language comprehension;
- Profile D – Poor word decoding and poor oral language comprehension;
Understanding how these literacy challenges are manifesting into specific behaviours is vital
Understanding readers and classifying them in this way takes into account the symbiosis between oral and written language and will help design more effective reading programs.
Students with word decoding challenges will generally find reading tiresome, and reading aloud will be slow and cumbersome. Their writing will lack fluency and structure and there will be a high degree of error frequency.
Students who have challenges with oral language may appear to lack attention or to be not listening when they are being spoken to. One of the most common challenges for teachers who are dealing with students who have difficulties in oral comprehension is the impression that they are non-compliant and won’t follow simple instructions. Students like this struggle with making inferences and noticing subtle cues in spoken communication.
Understanding how these literacy challenges are manifesting into specific behaviours is vital in solving many consequent problems that a school administration may not always realise stem from basic literacy challenges. Without conducting a thorough inquiry to discern each student’s reading profile, these issues can impair academic development overall.
Step 2 – Understanding Why
Classifying students’ reading profiles and adopting differentiated methodologies to support reading at secondary level is one thing, but effectively implementing them is another. In these age groups, students who have reading challenges have likely developed negative self-talk regarding their ability, backed up by years of repeated failure in classroom tasks and tests.
The catalyst to implementing strategies that work is to ensure reading tuition and support are personalised. This means understanding the student and building a positive relationship around reading with respect to the determining factors which have hindered their progress.
There are a lot of factors which impact reading development, and each requires a specific response. Common challenges include: sensory impairment(s), speech-sound problems, social-emotional issues, absenteeism, poverty, hyperlexia, dyslexia, disrupted learning and English not being a first language. Based on this limited list alone it is obvious that a one-size-fits-all approach to literacy development simply will not work.
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Related articles you might be interested in:
* The science of reading: An instructional shift
* Educator in practice: How to effectively support EAL students in the classroom
* Commentary: The simple art of reading
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Step 3 – Professional development and community support
Ensuring there is rigorous professional development support available to all teachers will be integral to whole school reading progress
Once teachers are working collaboratively within a robust system that identifies student reading profiles, they can become more receptive to the precise reading needs of their students and develop effective strategies. However, not all teachers will feel confident and comfortable with the most up-to-date and evidence-based methodologies. This is where school administrators, principals and the community come in. Ensuring there is rigorous professional development support available to all teachers on how to teach phonemic awareness, oral competency and phonics (in the context of secondary curricula) will be integral to whole school reading progress
Bolstering this with a continuous celebration of reading by inviting the community into school will certainly help. Hosting book swaps, reading groups to talk about what is being read at home and collaborative workshops with teachers around how to choose relevant texts and themes will create normalcy around reading and help maintain continuous development of independent reading skills.
Ultimately, like so many other aspects of student development, building self confidence is key. We must work together to break down the shame that students transitioning into secondary are feeling about their reading ability and face the issues head on.
Principals are in a great position to take the lead here and rally their faculties around the importance of working in a school united to support literacy development.
What will your school’s literacy story be?
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