Reading for Inquiry Learning
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So much has happened in 2 months, including the already-postponed SLG National Conference being postponed until 2021.
Unfortunately Disrupted Thinking: Why How We Read Matters is in lockdown, but I have Reading Nonfiction. In it Beers & Probst share the following haunting bit of a lesson they heard from a teacher (pp. 5-6):
This teacher, burdened by constraints he felt from his district, had set aside what he told us were best practices to instead use “test practices that I know will show the administration I did all I could to get kids ready for the almighty test.” So, his lesson on a topic (any topic will do) basically followed this pattern:
- Show students an interest-building clip on the topic from the web.
- Tell kids what they need to know about the topic. They take notes.
- Have some discussion on the topic.
- Give kids a test on the topic.
Show. Tell. Discuss. Do you notice what is missing? Where’s the reading kids do to learn about the topic? When we asked the teacher that question, he pointed out that when he begins his series of lectures about the topic (lectures lasting from one day to several weeks), he often has short articles from the web up on the whiteboard for all to read. We asked him if that was enough reading to help students become savvy readers of nonfiction. He stared at us for a moment and then responded that “the textbook is worthless, and frankly I don’t have time for kids to read in class. And they don’t want to read. They don’t care about the topics we discuss, so if I gave them something to read, if they did anything it would be just a surface-level reading.” We asked if he assigned reading for home. “Are you kidding?” he replied. “They wouldn’t do it.” Then he asked us, “So, if you were trying to get kids into reading some nonfiction, how would you do it?“
Beers & Probst then go on to write a book about this. However, their context is, arguably, different. So, if you were trying to get kids into reading some nonfiction, how would you do it, given that I’m guessing many teachers here would consider themselves to be in a similar situation to the teacher Beers & Probst describe?
From my perspective as a school librarian, who was once a classroom teacher, reading is fundamental to the student’s “information-to-knowledge journey”, which, in turn, is fundamental to the definition of the school library (IFLA School Library Guidelines, p. 16). From the perspective of FOSIL as a model of the inquiry process (see below), reading is fundamental to Connect (establishing what you know, or think you know), Investigate (finding reliable information) and Construct (making sense of that information in order to build on what you know). From the perspective of FOSIL as a continuum of inquiry skills that enable the inquiry process (see below), reading is fundamental to many, if not most, of these skills.
How, then, we collaborate with teachers to make time for the progressive and systematic development of a reading mind within the curriculum is of vital importance, and I look forward to your thoughts.
Chris, I came across the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, a UK based children’s literacy charity working with primary schools, although their Reading and Writing Scales, which are available as PDF downloads for free, support “progression for 3-16 year olds in a 21st Century Classroom. … The CLPE Reading and Writing Scales describe the journey that children make in order to become literate. … The pedagogy underpinning the scales and the Next Steps is grounded in a coherent theory of children’s language and literacy development, exemplified by the research element of this document, a review of current relevant research.”
The fact that the CLPE provides a wide range of professional literacy training at an affordable price [aimed at Reception, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2] suggests that this is not part of teacher education and training. If that is the case, it would be interesting, and perhaps telling, to know what along these lines is.
Having not yet had a chance to look at the Reading Scale (24 pages) carefully, it appears to describe “the observable behaviours of pupils at different stages” – from Beginning Reader to Mature Independent Reader – as well as describing “the provision, practice and pedagogy a teacher would want to plan for in order to help the child move forward in their literacy.”
My initial thoughts in relation to your post are:
- The language of the descriptors, especially towards the upper end of the scale, seems to address your concern to some extent and, perhaps, lays a foundation for content area literacy and/ or disciplinary literacy.
- The focus of the scale seems only to be on identifying where on the scale individual students fall and the next steps in moving them on. Like with our discussion about the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) ATL (Approaches to Learning) skills, which we need to return to, there doesn’t appear to be any sense of how these skills ought to be developed progressively and systematically from year to year. However, and as with the MYP ATL skills, the FOSIL inquiry skills continuum above – and the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum (ESIFC) more broadly that this is based on – includes these skills to a greater or lesser extent. This potentially means that we could view the scale through the lens of FOSIL, which would add a layer of value to our integration of FOSIL with the MYP ATL skill categories/ clusters (which we also need to return to). As I am in the process of mapping the 2019 ESIFC, I will see if I can find some good examples to illustrate this.
- The “review of current relevant research” might be particularly useful to you.
Hopefully this goes some way towards answering your questions.
[Edit: This discussion about reading follows on and was moved from the discussion of what each phase of the inquiry cycle adds to the intellectual experience of our students – see this post]
Thank you for broadening this out, which is a timely reminder that we serve, in the terms of the IFLA School Library Guidelines and IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto, an educational purpose – improving teaching and learning for all – and a moral purpose – making a difference in the lives of young people. While these terms require some unpacking, inquiry – understood as a dynamic process and stance aimed at building knowledge and understanding of the world and ourselves in it as the basis for responsible participation in community – is essential to fulfilling these purposes.
At the risk of oversimplifying, knowledge is built from information, which comes to us either directly though experience or, especially in the context of school, indirectly through recorded experience (mainly secondary, but also primary). Norman Beswick (1967), in making this point also, helpfully, reminds us to be broad-minded about what constitutes a record: “some knowledge, truly, comes from experience and experiment; most knowledge from record, in the widest McLuhan-like sense” (p. 201).
This record includes but is not limited to the library’s collections, which should reflect, as Julian Astle and Laura Partridge (2018, p. 10) so eloquently put it in Education for enlightenment, “the great conversation of mankind – the unending dialogue between the living, the dead and the yet-to-be-born … the best that has been thought, said and done,” and our task, then, is to “equip [our children] to appreciate it, interrogate it, apply it and build on it” through inquiry. It should be noted that it is this conversation, or more precisely the content of this conversation, that is of fundamental concern to us, and not the records, or resources, themselves.
Entering into this conversation remains more or less dependent on reading – “in the widest McLuhan-like sense” – from within an inquiry process and stance. Consequently, a greater understanding of the role of reading, and literacy more broadly, in the inquiry process becomes vital.
How might we start describing this role of reading, and literacy more broadly, in the inquiry process?
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References
- Astle, J., & Partridge, L. (2018). Education for enlightenment. In A. Painter (Ed.), Ideas for a 21st century enlightenment (pp. 10-15). London: RSA Action and Research Centre.
- Beswick, N. W. (1967). The ‘Library-College’ – the ‘True University’? The Library Association Record, 198-202.
I recognize the importance of teaching deep reading skills as a part of inquiry, but I also know the power of enabling the development of deep reading whenever and whatever our students are reading – from stories to websites to personal explorations to inquiry. As a part my work in 2018 to develop a PK-12 information fluency continuum (adopted throughout New York State and called the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum – ESIFC) (https://slsa-nys.libguides.com/ifc), I created a large body of graphic organizers to guide students’ independent practice for each of the priority skills in the continuum. I have selected a few that I thought would be particularly relevant to the teaching of deep reading skills. Excerpts of those graphic organizers are below, but the full, Word versions can be downloaded free from the above site. I have included the identifying numbers of the graphic organizers for your convenience.
Connect. A foundation of deep reading is the reader’s ability to make connections between the text and his own interests, prior knowledge, and questions. We can start with early elementary children by enabling them to connect ideas to their own interests (K.1).
By the time students are in middle school, we can teach students to use their own prior knowledge and the background information they have gained to start asking inquiry questions (7.1).
One of the important aspects of the Connect phase is for students to gain an overview picture of the whole idea, so that they can keep that context in mind when they select their focused topic for research. Librarians can develop a mind map with the whole class, with students contributing the ideas they have gained through their own reading or prior experience and the class deciding how the ideas fit together into a larger picture. Older adolescents can be taught to perform the complex reading skill of concept mapping independently (9-10.2).
Wonder. Two of the deep reading strategies that enable students to develop Wonder questions that they are motivated to pursue are 1) to make sure that their questions emerge from a personal area of interest (3.3)
and 2) to guide them in predicting the answers they might find (and even to form an hypothesis based on their predictions) (5.5).
Reading experts have shared that, when students are personally invested and looking for answers to their questions as they read, they are more likely to read for meaning beyond simple comprehension of the text.
Investigate. Reading plays a prominent role during Investigate in any inquiry experience. The challenge for librarians is to teach students to interact with the text (in any format), to draw meaning that goes deeper than simply copying information, and to question, evaluate, and challenge the evidence they discover. The number of deep reading skills and strategies to be used during Investigate is quite large, but I have selected four skills that may not be as familiar to many librarians.
Much valuable information and alternative perspectives are offered through visualizations, including graphics, photos, art, political cartoons, and all forms of media. Students do not necessarily respond thoughtfully to visuals. Teaching that skill can start in early elementary (by drawing meaning from story book illustrations, for example) and can build in sophistication over the grades. The following graphic organizer could be to teach elementary students to interpret visual information (4.22).
By the time students are in middle school, they should be expected to check their own inquiry process by making sure that they have been open to corroborating and conflicting information, rather than simply finding only information that confirmed their prior assumptions or their favored point of view. Teaching the strategies of lateral reading will strengthen and deepen their investigations (8.7).
An important deep reading skill, to question and challenge the text, is honestly one of the most difficult to make a permanent habit of mind, for adults as well as young people. Often the time pressures of assignment due dates will lead to cursory reading and quick fact accumulation. Expecting students to take notes in a graphic-organizer format that is designed to generate reflection and questioning is an effective way to build deep reading and thoughtfulness into investigations. The graphic organizer below is one example that librarians might use (9-10.19).
From the earliest moments in school, young people need to start identifying point of view in text that they read (or have read to them). Elementary students might start by looking at the point of view of characters in a story. These students must learn to transfer that skill to nonfiction texts during their inquiry investigations. By the time that students are in secondary school, they can be taught to assess the impact of point of view, perspective, and purpose on the information itself (9-10.18).
Construct. Although students may not be reading any new texts during the Construct phase when they are developing their own opinions and conclusions, they are re-reading their notes and perhaps sections of the sources they found most critical to their investigations. Reflective reading at this stage involves synthesizing the evidence they have discovered with the thoughts, opinions, feelings, and meanings that they have formed in response to the evidence.
When I first started focusing on inquiry, both as a stance and as a process for learning, I remember simply telling my students to draw their own conclusions after they had found the information they needed. When I saw my students struggling, I realized that the deep reading and inquiry skills of Construct must be taught explicitly. Students may be able to form opinions naturally, but those are not opinions based on careful assessment of the evidence. I had to teach students how to construct their own ideas and understandings based on their investigations and their careful analysis.
Young students can be taught to form their own opinions in early elementary. The essential piece is that they must tie their opinions to the evidence they have heard or discovered (2.8).
By the time students are in middle school, they should be expected to identify their own assumptions and challenge them by considering multiple viewpoints (7.30). Direct instruction on how to identify the viewpoint or perspective of a text, plus graphic organizers to guide them through the analysis process, will enable students to construct their own understandings based on evidence.
Express. A broad interpretation of deep reading skills at the Express phase includes teaching students to use language and other communication tools to create and share expressions of their new understandings. As leaders of inquiry for the whole school, librarians are in an excellent position to assume responsibility for teaching students the creation and presentation skills that will be relevant whenever they have the opportunity to share their learning. One communication skill that is rarely taught is “reading” an audience and tailoring a presentation to appeal to that audience (7.26).
Reflect. Although reflection is built in to every phase of the inquiry process, the value in reflecting on the entire process and product at the conclusion of the inquiry experience is that it enables the learner to move from a look at one experience of inquiry to a broader perspective on inquiry as a process and a stance on learning. The concluding reflection allows the learner to self-assess and to be in charge of setting personal goals for improvement. The first template below offers questions for the learner to ask himself throughout the process of inquiry (11-12.21).
Students at every grade level can be asked to think about their individual experience of inquiry. The graphic organizer below can be adapted for any grade level (8.18).
Half of the fun of using graphic organizers in order to guide students during their independent practice is designing organizers that enable students to be transparent in their thinking while they are performing a skill. Librarians can use these formative assessments to discover when students are struggling and perhaps even where their confusions lie. Students have a sense of completion and success when they have been able to successfully follow the thinking process inherent in the deep reading and inquiry skills we are teaching.
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