I suppose the end of a school year is a bad time to start journaling my experiences at a Title I Reading teacher, but I am not sure that the beginning of the year would be the perfect timing either. To be a Title I Reading teacher is to be in the moment, every moment possible, with one’s students, nurturing their love of literacy, forging connections between text and self, and finding value in the written word. For me this is the essence of reading instruction, an underlying drive to find one’s place in the world through the medium of text. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, “We read to know we are not alone.”
My
purpose in documenting my ongoing odyssey is to allow others a rare glimpse
into the classroom and heart of a teacher who works with fifth- and sixth-grade
students who for the most part arrive at school having had little success with
reading. I am afraid that these students
have been failed by natural selection in the cookie-cutter model of education
that America is so fond of perpetuating.
Alas, every child is unique as a tree, and rarely do they develop at the
same rate or even in the same way.
By
natural selection, I am referring not to evolution per se, but to the level of
a child’s brain development in regards to reading stamina, amount of vocabulary
effortlessly absorbed from their environment, and the inquisitiveness of their
mind. Sometimes the greatest single
barrier to a student becoming a fluent, captivated, and lifelong reader is
their ability to focus on information for a set period of time. The diagnosis is poor stamina. About seventy-five percent of my Title I
Reading students have either received a medical diagnosis that defines their
challenges with attention, or have exhibited very similar behaviors. Other students come to me, simply not knowing
an adequate amount of words for their age.
Yet others lack the essential curiosity to motivate them to seek out
knowledge actively for themselves. In
summary, some students arrive in the kindergarten classroom with a
developmental advantage or disadvantage that has nothing to do with the quality
of their educators. This deficiency is
often not mediated by the fifth- and sixth-grades, which I serve.
Naturally
there is a socioeconomic element to preparedness for reading, but at this is a variable
that is exceedingly difficult (and in some cases impossible) for the school
system to remedy, thus I won’t speak of it in great detail here. We must take our students as they come.
Unfortunately
with class sizes growing in number in districts across the nation, the ability
of the teacher, regardless of experience or skill, to offer the quality of
reading education that is needed for some of these challenged readers is
limited by the most valuable resource in learning, time.
Ability
in reading is paralleled closely with the social and economic structure of our
nation in that historically the rich are getting richer, and the poor are
getting poorer. Known collectively as
the “Matthew Effect” in reading, those students who possess strong reading
skill are more likely to read, and thus flourish. While those students who struggle with
reading, will naturally read less, leading to a disparity in reading skill in
our nation.
To
define my role as a reading educator and Title I teacher, students come to me
having had poor experiences in reading.
Reading has simply become detestable and frustrating for these students
and as such they enter my classroom with trepidation at what another year of
Title I Reading will hold for them. For
many of these students they will graduate from the sixth-grade perhaps not
quite at grade level in reading, but having a positive attitude toward literacy
and with the skills needed to survive their future career in academics. However, for every student I work tirelessly
to save from a grim fate, a world with no reading, one or two students will
always seem to slip through my fingers despite my best efforts to orient them
in the seas of reading.
As
such, I will caution you that I am not a reading wizard and cannot conjure
magical solutions to every struggling reader’s problems. In my experience there is no such thing as a
magic cure. However, my successes and
often failures have served to bring me wisdom when it comes to teaching
students to be successful with reading.
Instead of a wizard, I think of myself more as a captain, a guide for
students who are just learning to set sail on the tempestuous seas of reading.
I
invite you too, to set sail with my students and I as we navigate these
troubled waters together, and further welcome you to share wisdom from your
experiences as well. Collaboration
between captains is crucial, and only together will we successfully chart a
course for our students to follow.
