How Could They Not Love to Read?
My first teaching job in 1968 was a surprise. I had expected to teach the joys of literature and have probing discussions with my junior high students, who would be engaged and full of inquiry. The shock: way too many couldn’t read. Virtually all of them had the code down; they could say the words but they were barking at print; most did not like to read; they would listen to me read, but most had no propensity to discuss the stories, poems, novels, plays that were selected to grab their interest. What was going on?
Probing “Why?” At the time, I thought they appeared to be lazy, unmotivated, or had sluggish minds; today, I realize the problem was probably none of these but rather that they did not know how to learn from texts. Reading for them was transmission of information and nothing more; they did not see their roles as readers—no author/reader contract for them. I left that year so discouraged I almost quit the teaching profession. Instead, I reflected on my experiences to probe for meaning: “Why did they not like to read? Why was it so hard for them when they obviously could ‘read’? What is reading anyway—it certainly must be far more than saying words and turning pages? How could I teach them to ‘really read’ and learn and interact with a challenging but worthwhile text?” and on and on went my questions. I decided to search for answers and was fortunate to receive a scholarship under Title IV to work on a master’s degree in educational research at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. I geared every class project to understanding reading processes. The more I learned, the more questions I had.
Not a “Mistake”
When I graduated, I wanted to dive back into teaching again to apply what I had learned. A serendipitous mistake occurred that turned out to be one of the best things to happen to me professionally. The teacher hired with elementary certification was placed in the junior high school, and I with my secondary license was placed in the elementary school. When we pointed this out, the personnel director said, “Oh, that’s okay.” Why would he do that? I do not know, but I am certainly glad he did, for I saw the reading process from the beginning. I was placed in the pre-first reading readiness classroom half a day with children their kindergarten teachers deemed were not ready for first grade, and the other half of the day I worked in short sessions with small groups of 2nd-6th graders struggling with reading. What an education! I had the additional good fortune to be mentored by an extraordinary woman who had many answers to my endless questions. “Why are they struggling? What do they need? How can I best help them? What signs will I look for to be sure they are progressing?”
Reflections about the Recalcitrant. Several years later my family moved to Wichita, Kansas, and I was hired to teach reading in an inner-city alternative school. My questions were basically the same but now with older and seemingly reluctant readers. I certified as a reading specialist, applied what I was learning to my teaching, and reflected constantly on the experiences, learning quickly that I could not impose the teaching strategies as given but had to adapt and adjust the concepts to my unique students and situations. At the time I did not connect the concept of metacognitive awareness to this process, but that is what it was.
In 1983 we moved to Utah where I was hired by Utah Technical College to teach adults who were struggling with reading; these were remarkable people, and I had intriguing experiences finding ways to help them. Reading processes remained an absolute fascination for me a couple of years later when I took a job teaching high school remedial readers in the Provo City School District. Seven years into this venue I was still finding more questions than answers. Four things helped me:
- I tried to write myself to solutions for the anomalies I faced everyday in the classroom. Soon I had piles of reflective teaching journals showing my “kid-watching” and questions.
- I was a member of the International Reading Association and poured over their journals and many publications.
- I traveled 35 miles every month to participate in a support group of teachers also trying to understand the cognitive, linguistic, and psychological demands of reading and the social, cultural, and political influences on readers.
- I attended nearly every nearby in-service presentation on literacy to learn more about what and how to teach reading and writing. I could not get enough.
Because I was studying constantly, my husband urged me to pursue a doctorate. I did—in literacy education—and to my great delight, my dissertation was awarded the outstanding dissertation for 1997, Learning from Practice: Supporting the Literacy Learning of Reluctant and Less Proficient Adolescent Readers. I had analyzed five years of my teaching journals and developed a grounded theory of states of reading engagement (Isakson, 1995, 1997). The analysis showed my learning as an observer of readers as they engaged with and processed text.
Back to the Classroom. I went right back into the classroom to apply what I had learned, later shared a lot of that as the district literacy curriculum specialist, and then finished my public school career by teaching four years in an alternative high school where I worked with the most struggling readers. I used my innovations to make a difference, such as
- Bringing in 50 tutors a week from local colleges to use tutoring programs I developed—T.A.I.R.S.: Tutoring Adolescents in Reading Strategies and TAWS: Tutoring Adolescent WriterS ,
- Using principles of the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol to make content comprehensible with all students—not just English Language Learners, and
- Using Second Chance elements with struggling adolescent readers: interactive read alouds, shared reading, guided reading, reciprocal teaching, and coached independent reading.
The progress these students made was thrilling and brought great satisfaction to them and to me: some making as much as four-years gain in one semester and virtually all students (who attended regularly) making more than a year’s gain in one semester!
College Students Need Help, Too
BYU’s Counseling and Career Center hired me to develop a reading course. The center was inundated with students who were stressed about their reading loads. Ten years before I came on board, the university had done away with reading classes because as I heard explained: “Our students don’t need help with reading; they have high ACT scores, top grades in high school, and are mostly motivated, diligent students.” All true except the first part. These wonderful students were motivated, diligent, hard-working, and plenty smart, so why were they having such a hard time with reading? They could read novels and high-interest non-fiction just fine and do well on entrance reading tests, but they were overwhelmed when they had to read their academic texts for organic chemistry, philosophy, medieval poetry, accounting, and so forth. “If I could just read faster,” they would tell their counselors. They needed much more than that I discovered.
To help students become successful academic readers, I developed two courses: “Advanced Reading Strategies for College Success” for upper division and graduate students and “Surviving College Reading” for lower division students and those needing more support. Four main sources contributed to the original development: (1) reflections on what I had learned from many students over my public school career, (2) interviews with expert readers, (3) the professional literature on academic reading, and (4) our research to find what college students do to read hard texts. The resulting programs included not only lesson plans and course materials, but also assessments, handbooks, and video or PowerPoint demonstrations of the strategies. The courses continued to evolve and to be refined as we paid close attention to student needs and feedback, worked closely with course instructors, surveyed current and former students of the courses, and sought the advice of consultants from BYU’s Center for Teaching and Learning.
Retirement?
Now with retirement, we are pleased the courses continued at BYU and beyond until COVID-19 and that the students who took the courses now know how to engage with their most difficult texts for deep learning and in efficient ways. The two of us enjoy sharing our experiences, knowledge, and materials to improve learning from, metacognitive awareness about, and attitudes toward academic reading.