More on language: teaching difficult texts

Hello everyone,

So, what do you do when you want your students to read a difficult passage, but you know that they won't get it because their vocabulary is insufficient.

You could just summarize the passage, but that cheats them out of the reading practice that they so desperately need.

You could assign them to read the passage at home, using a dictionary to look up words, but that's the same as assigning them to skip the assignment. They won't do it (one rare student in 200 might; an AP class has a rate of about one in 20; English Language Learners will give up before they begin).

You could assign them to read in class using a dictionary, but there are few dictionaries available to the schools that are comprehensible to the students of East LA. (They are either too esoteric or too infantile.) A group of very motivated kids could maybe cipher it out, working together with a dictionary among them; if you teach that group, let them do it by all means; it will help their reference skills, and they might understand the passage after referencing the dictionary three or four times a paragraph.

You could assign simpler passages, but what good is it to teach elementary levels in middle and high school? It makes my skin crawl to think about it. (There are simpler things that a high school student may have to read. I am not saying that a high school student should never read anything simple. I am saying that, when you need to have them read something difficult, you shouldn't skip it.)

This is what I think you are left with:

Read the passage out loud together. It may be tedious, but it's the only way I could ever devise that would ensure that the reading of difficult passages would be done. There will be a multitude of words they may not get. You will not have the time, and the students will not have the inclination, to look up every single word they don't know. Simply tell them what the words mean when you get to them. If there are too many words, wait until the end of the passage, and paraphrase it in easier language. This allows them to have the flow of the passage, but learn what they just read.

There may be important words, key words, or academic words that you will want them to know. Teach them these words as a separate part of the lesson. When you read the passage, you will point out how the words are important to the passage. Don't, however, fall into the trap of trying to teach them every single word that you guess that they won't know. Especially don't try to teach them uncommon words that they are unlikely to hear more than a few times in their lives.

If your students are exceptionally poor readers, you may have to have them read excerpts only, and you might paraphrase the rest, but don't take away from them the important task of practicing the decoding of a complex or difficult passage simply because you're afraid that it's beyond their skill. Just as with any other essential task, you may just have to (figuratively) hold their hands through the toughest part, but don't take the toughness away.

By the way, if you are a good reader and you have an interesting voice, you may read out loud to them. You will be surprised how often high school and middle school students like to be read to. Some poor readers have problems with word attack (recognizing the words on the page), but have good comprehension when they hear it, and simply reading aloud to them helps them to comprehend. Have them follow along so that they have the chance to see the words they are hearing.

Some things in the education of a human being are tedious and difficult. Learning to read difficult text is one of those things. Don't avoid it just because it's difficult. It will pay big dividends later.

Jeff Combe