While the Charleston County School District laments that the percentage of entering high school freshmen who read below the fourth-grade level has crept upwards this year, the rest of us wonder what percentage can actually read their high school textbooks.
High school materials are available to assist students reading at the sixth-grade level, at least for some courses, such as biology. Therefore, what statistic would really reveal what percentage of entering freshmen potentially will drop out because they can't read their textbooks?
Sensibly, CCSD should publish the statistics for ninth-grade students reading below the sixth-grade level. A student reading at the fourth-grade level in the ninth grade faces a virtually impossible task in deciphering his or her textbook. Further, the subject teacher faces a virtually impossible task teaching specific subject matter and must teach reading instead.
What about comparing the reading scores of tenth-graders with their reading scores entering the school? How about the reading scores of seniors? Are any of them still reading at the fourth-grade level, or have all reading-deficient students dropped out prior to senior year?
"Chipping away" is not solving the problem; it requires major intervention in those high schools where non-readers (and that's really what we're talking about) constitute more than a quarter of the entering class.
Monday, August 13, 2012
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2 comments:
I so agree. I have a 4th grader (rising 5th grader). On last spring's MAP tests, he scored well above average for 4th graders, but not off the charts - no surprise, he's an entirely competent but not way advanced 4th-grade reader. Anyway, I'm trying to imagine him tackling high-school textbooks - no way. And he's solidly on a 4th grade level. We're talking about kids who are reading at a lower level entering *high school*. I recognize there are students with learning disabilities, and students who don't know English yet - but I find it hard to believe that's the majority of the problem at Burke, for example. Mandatory disclosure: IAMAT (I am not a teacher). I'm feeling like going all Holden Caulfield and stopping them from jumping off the cliff - only I wonder if what some of these kids need is a solid intermediary year where they concentrate on one thing: reading. The reading could incorporate science, history, geography - but the focus would be reading. This is so important, not just for what we think of as academic pursuits. How are you going to be successful at a skilled trade nowadays if you can't read?
I think the intermediary year is an excellent idea. How to get a different mindset in CCSD's administration is the problem.
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