Timothy ShanahanUniversity of Il linois at Chicagowww.shanahanonliteracy.com

10 KEYS TO HIGHER LITERACY

ACHIEVEMENT: SOME DOS AND DON’TS

Students should receive 2-3 hours per day of reading and writing instruction/practice

This time can be spread across the day and even across subject matters

10,000 hours to be an expert at anything (this provides almost half of that)

1. PROVIDE SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF READING AND WRITING INSTRUCTION

This time should be divided among word learning (decoding and meaning), oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and writing

Teaching of these have all been proven by research to raise achievement consistently

This means that students would receive 90 hours – 135 hours per year working on key aspects of literacy

2. FOCUS ON KEY OUTCOMES

Many teachers organize their instruction around activities

Each of these key outcomes can be translated into learning goals (standards)

Be specific as to what students need to be able to do with assignments and hold them to it (and get them there)

Organize instruction around goals, specify goals in lesson plans, match activities to goals rather than the other way around

3. BE GOAL FOCUSED, NOT ACTIVITY FOCUSED

Many schools analyze comprehension test data by question-type

Teachers and students spend lots of time on item practice

Standardized reading comprehension tests measure a single factor (Davis, 1944; Kirsch, et al., 1993; Spearritt, 1972)

This is due in part to the nature of reading comprehension

And, in part, to the nature of testing

4. AVOID TEST PREPARATION

AN EXAMPLE OF QUESTION TYPES NOT MATTERING.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE

Evidence test text matters matter?

Students need to practice their literacyMuch of the fluency time should be

spent reading and rereading texts aloudMuch of the reading comprehension

time should be spent reading texts silently

Much of the word time should be spent reading words

5. LOTS OF READING WITHIN INSTRUCTION

Most students engage in “conversational activities” very well

But much literacy work is more of a monologue

Can they sustain the conversation themselves (with the text as conversational partner)?

Increase the amounts of reading and writing and reduce the amount of support over time

6. BUILD STAMINA

SummarizationAnalysisEvaluationSynthesisWriting about text is more powerful

than reading, reading/studying, reading/discussing

7. REQUIRE WRITING ABOUT TEXT

When students are starting out, it is important to facilitate “reading” – so keep the texts relatively easy (95% accuracy) and provide a lot of support

From Grade 2 on, teach from more demanding texts (80-85% accuracy), but provide scaffolds and repetition

Teach with texts of varied difficulty Facilitate student reading of “frustration”

texts

8. TEACH WITH COMPLEX TEXT

Much of the focus on reading instruction emphasizes skills, strategies, techniques

However, the content of texts matters, tooIt is essential that students increase their

knowledge of our cultural heritage, the social world, and the natural world

Do NOT reduce the amount of science, social studies, literature, the arts—but do make sure that literacy is a big part of these subjects

9. LITERACY SHOULD INCREASE KNOWLEDGE

Literacy activities should involve lots of analysis, critical evaluation, problem solving, and synthesis of ideas

Discussions and written analysis should encourage students to determine what texts say, how the texts work, and the value of texts in relationship to other texts

Students need to learn and practice explaining answers on the basis of text evidence

10. ENGAGE STUDENTS AT A HIGH INTELLECTUAL LEVEL