Education Week - November 27, 2019 - 18

OPINION

'A Misguided, Inefficient Mess'
K-3 reading instruction needs an overhaul

T
By Mike Schmoker
SCHMOKER is an author,
speaker, and consultant.
He is the author of FOCUS,
2nd edition (ASCD, 2018)
and Leading with FOCUS
(ASCD, 2016).

hird grade reading proficiency
matters-enormously. It is
eerily predictive of academic
and career success; students
who don't reach this benchmark are four times less likely
to graduate from high school
on time. Unfortunately, K-3 literacy instruction,
on which so much depends, is often a misguided,
inefficient mess. While it consumes a generous portion of the school day, it typically neglects the most
vital elements of literacy. That's why our success
rate, despite some progress, is still abysmal: only
about half of our 3rd graders perform at grade level
on their own state assessments. It is even lower for
poor and minority students.
This is both horrific and unnecessary. According
to literacy researcher Richard Allington, studies
show that "virtually every student could be reading
on grade level by the end of 1st grade." In my
experience, most educators acknowledge the need
for intensive, systematic phonics instruction. They
also know that students need to read and talk and
write far more than they currently do, across the
curriculum. There is wide agreement that all of
these elements must be in place for K-3 students
to acquire the fluency, knowledge, and vocabulary
needed to become literate and articulate. We've
yet to capitalize on this consensus. Or to see what
prevents us from acting on it: the structure and
substance of the typical K-3 literacy block and our
overhyped commercial literacy programs. Their
failure can often be traced to the pervasiveness of
small-group, ability-based instruction.
The most successful K-3 teachers I've observed
use small groups sparingly. That's because their
whole-class instruction consistently incorporates the
most proven (but rarely implemented) elements of
successful teaching. They master simple methods

for ensuring that all students are attentive, and they
conduct frequent, ongoing assessments of the class's
progress throughout the lesson-and then re-teach
accordingly. An Education Week article last year
adds credence to this approach, reporting that wholegroup instruction is "almost always" more effective
than the small-group, ability-based model.
These facts point to an opportunity for dramatic
improvements in 3rd grade literacy. Do the math:
In a two-hour reading block, five groups of students
will receive about 20 minutes of reading instruction
per day. In a classroom that uses small groups more
sparingly, students will receive about 80 minutes-
three to four times as much.
Three to four times as much. This would allow
for huge infusions of instructional time into the
essential components of literacy. Teachers could
use this additional time to incorporate more:
* Intensive, sustained, systematic phonics.
We could substantially accelerate students' mastery
of the phonetic code in K-1-and still have time
for kids to read and listen to far more fiction and
nonfiction texts.
* Reading/general knowledge. If most
students have mastered decoding in the 1st grade,
they could spend record amounts of time in 2nd and
3rd grade reading literature, history, and science
texts to build their knowledge base and vocabulary,
which are critical to effective comprehension.
* Vocabulary instruction. Most of a rich
vocabulary is acquired through abundant reading.
But research also shows that we can reliably
supplement this with targeted, embedded
vocabulary instruction.
* Discussion. To become confident, articulate
speakers, students must engage in frequent,
purposeful discussions about what they read. We
could multiply the length and frequency of such
discussions, which animate an appreciation of

reading and are excellent preparation for writing.
* Writing and writing instruction. Writing has
an unsurpassed capacity to help us think logically,
express ourselves clearly, and understand, analyze,
and retain content. It often promotes dramatic,
measurable improvements across the curriculum
and is crucial to success in innumerable careers.
Let's be candid here: These core elements of
literacy seldom get the time they deserve in most
K-3 classrooms-or our inordinately praised
commercial programs. A shift to larger amounts
of well-executed, whole-class instruction would
at least double the amount that students receive
in these critical areas. The benefits, for K-3 and
beyond, would be immense.
Of course, many will argue that students don't
need more time with their teacher; they can learn to
read and write on their own, at our now-ubiquitous
independent learning "centers," which are set up
with materials for students to work independently
while the teacher works with small groups.
But are they learning? "According to the studies,"
writes literacy expert Timothy Shanahan, "No."
Time spent away from the teacher, he writes,
should not be considered a "productive part of
the school day." I consistently observe students
languishing at these unsupervised centers, ambling
slowly from station to station, aimlessly turning
pages or talking quietly with a partner instead of
reading. And that explains, as Michael P. Ford and
Michael F. Opitz found nearly two decades ago, why
only about a third of the overall literacy period has
any academic value.
What should we do? Take Shanahan's advice:
"Brush up your skills in working with larger groups,"
and use the windfall of precious time to multiply
the amount of instruction we provide in the most
indispensable elements of K-3 literacy. Then as
night follows day, 3rd grade literacy rates will rise. n

The most
successful
K-3 teachers
I've observed
use small
groups
sparingly."
Getty

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