Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52(4) December 2008/January 2009 doi:10.1598/JAAL.52.4.8 © 2008 International Reading Association (pp. 353–355)
Research Connections Understanding Youth Who Struggle With Middle School Reading Leigh A. Hall
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he Research Connections department investigates the research–practice links that adolescent literacy researchers and educators are constructing. This column features a conversation with Leigh A. Hall, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and an emerging voice in adolescent literacy. Hall began her career teaching in Texas public schools. Her dissertation, It’s Not Just the Text: Transactions Between Content Area Teachers and Struggling Readers (Hall, 2005), won the International Reading Association’s Outstanding Dissertation Award for 2006. DWM: How did you become involved with adolescent literacy research? LAH: I started out teaching sixth-grade language arts and social studies to about 50 students a day, and maybe 4 or 5 could meet the school district’s grade-level reading expectations. Most of my students had difficulty comprehending the texts that the district expected them to read. I had a working understanding of the reading process, was able to differentiate instruction fairly well, at least in language arts, and knew that teaching strategies and skills and locating appropriate texts for my students were important, but I could tell it wasn’t enough. I still had students who refused to engage with my materials and lessons or who seemed to be trying to do what I asked but were making little progress. I spent most of my summers at the University of Houston’s library looking for research reports, books, anything to help me address my students’ needs. I was able to find a lot about reading comprehension but only a little about adolescents with comprehension difficulties like those I was teaching. The problems I faced with my students and the limited research addressing those problems pushed me to want to learn more. I became excited about taking up an issue that seemed central to so many people. DWM: Who are the leading inf luences on your research? LAH: My investigations have led me to become quite interested in how literate academic identities are developed in classrooms, the role that language plays in this development, and how educators can affect it positively. Stanton Wortham’s research has expanded my understanding of how the creation of identities supports or inhibits learning. James Gee’s reports on the role of language in identity development and enactment have inf luenced my thinking and research considerably. And Elizabeth Moje and Deborah Dillon’s work has helped me understand the identities that teachers demand of their students during instruction.
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Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
52(4)
December 2008/January 2009
Make it clear to students that you are willing to make some changes to help them along, but they have to make some changes, too.
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DWM: What has become particularly clear to you while studying adolescent literacy?
LAH: Kids who are poor readers generally don’t like their positions in classrooms. Many of them feel stuck and unsure about how to move forward. For some, there’s a social risk involved in trying to make changes in what they do. For others, making changes just feels hopeless because they can’t see that it will contribute to their success. When I sit down and talk to these kids, I keep hearing the same thing over and over: They generally like school. They like their teachers. They want to learn and become better readers. They don’t always love what their teachers ask them to do or every subject in school—but who does? They are looking for ways to be successful, but they often encounter barriers that seem insurmountable. I often hear kids say that they don’t want anyone to identify them as poor readers. They frequently are ashamed of their perceived weaknesses and will do whatever it takes to cover them up. Sometimes they try to figure out what it takes to be identified as a good reader then try to emulate it. Others simply withdraw from class and from reading, believing that if they do not participate then no one can identify them as poor readers. I’ve also learned that adolescents generally benefit from strategy instruction that is linked to the goals they wish to achieve. Right now, I worry that the skills and strategies we educators and researchers tell students are needed to become better readers are primarily the ones that fit our needs and visions. We might serve students better by helping them determine personal goals by asking questions like, what does it mean to be a reader? what does reading look like to you? and what kind of reader do you want to become? Helping students explore these questions and take control of their own development as readers may improve the reading instruction we provide. Finally, students who are labeled as good readers often have comprehension difficulties similar to those who are labeled as struggling readers. Time and again I witness students marked as good readers struggling
to do more than identify facts in texts. They complain that they do not like to discuss texts or answer any questions whose answers are not located right in the texts. They also say they do not need reading instruction and they don’t need to learn how to engage texts differently. They point out that they make good grades and do well on state assessments, so they must be good readers. It is clear to me that we researchers and teachers need to consider the messages we are sending about what counts as good reading. DWM: How do you see your research best connecting with classroom practice? LAH: I often observe middle school teachers working really hard to address the needs of struggling readers, then often wondering—like me—why their instruction didn’t work out as planned. I hope my research shows how many struggling readers really want to do the things asked of them but may be unwilling to do so because of concerns over how they might be identified. I think a good first step toward improving struggling readers’ proficiencies is to talk with them and work with them to create ways they can achieve their goals as readers. For example, if students won’t read, ask them to explain their actions rather than assume they can’t or don’t want to read. Then ask students what can be done differently so they will read more. Make it clear to students that you are willing to make some changes to help them along, but they have to make some changes, too. These discussions and the changes that can arise from them can help students take control over who they want to become as readers and create ways for struggling readers to not worry about how they might be identified. DWM: What do you like best about conducting adolescent literacy research? LAH: I like addressing significant literacy problems that students and teachers contend with daily. I enjoy being in classrooms, seeing how instruction is playing out and hearing what the students and teachers say about what they are doing. Adolescents can be incredibly insightful and are not shy about telling what they really think. Some of the best feedback I get about the strengths and weaknesses of my own teaching and research comes from students. They share what works for them, what doesn’t, and why they will or will not engage with certain tasks or follow certain directions.
DWM: What are you investigating now? LAH: I just finished a pilot study with three sixthgrade social studies classrooms. I was looking at how having students document their uses of comprehension strategies and discussing their uses might inf luence the students’ views of themselves as being in charge of their reading. Students received instruction on how to develop their metacognitive abilities, activate prior knowledge, make and check predictions, and ask and answer questions while reading. The transcripts are showing some very powerful discussions taking place among the students. They are forming well-structured arguments in their discussions about text contents. They are drawing on strategies that were taught in the study—as well as strategies that were not taught—to show their group how their ideas arose from their readings. Students also are using their discussions to help themselves and each other refine
their strategy use. For example, sometimes a student might ask another to explain how a particular strategy works. Other times, a student might suggest a strategy to a peer to clear up a question related to the reading. Struggling readers and kids with reading disabilities have been able to engage in these interactions and develop their identities as readers. It’s so exciting to see! A feature of this study especially worth mentioning is the groups’ memberships. I drew on my previous research, which shows struggling readers withdrawing from classroom reading activities if they think that such an engagement will reveal their weaknesses (real or perceived) to their peers. So I grouped students based on their perceptions of themselves as readers. Students who reported having similar strengths and weaknesses were placed in groups. My idea was that these students had something in common that would give them a sort of shared ground, so they might more willing than usual to talk about their reading. For the moment, it seems like this grouping could be a good thing. Reference Hall, L.A. (2005). It’s not just the text: Transactions between content area teachers and struggling readers. (Doctoral Dissertation, Michigan State University, 2005). Dissertation Abstracts International, 66, 1301.
Hall teaches at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA; e-mail
[email protected].
The department editor welcomes reader comments. David W. Moore teaches at Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA; e-mail
[email protected].
Research Connections
I also appreciate teachers’ comments about classroom projects. These professionals regularly contribute new perspectives that help me learn more about my own biases. They lead me, I think, to a more thorough approach to my research and instruction by showing me perspectives I left out. This always improves my work. To me, combinations of students, teachers, and researchers working together are what stand to make a difference in adolescent literacy. Classrooms then become spaces where students’, teachers’, and researchers’ concerns are heard and, together, ways to resolve them are found.
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