Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters

by G. Kylene Beers

What needs to change? What assumptions make that change hard?

Be brave. You aren’t thinking outside the box. You’re hunting for a new one. Accept failure. Whatever you’re going to do probably won’t work the first time or the fifteenth. Be open. Disruptions can’t proceed in secret. Tell folks what you’re trying. Document. Put it up online. Be transparent. Be connected. Look around and see who else is trying something similar. Reach out. Talk. Share.

We do believe that unless we all learn how to struggle through a text when the text is tough, we will not be prepared for all the tough texts each of us will undoubtedly face from time to time.

one teacher said, “It’s as if they are in a stupor, somehow just going through the motions, even getting good grades, but nothing is really sinking in.”

Fake readers pretend to read the text, feign engagement, and sometimes extract words from the text to answer questions with little thought.

They need to be able to hold multiple ideas in their minds. They need to be able to see a situation from multiple perspectives. They need to be flexible thinkers who recognize that there will rarely be one correct answer, but instead there will be multiple answers that must be weighed and evaluated.

must teach students how to read with curiosity. And they need to be willing to raise questions. We want them to ask not only, “What does this text say?” but also, “What does it say to me? How does it change who I am? How might it change what I do in the world?”

If you haven’t read Ellin Keene’s book Talk About Understanding, add it to your must-read list.

If the reader isn’t responsive, if she doesn’t let the text awaken emotion or inspire thoughts, then she can barely be said to be reading at all.

Our democracy is best served when we encourage students to begin at an early age to pay close attention both to what the text says and to what they feel and think as they read. Not one or the other, but both.

important. Our democracy is best served when we encourage students to begin at an early age to pay close attention both to what the text says and to what they feel and think as they read. Not one or the other, but both.

Until we teach students to read responsibly, we run the risk of being a nation of readers who not only harm themselves, but potentially harm others as they share not just misinformation but blatant lies.

We suggest that we’ve failed to become a nation of readers in part because we have made reading a painful exercise for kids. High-stakes tests, Lexile levels, searches for evidence, dialogic notes, and sticky notes galore—we have demanded of readers many things we would never do ourselves while reading. We have sticky-noted reading to death.

we’ve made the reading of fiction and nonfiction about extracting. We have, while racing to the top, lowered our students’ vision of all that reading can be.

Efferent and aesthetic are Louise Rosenblatt’s words (1935/1995). She said that when we read aesthetically, we are aware of ourselves and of the effects the text is having upon us.

if we are reading “aesthetically,” we are aware of it.

when we read efferently, we are reading to extract information from the text.

But if efferent reading is all we teach kids, if we convince them that reading is only for extracting, then we will have failed to teach them that texts are not simply repositories of facts. They are instead the catalysts for an experience that may involve emotions and thoughts of our own. Reading gives us an opportunity to have an intimate conversation with the text, with the author, with oneself, and then ultimately with others. And it is those conversations, all of them, that might be enriched by compassionate thinking.

We want them to realize that reading should involve disrupting their thinking, changing their understandings of the world and themselves.

If the goal is “don’t fail,” then the result, we fear, is “don’t innovate.”

you want kids to be better readers, they must read. And if you want them to read a lot, much, perhaps most, of what they read must be what they choose to

1967, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (more recently known as NCLB) provided federal dollars for the purchase of books for school libraries. This dramatically increased the number of books that many children had access to during the school day.

Nancie Atwell encourages in In the Middle

The Reading Zone

Linda Rief discusses in Read ...

Kelly Gallagher discusses i...

The number one question we’re asked is, “Where can I find books for kids?” We share ideas at scholastic.com/BeersandProbst.

Simple prompts can help teachers quickly assess if the time spent reading that text in class is well spent: Tell me what’s happening now in your book. Tell me about the person telling the story. What’s the most surprising thing that has happened? Are you enjoying the book? Why or why not? If not, is this a good book for you to continue reading? What have you learned so far about the character (or event)?

The 2016 report Library/Media Centers in U.S. Public Schools: Growth, Staffing, and Resources by Tuck and Holmes found that wealthy schools with primarily white students have five times more librarians/media specialists than high-poverty schools with mostly students of color (p.

Wealthy schools with primarily white students have five times more librarians/media specialists than high-poverty schools with mostly students of color.

children who grow up in homes with no books tend to be about three years academically behind children who grow up with books (and that’s after controlling for issues such as income, home language, and parents’ educational level) (Jumpstart, 2009).

children who live in impoverished neighborhoods are essentially living in “book deserts,” places that lack community libraries, quality books stores, and other places where parents can find books for their children (Neuman & Moland, 2016).

Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding (1988) study. It showed that fifth graders who were in the 98th percentile read sixty-five minutes a day outside of school. This meant that in a year, they saw around 4.3 million words (see Chart I on next page). By contrast, students in the 70th percentile, were reading about ten minutes a day and thereby seeing only about 622,000 words in a year. Students at the 50th percentile were only reading about five minutes a day and were therefore seeing only about 282,000 words in a year. And students at the 20th percentile weren’t doing any reading and were seeing about 21,000 words.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes a day of focused silent reading has the potential to change a child’s academic life, and that might, in turn, change her life’s trajectory.

In fact, kids report that their favorite books and the ones they are most likely to finish are the ones they pick out themselves.

Listening is not reading. There is value in listening, but listening uses and hones different skills from reading.

When we consider those facts, we can’t support the class-wide reading of a single novel enthusiastically.

Use the time that students are reading for one-on-one conferences.

Give students a voice in choosing the in-common book.

Don’t confuse listening with speaking.

don’t choose a book that will take four weeks to read aloud. You want to finish the book in a week.

To change, we have come to believe, is the fundamental reason for reading.

We don’t expect elementary school children to think through the complexities of difficult global social issues or to negotiate the political choices demanded by such events as elections. But we can nonetheless encourage them toward the approach to texts that will make them more responsive, responsible, and compassionate; we can recognize that they want to think about important issues that affect their neighborhoods and schools.

“How has this book or story touched you, made you think again about who you are or what you value?