May 28th, 2015
By Liana Heitin
Audience: educators, principals, administrators, parents, school leaders
Key Points: Struggling readers don't lack the ability to think critically. The are constantly thinking critically about topics they enjoy whether that be sports, art, music, (and even about their own teachers). The problem, literacy expert David Liben explains, for students unable to read at their required grade level is fluency and vocabulary. He also argues that "Fluency doesn't guarantee comprehension, but lack of fluency guarantees almost all the time a lack of comprehension, especially with more complex text."
Relevance: This is important when trying to find out why students aren't meeting goals. We see numbers (test scores) but not the solution. This article helps articulate that what test scores show is never the full story. Students have the abilities and skills (critical thinking) to do what is asked of them but not always the resources (fluency/vocabulary) to do so.
Audience: educators, principals, administrators, parents, school leaders
Key Points: Struggling readers don't lack the ability to think critically. The are constantly thinking critically about topics they enjoy whether that be sports, art, music, (and even about their own teachers). The problem, literacy expert David Liben explains, for students unable to read at their required grade level is fluency and vocabulary. He also argues that "Fluency doesn't guarantee comprehension, but lack of fluency guarantees almost all the time a lack of comprehension, especially with more complex text."
Relevance: This is important when trying to find out why students aren't meeting goals. We see numbers (test scores) but not the solution. This article helps articulate that what test scores show is never the full story. Students have the abilities and skills (critical thinking) to do what is asked of them but not always the resources (fluency/vocabulary) to do so.
