Engaging Children to be Readers — What Does Engagement Look Like? Part 5
“A teacher is also a student” — David McConkie
This phrase has served me well throughout my career as I often look as myself as a learner to see when my learning is at its peak and when it isn’t. What am I doing in those moments of success and those moments when I am struggling.
In yesterday’s post I discussed one of the five necessary ingredients for successful engagement, purpose. Today we’re going to look at the key to the process, engagement. What does successful engagement look like?
Engagement — the act of engaging or the state of being engaged; involvement. This is where the magic starts to happen, where the learning begins. This is when children start breaking the code of reading. This can be a simple as when young children recognize logos, such as the McDonald’s logo. This is the earliest stages of learning to read. This is where all the hard work happens and is necessary to keep the learning moving forward. This stage must continue throughout the process of learning the skill and improving.
As long as someone is doing the work or engaged in the process, learning will happen. To what degree depends on the level of engagement. First let's think about learning to shoot free throws in basketball. Both of my children were basketball players and started playing organized basketball in kindergarten. They both continued playing into high school. Obviously, their level of engagement was high because they both continued playing for years. I spent a lot of time watching them practice and play games. During games, there were always those clutch moments when a player was fouled and went to the line to shoot a free throw. When they were young and playing a game, there were often opportunities for players to shoot free throws. As inexperienced players, the success rate shooting free throws during a high pressure situation was low. But as they practiced and sustained their engagement in the sport, when faced with the opportunity of shooting a free throw during a game, their percentage went up drastically. They often had success. What contributed to that success? Sustained engagement also known as practice! But more than just practice, they learned to practice correctly, building correct muscle memory.
In regard to reading let’s take a look at a new, beginning reader. If their interest level is high and they are encountering success their level of engagement is going to be sustained and at a high level. They will be interested in practicing on a daily basis and hopefully learn to enjoy reading In contrast, imagine a new reader that is struggling to “crack the reading code.” The jumble of letters that they see on the page just doesn’t make sense. The teacher keeps telling them, you know that word the, but they can’t seem to recognize it when they see it. What kind of engagement is this child going to have? How often when something is difficult for you do you want to keep going and feel good about it? Usually not very often if we’re honest. As we know, reading is a very important life skill and a subject that a tremendous amount of time is spent on in school. Children recognize when they are having more difficulty learning something than their peers. When they are faced with difficulty and possibly failure day after day, their motivation and confidence is going to disappear quickly. This is one reason I choose to focus my career on struggling readers and how to support them to break through the challenge.
Going back to our basketball example, when a player is struggling and not making any of their free throws, what does the coach do? Do they sit back and watch them struggle and continue to feel defeated or do they come alongside them and model how to shoot a free thrower with correct form? Of course, they come alongside them and help. That is exactly what teachers do or should do. Often teachers feel helpless in not knowing how to help or even diagnosis a child’s reading problem. That’s where I come in. I come alongside the teacher and coach them and help them hone their skills to teach struggling readers.
One of the easiest ways to support struggling readers and help build their level of engagement is to provide the reader with “just right” books. Just right books are books that are strategically selected for the reader to only encounter 2–3 spots of difficulty. Depending on the amount of text it can be 2–3 difficult spots per page, but if there are only a few words on a page that is too much reading work that they are having to do.
Success and encouragement coupled with the correct materials will increase the level of engagement and allow a learner to sustain and continue to grow as a reader or basketball player. .
Please take a moment to click this link and share your information with me. I would LOVE to hear from you.
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass
The joy is in the journey!
Blessings and Peace,,
Mary
