Have you been taught the skills necessary to succeed?
The No. 1 Skill Teens Need for College
When it comes to academic collegiate success there is one skill more than any other that separates the A students from the C students: the ability to handle complex reading.
And they can't wait until they are college freshmen to learn how to do this.
The time to learn it is in high school, and alarmingly, most states do not require complex reading comprehension instruction at the high school level nor do they have any standards for high school reading achievement, The Associated Press reports of a new study from ACT, the nonprofit company that publishes one of the two tests required for college entrance. Instead, reading is considered a subject for elementary school and is rarely taught in later grades.
What makes an article or book complex to read? Complex reading is characterized by an elaborate organization where the messages are often implicit rather than overt. The interaction between ideas or characters may be subtle instead of obvious. Most of all, the vocabulary is demanding and intricate, notes AP.
How many college-bound high school students can read complex works? Of the
1.2 million high school seniors who took the ACT in 2005, only 51 percent scored high enough to show they were ready to handle first year college-level reading requirements. And this a concern not only to colleges, but also to employers.
What can be done? These aren't easy solutions, but the ACT insists that high school reading standards must be revised in core subjects, and struggling readers need to get help earlier in their education. Also, more teachers need to be trained in how to teach reading within their subject matter. That is, a chemistry teacher must also learn to teach reading as it relates to science
When it comes to academic collegiate success there is one skill more than any other that separates the A students from the C students: the ability to handle complex reading.
And they can't wait until they are college freshmen to learn how to do this.
The time to learn it is in high school, and alarmingly, most states do not require complex reading comprehension instruction at the high school level nor do they have any standards for high school reading achievement, The Associated Press reports of a new study from ACT, the nonprofit company that publishes one of the two tests required for college entrance. Instead, reading is considered a subject for elementary school and is rarely taught in later grades.
What makes an article or book complex to read? Complex reading is characterized by an elaborate organization where the messages are often implicit rather than overt. The interaction between ideas or characters may be subtle instead of obvious. Most of all, the vocabulary is demanding and intricate, notes AP.
How many college-bound high school students can read complex works? Of the
1.2 million high school seniors who took the ACT in 2005, only 51 percent scored high enough to show they were ready to handle first year college-level reading requirements. And this a concern not only to colleges, but also to employers.
What can be done? These aren't easy solutions, but the ACT insists that high school reading standards must be revised in core subjects, and struggling readers need to get help earlier in their education. Also, more teachers need to be trained in how to teach reading within their subject matter. That is, a chemistry teacher must also learn to teach reading as it relates to science
posted by annes at 1:33 PM
9 Comments:
Reading is an extremely complex topic, mainly because it is just plain hard to teach. I think it does need to be more extensively tought however. Complex reading is key in every aspect of future life and will be required no matter what employer people choose. Bottom Line: Reading needs to be taught better.
Hey, a little off topic, but what score qualifies a student to have the ability to handle complex reading?
It is unfortunate that not many people read in this time period. Now that it is easier to get information from TV and videos, as well as the internet, people don't pick up books just to read anymore. Instead they would rather go see a good movie or watch their favorite Tv show. I know it has and is happening to me, I read one book over the summer, out of four or five that I wanted to read. Also, with movies and TV it is harder to pay attention to what we read, and thus less enjoyable. I hope to read more books and watch less TV, there are still quite a few, and there are more adding to the list every now and then. I think that reading isn't just essential to education or college, but rather to life, not only do we learn more, but we also learn to relax and enjoy our life.
I think that I have been educated pretty well about how to read in different subjects. I have never been very good at reading, but the teachers that I have had have shown me how to become more efficient. I think that this was necessary in education, to have the ability to read to help increase understanding in all subjects. I have a feeling that the ability to read at this deeper level tends to be more about the application to more than just the actual book, and less about the ability to read it. I agree that teachers need to teach this part of the reading, and less about the basics. This is what I think has been the reason for my ability to comprehend the reading.
I believe that students today have not established a good reading base. Many kids grow up with reading not being a priority. I know that early on in my education I had to read a lot and talk about it in classes and at home. I feel that that gave me a good base to not fall behind the reading level of my classmates. Year after year I could understand the books of increasing levels of difficulty. A lot of the "blame" could be placed on parents who do not take the time to emphasize reading or even education to their kids. I am not saying that kids will like to read if parents do this, but they will have the ability to read at a high level. I will be the first to say I do not enjoy reading, but I can read and comprehend. When you get people who do not choose to read and also do not have the ability, you have a bad combination. As far as teaching kids to read in the classroom, I believe it would be helpful to read books that relate more to kids' lives. If a preschooler is forced to read Hamlet, the chances of that kid enjoying reading are slim. And the same goes for all levels of education. This is a tough question to answer but overall I think parents could do more.
I think that I am prepared to be in college english calsses because of all of the alis work we had to do last year. That really made me realize how much work goes into writing a good analysis of a book. I liked how for the third book we were not forced to annotate because that gave us the choice of whether we needed to annotate or not and that made me realize how important that really is. I also think the teachers giving us the topic questions helped because that gave us an idea of how deep we need to be able to go to write a good paper. One thing that I think I will struggle with is having to read the books in a short amount of time. The good thing about alis is that we had a good amount of time to read them and since speed is not one of my strengths in reading I think I might struggle with that. I also think I might struggle having to read two books at once. That depends on if one is in class and the other is outside of class but I doubt that will be the case. So overall I think I am pretty well prepared for the challenges I will face next year.
I agree with scott on the fact that alis was a good preparation tool for college. As much as I hated it, it was a good thing that we did it. However, reading that post scared me. How am I to know that I don't fall into that category of being unprepared. I think high schools students are very lazy and only hurting themselves when they slack off when reading in class novels. Most english classes have great lesson plans on novels, and the students are only hurting themselves when they just follow along and not read it for themselves and comprehend what the book is about.
I find these generalizations to be very frustrating. I believe that we all know how tough the ACT is, not necessarily because of the difficulty of the questions, but more because it is hard to take a standardized test for four hours. Although this fact doesn't raise the percentage of the test scores proving kids ready for college English, it does give an excuse for the poor percentages. Also, I would like to know what kids grades are in their college English classes freshmen year. Perhaps that would be more successful and necessary in proving these ideas that people are ready for college English classes. Most people usually perform at a higher standard when a higher standard or difficulty level is presented to them. So, maybe kids ACT scores are low because they have low levels of expectations, however, when they reach college English, they perhaps thrive on the pressure and difficulty level.
I actually have to agree with the findings of the ACT. In an age where alternate sources of information (beyond books) exist, it is easy to see why such a trend would become more and more apparent. No longer do kids have to read and, most importantly, comprehend a story's plot or characters. On television, we are "spoon fed" every element of the plot, and all needed details regarding characters. In both TV and Movies, originality is in a rut. Very few movies today are not remakes of previously portrayed plots and characters, so few things anymore require a person to draw their own conclusions or seek out hidden elements to a plot. This "spoon fed" method results in a generation that finds difficulty in thinking analytically, or originally. As a member of this generation, I too fall under its labels and stereotypes. I must admit that drawing original, analytical conclusions from a complex plot is surprisingly challenging. I often struggle to do so, and am at a disadvantage compared to others who may have grown up in a reading based learning environment. Is this a downfall, or just simply the signs of changing times regarding communication? What do you think?
I personally think that this is not a huge problem to worry about. First of all, the ACT testing is one test that cannot completley test your ability to read and understand. It is not accurate. It tests how well you can test, not read. Second, complex reading cannot be taught at a higher level in high school and be successful. Why? This is because you can assign harder reading assignments, however students will not read. Most high school studetns do not actually READ a reading assignment. They skim, maybe pick up a few things, and maybe read spark notes. How do we get high schoolers to read? You can't. They have to read on their own choice. You improve your reading skills by actually reading. So we must choose to read if we want to improve our skills for college.
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