Changing Reader Theories/Beliefs of Reading: Scenario One: Text Structures of Assessment

I've been spending some time with 5th, 6th, 9th, and 10th grade folks. We talked. We laughed. I listened to them read and write. I watched them form letters with pencils. I watched them type. We talked about their thinking and how they made decisions. 

Basically - I learned their theories of reading. Their beliefs. And in almost every case, I can pinpoint an assessment practice, curriculum, or pedagogical approach associated with the timeline of legislation or the pendulum of popular thought on how we are supposed to teach. We - the political engine, the commercialization and big business of curriculum, the teacher-pipeline, the assessment-data-standards regime, war, and the cultural-historical approach to teaching how we experienced and were taught - we did this. So did poverty and trauma (Dr. Paul Thomas). And so did too much data. See previous post.

Enough on the problems. 

When you listen to a kid read, you get a pretty good idea of what they believe about reading. 

Scenario One: 

2024 English I STAAR

"H" read aloud for me...He began..."I must admit..." and immediately, I stopped him. You see, he - and every child we talked to that day - had skipped the italicized introduction. 

The italics ARE a key part of understanding the context and trajectory of the story he was about to read. 

In addition, "H" missed that"from"in the title meant that what he was to read was only a small portion of a larger text. "H" did not read the title; therefore, he had no context of the topic, genre, or importance of the text in general. Essentially, "H" does not understand the text structure of digital assessment and excerpts. Any problems with answering questions and overarching considerations about success on the multiple choice are now invalid. The data from his assessment don't mean much, and now his response has also skewed the collective item analysis for the whole data set. 

Most of the time during our data dialogues, we'd look at the items "H" missed and say that he needed work on 6A, 4F, 6D, 8A, 8D, 8B, 4E, 8E, 5B, including SCR, and Multiple Select items. 

Um. No. The gatekeeper to comprehension on this piece is the italicized context. The solution has nothing to do with teaching more lessons on any of those TEKS. The solution stems from contextualizing the characters, setting, and motivation of Mr. McGill. 

And we figured it out by asking some kids to read to us and show us what they do when they take the assessment.