Hi Everyone,
Today marks a new installment of two questions for you, where I ask adult educators two questions about their practice. The last installment was about using Google Reviews to teach argument writing. Today's two questions were asked to Aliscia Niles, a talented Oregon adult educator. I will present Aliscia's answers over the next two weeks.
1. What do you do to help the self-identified non-readers in your class?
"As a reading and writing teacher, there is nothing more crushing than hearing one of my adult learners say, I never read; I hate it.
"The complexities of these types of student responses weave together issues of equity, access, with individual learning needs and personal experiences. While there are no simple answers, I wanted to see if we could address one of these layers prior to introducing our formal reading curriculum, dispositional barriers, through an examination of student self-perception.
"During the first week of class, students responded to reflective prompts that allowed learners to explore their self-perceptions as students and, specifically, as readers. Reflection helps students identify with others from similar situations and reframe some of their past struggles or identities as non-readers to gain new understanding and awareness. This reflective process provides an opening for students to learn from other adult learners who once struggled as readers and to grow from these shared experiences.
"We explored our earliest childhood memories about reading and examined whether or not these memories continue to inform our feelings as adult learners. We were curious about where these thoughts or opinions came from and if they are still true today. We explored whether or not we have the ability to redefine our sense of self as learners. Ultimately, students were asked if their feelings about reading were supporting or interfering with their educational goals, and if they have the power to change their perceptions as readers, what might that involve?
"Students were then asked to read a reflective essay written by an adult learner once identified as a struggling reader. Essays were written by my upper-level students using course content centered around mindset and resilience. They selected a challenging time they faced as a student for reflection and responded to the following inquiry: How does the concept of resilience help us grow as learners and what actions can we take to build our own student success strategies? (Note, students gave permission to use their essays for course materials and all identifying details were removed.)
"Students are given one essay per small group. Each group received a different essay. The groups read the essays together and captured the following:
- 1. In what ways did the student struggle?
- 2. What feelings or thoughts developed from these experiences?
- 3. What did the student do to begin redefining their feelings about reading?
- 4. What recommendations does the author give to become a successful student?
"Each group reported back to the larger class to capture all of the student experiences. As a class, we reflected on the challenge’s students faced, and what they did to support their learning process to redefine their feelings about reading.
"Students were then asked to reflect on the following in their journals:
- 1. Do you relate, connect, or identify to anything in these student stories?
- 2. How might you apply one thing you learned from these students your own life?
"Here are some of the student reflections:
"I really never thought about where my feelings about reading came from. I have just always hated to read. When I dug deeper in class, I understood that I had a lot of bad experiences learning how to read where I was embarrassed and felt like I couldn’t do it. I just decided that I couldn’t read and gave up. It’s good to know where these negative feelings came from so that I can change my feelings about myself as a reader.
"Reading is still hard and I don’t love it but I feel like now I can do it, I’m not giving up.
"I liked reading the student essays because these are students who had a similar experience to me. I could relate to them. And they were able to overcome their bad feelings about reading. I want this for myself.
"My mom told me I used to come home with a wet sleeve after reading tests in school because I chewed on my shirt from anxiety. I thought reading was only about how fast I could read. I learned to hate reading by the 1st grade because I couldn’t ever read fast enough. These essays helped me feel like I still have a chance to be a better reader and student.
"My first language is Spanish and I learned how to read in Spanish and as a child, I loved reading. When I came to the US, I couldn’t figure out how to read English. The same rules I learned as a child didn’t always apply to reading in English. I got very frustrated and started to fail my classes. I dropped out of high school but now I see there are ways to help me learn to read. I want a college degree, I can do this.
"I wasn’t diagnosed with a learning disability until I was an adult. I struggled to read all through school and people just thought I was slow and dumb, and the kids made fun of me when I had to read out loud in reading groups. School was hard for me because the words just didn’t stick. I would read and re-read and I tried so hard. I read for hours but I never understood what I was reading. Knowing that others had these similar experiences helps me feel like I’m not the only one."
How do you help self-identified non-readers in your class?
Thanks in advance for your responses,
Steve Schmidt, Moderator
LINCS Reading and Writing Community