The Language
Enrichment Program
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Ever wonder why some students and adults fail to achieve
well in reading comprehension? It really boils down to the problem that students
who do not read much cannot read well. I often illustrate this to my public
school classes this way:
Mr. Smith plans to join the team and become a great
football hero this year. To prepare, he’s going to read all the encyclopedia
articles he can find that explain the game of football. Then he’s going to read
books about football. Then he’s going to read as many autobiography and
biography books about great football players as he can find in both the school
and the public library. After Mr. Smith has successfully used his own very
effective methods on “How to Study” and “Test Taking Skills,” he knows that he
will be ready to win the game, because he will know all about football.
Then I ask my students (many of whom are on the football
team), “Why won’t this work?” Well, of course, their initial friendly reaction
is that obviously I’m not built for the game. And beyond that, just reading
about the game won’t make me a good player.
Then I turn the conversation around to them: why aren’t
they superior readers? I argue, for the same reason I’m not a football player.
Watching television won’t help much to improve your reading comprehension any
more than my just reading about football makes me a good player. Research shows
that the amount of time spent watching television has a negative relationship to
reading achievement. And the ethnic group I have worked with most in recent
years, African Americans, average five and a half hours, that is three and a
half hours per day more television watching than any other ethnic group in
America. No wonder many students come to me, even as twelfth graders, with
reading scores comparable to early to late elementary school students.
When I occupied room 307 on the north side of Detroit’s
Southeastern High School overlooking the corner of Fairview and Goethe Street, I
could look out the window each morning and see elementary students on their way
to school. Sometimes I gently called attention to them as I discussed reading
achievement with my class. I told them, “Wouldn’t it be awful if those students
reached the twelfth grade with bodies only the size and development you see them
have now as elementary children going by below outside our classroom windows?”
Everyone agreed that would be so. Then I said, “When your reading achievement as
high school juniors and seniors is only equal to the normal achievement for the
average elementary child we see out there walking to school, that is an equal
but invisible tragedy. But at least in my class, you can easily catch up in your
reading achievement just by working on my Language Enrichment Program. I
wrote this program just for your benefit, and I know it will help." |
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