Greatly reduced expectations: Students read few 'whole books' or none at all

Students may read only one or two books -- or none at all -- in English class, reports Dana Goldstein in the New York Times. The most popular curriculum programs feature excerpts from novels, non-fiction articles and short stories read online on school-issued laptops.

"Twelfth-grade reading scores are at historic lows," she writes. "College professors, even at elite schools, are increasingly reporting difficulties in getting students to engage with lengthy or complex texts."

Andrew Polk, 26, who teaches 10th-grade English in suburban Ohio, tells the Times he was assigned many whole books and plays when he was in high school not that long ago. But he's supposed to use McGraw-Hill's StudySync, which centers on excerpts. He has time for a few longer works each year, such as Macbeth, Fahrenheit 451 and John Green's Paper Towns, a young-adult mystery. Teenagers still feel “passion for a good story,” and "can and do rise to the occasion."

Teaching excerpts can expose students to more diverse writers, writes Goldstein. Schools can avoid controversial passages, such as sex scenes. The passages students read resemble what they'll see on standardized tests. And providing online excerpts can be cheaper than buying books.

But students don't build reading stamina. They don't have a chance to dive into a different time or place, see characters develop or get to the happy ending.

"Smaller players in the curriculum market, like Great Minds and Bookworms, . . . emphasize full books," but are focused on elementary and middle school, she reports. John White, chief executive of Great Minds and the former state superintendent in reform-minded Louisiana, says the company may expand to high school.

White suggested states create "new standardized tests that require students to write about books they have read during the school year, instead of just responding to short passages contained within the pages of the test booklet." What's tested gets taught.

What's most valuable about a class reading a novel together is "the common project of engaging other young people in a conversation about a book that is open to multiple interpretations," says White.

Teachers say their students don't have the attention spans needed to read whole books, writes Natalie Wexler in American Educator. "Screens, phones, and social media have accustomed students to skimming" and addicted them "to the constant stimulation provided by digital media."

In addition, English teachers are "under pressure to cover a range of genres — not just novels but short stories, poetry, plays, and nonfiction — as well as teaching skills like research and writing," she writes. The Common Core's push for “close reading” of texts makes it hard to cover an entire novel.

When I was in high school in the '60s, we read many novels, plays, short stories, a little poetry and a few essays. Here's a key difference: We never read them aloud in class. We read them at home and spent class time discussing what we'd read. OK, some people read Cliff Notes -- during TV commercials -- but we all read words on paper to ourselves.

Teachers today don't think students will do the reading at home, so they often spend class time reading aloud. You don't get through Great Expectations that way.

These days, writes Wexler, teachers are told to teach comprehension skills, such as "finding the main idea," on the faulty theory that these skills transfer from Canterbury Tales to The Great Gatsby. "Not only does skills-focused instruction fail to boost reading comprehension, it also turns reading into a joyless chore" she writes.

It is "more urgent than ever for schools to show kids that reading books can be both a way of learning about the world and a source of pleasure. One way to do that is to introduce students, in school, to whole novels."

In England, researchers have found that reading novels quickly gets students hooked on the story and boosts reading comprehension. Go too slow and they're bored.

Kyair Butts wasn't sure that his sixth-graders in inner-city Baltimore would be interested by Out of the Dust, about “a 13-year-old white girl from Depression-era Oklahoma,” he told Wexler in a podcast interview. He discovered that “when students care about a character, and when they realize that Billie Jo lost her mom and her baby brother, they are hooked. They want to keep reading.”

I remember seeing students from Mexican immigrant families reading Harry Potter during the daily independent reading period at their San Jose high school. There were "culturally relevant" books they could have chosen, books in Spanish and easier books. Why did they choose to read about a British wizard at boarding school? Because it's a good story. And because it's how we Muggles get to visit Hogwarts.