What's wrong with 'just right' books

I tutored students in reading (online) during the pandemic using books at their reading levels. I moved my A-level kindergartener to a "C" book about superheroes that introduced a new word on each page. "I superhero needs a cape" with a picture of a cape. After reading it to him many, many times, I got him to say the words. He still couldn't read, but he was willing to fake it.

"Yummy, Yummy" is a level C book.

My first-grade tutees started a little farther along in the alphabet. Eventually, I found the phonics books, and felt students might actually be reading instead of memorizing and guessing from the pictures.

Matching children to "just right" books at their reading level is holding children back, writes literacy scholar Timothy Shanahan, in his new book, Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives. Students are given books they can already read. Instead, teachers should help students understand difficult books.

Most upper-elementary and middle-school teachers teach at students' reading level, which is often well below grade level, according to a 2018 survey, writes Hechinger's Jill Barshay. Thirty-nine percent of eighth graders cannot reach the lowest of three achievement levels, called “basic,” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

In an interview, Shanahan told her that social studies, science and even English "either don’t assign any readings or they read the texts to the students.”

There are ways to teach difficult texts, he says. A teacher might teach a fourth-grade text to the whole class, then let some students work independently while others get more help. “Maybe the ones who didn’t get it, read the text again with my support."

He offers an analogy: a mother teaching her child to tie their shoes. At first, she demonstrates while narrating the steps aloud. Then the child does one step, and she finishes the rest. Over time, the mother gradually releases control and the child ties a bow on his own. “Leveled reading,” Shanahan said, “is like saying, ‘Why don’t we just get Velcro?’ This is about real teaching. ”

Shanahan argues that teachers like "leveled reading" because it requires minimal teacher guidance, writes Kathleen Porter-Magee in Education Next.

But students make very slow progress reading at their comfort level, Shanahan writes. They never catch up to grade level.

It's hard to "level" texts accurately, he writes, and difficult to reliably assess a child's reading level. (I tutored a second-grader who could read end-of-alphabet nature books fluently. She loved the subject.)

Beginners need to start with decoding, Shanahan writes. Older readers may need explicit phonics instruction, if they didn't learn decoding the first time. Once students can decode, they should read a mix of easy and challenging texts, he writes.