Trezise, Robert L

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Michigan Reading Journal Volume 10 Issue 2 Article 12 May 1976 Some Observations From The Michigan Department Of Education Robert L. Trezise Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mrj Recommended Citation Trezise, Robert L. (1976) "Some Observations From The Michigan Department Of Education," Michigan Reading Journal: Vol. 10 : Iss. 2 , Article 12. Available at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mrj/vol10/iss2/12 This Other is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Reading Journal by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact scholarworks@gvsu.edu. Some Observations From The Michigan Department Of Education by Robert L. Trezise, State of Michigan Department of Education Several years ago when Ken Carl-son was MRA president, he and I were talking about the state of affairs in reading, and he said, "You know, Bob, we should stop referring to 'the reading problem' and refer instead to 'the reading comprehension problem' ". It seems to me that what Ken said makes a lot of sense. To most people who talk about "thr, reading problem," the problem is that students can't say the words. Yet the evidence is that by the time youngsters reach their junior high school years, the vast majority of them cail say the words - but what all too many of them can't do very well is deal with the words when they're put together in a selection, interpret what they read, make inferences on the basis of what they've read, distinguish between the main ideas and subordinate ideas, or say something defensible about the author's purpose and theme. In short, comprehend what they read. And if we're thinking about comprehension skills in relation to more difficult reading materials, perhaps we might say that the great majority of our students and citizens in general are very poor readers indeed - even though they may be able to say the words. The idea that reading comprehen-sion is the problem is borne out again and again in the literature. Just the other day, for example, I was reading a report on the Oregon assessment pro-gram; and it stated that while the students in that state do respectably well in the area of word attack skills, on comprehension the scores go way down. A couple of observations in regard to this phenomenon. First, I think the fact that students do much better in 54 the area of word attack and specific decoding skills indicates that on the whole they do learn rather well what we teach them - for I think that in our reading programs we do tend to focus much more on the enabling or decoding skills, less on the comprehen-s=.on skills. And I do say comprehen-sion skills, because comprehension is, like anything else, a skill - and a skill that can be taught. If this says anything to us, it seems to me it suggests that in our reading efforts, even at the earliest grade levels, we should not neglect teaching to comprehension. After all, even very young children should get the idea that the major - in fact, only - pur-pose for reading is to carry meaning (not sound) away from all those visual symbols Further, comprehension skills are of great value in acquiring decoding skills. If we understand the context of the words, we can more easily decode those words. Along this same line, there's been a lot of talk the past several years about the fact that fourth and seventh gra-ders tend to do better on the mathe-matics sections of state, assessment than the reading. Every phenomenon has multiple causes, and the fact the children seem to do better on math than reading is no exception. But it seems to me that one explanations of this fact has to do with this concept of comprehension. The mathematics items on state assessment tend to focus on specific enabling skills rather than on the application of those skills. The reading items, on the other hand, tend to focus not so much on the enabling skills, but on comprehension. Quite naturally, then, youngsters tend to do better on the one set of items than the other. If for some reason the mathe-matics portion of the test were to begin stressing the application of math skills (for example, through story problems), I wouldn't be surprised if we would see a sudden plummeting of state-wide math scores. By the way, we are now at work on the revision of the Communication Skills objectives. That means that all three parts of these objectives ( the reading, the speaking/listening, and the writing) will be included in the revision process. At this point we have two groups involved: an objectives re-view group and a writing group. Each of these groups has representatives from the MRA, the Michigan Council of Teachers of English, and the Michi-gan Speech Association. The writing group - the larger group of the two -is scheduled to meet for three two-day sessions during the spring. I might add that if anyone would like to react to initial drafts of the objectives ( when we get them to the first-draft stage), let me know, and I'd be more than happy to send you a copy for your comments and sugges-tions. One thing about the state reading objectives. It seems to me it's impor-tant that they do not suggest or seem to favor a particular reading approach or program. The more specific, enab-ling objectives, which reflect particular approaches to reading, should, I think, be the purview of local reading spe-cialists and teachers. Speaking of reading, one of my concerns is related to what so many people were saying at MRA a few weeks ago. It seems to me that one of our major problems is not that kids can't read, but that they don't read; i.e ., are not motivated to read. Maybe in this McLuhan Age (but whatev~r happened to Marshall McLuhan?) there's not a lot we can do about a geneqil unwillingness to read. But since we live in a virtual golden age of Children's Literature, if we could only do more to get those wonderful books into the hands of children within the context of our reading programs, may-be we could get children more motiv.a-ted to read. Along the lines of motivating stu-dents to read, the state's Paperback Book Program does try to focus atten-tion to this phase of the reading effort. This program asks the question: If you absolutely saturate a building with high-interest paperback books, will re-luctant readers begin to pick up and read these books? The saturation con-cept is why under this year's program, each reading room funded by this section must be stocked with at least $2,000 worth of books (minus the number that may have to be shared with the non-public schools). This year 3 5 8 districts applied for these funds; and given the total appropria-tion ($1 2,348), we were able to fund 175 districts. You might be interested to know, too, that according to the national RIF office (Reading is Fundamental), Michigan has some of the most out-standing RIF programs in the country. As a matter of fact, this spring the directors of the national RIF program are going to visit with me in the Department of Education to discuss the possibilities of preparing a packet of materials for people who would like to get into a RIF program. RIF, as you may know, involves motivating young-sters to read by giving them paperback books to keep. But there's a lot more to it than that. There are a lot of motivational activities that lead up to the book giveaways. Perhaps you already know about the recent Right to Read publication called Effective Reading Programs: Summaries of 222 Selected Programs. The booklet is an excellent one with one page being devoted to each pro-gram. Of the programs described, seven are located in Michigan: Ann Arbor, Farmington Hills, Lansing, Niles, Pon-tiac, River Rouge, and Roseville. The 55 publication may be obtained from the National Council of Teache'rs of Eng-lish, 1111 Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illi-nois 61801. It's $5.50. Well, SeGtion 43 (Reading Support Services) is again going through the Scylla of reduction and the Charybdis of deletion. Those who are involved in this program continually lament the fact that a program that does so much to give general and fundamental sup-port to all phases of the reading pro-grams at the local and intermediate district levels always seems to be in a state of jeopardy. Reading support stresses the need to enhance the qual-ity of all phases of a district's reading program, and it's the only state read-ing program that makes any reference to the qualifications of the instruc-tional personnel, which in itself, it seems to a lot of people, makes it a valuable state program. One last thing - we have a new reading specialist here in the Depart-ment: Teressa Staten. Mrs. Staten has had a great deal of experience in read-ing programs around the country, and most recently in the Lansing schools. Since this is the last Journat for the year, thanks to the many of you who have responded so kindly to my various notes and comments in this publica-tion this year. I The Michigan Read,ng Journal · !] SAGINAW INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL DISTRICT NON-PROFIT O~G. 6235 Gratiot Rbad U.S. POST AGf Saginaw, Michigan !48603 PAID ! I Saginaw, Mt ! " l'!l,1 ,PERMIT .. No. :p ' ~ I I I I I J I ! I i J ~ THIRD CLASS MAIL a ! * 

Some Observations From The Michigan Department Of Education

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Some Observations From The Michigan Department Of Education

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