I sincerely believe in the practice of differentiating instruction for the needs of learners. To help learners grow and improve, we need to meet them where they are and craft variations in output, outcome, process, scope or purpose in order to help students move from A to B…so they can eventually get to Z.
But, a heretical wondering has been bouncing around my head lately.
Over my career I have had many students who, when we are tasked with reading a novel or other long work, either by IEP, 504, or personal preference, end up engaging with the audiobook version of the text rather than the printed version. I’ve always considered that a crucial form of differentiation.
As I was preparing to teach the current unit (Romeo and Juliet) to my 9th graders, I was mulling over how to engage them with the intimidating complexities of Shakespeare. It had been a few years since I last taught the play, so on an early morning run I was going over past unit plans, assignments, and ways I had engaged students. I came to this conclusion: I wanted my students to gain confidence when faced with complex or intimidating texts. That, to me, was more important than whether they “got” all of the nuanced details of the play.
It was clear in my head: The act of reading was what I was trying to teach, to some degree, no matter what literary text we were studying. My learning goal wasn’t that kids simply knew who, what, when, where, and how: it was that kids had the skills to decode the written word in order to be able to figure those things out from reading.
My heretical wondering: Might differentiation inadvertently place students on a lower trajectory for success if that differentiation is misapplied? To be blunt: Will listening to the audio book help a teenager learn to process a text visually? Of course, audiobooks are a necessity for students with visual impairments, but if my goal is to help students improve their processing and comprehension of text, might differentiation such as audiobooks actually get in the way of developing that skill?
I did some cursory research, and all of it was consistent: Using audiobooks to augment the reading of a text increases student comprehension of that text. My question, though, is about the enduring skill of being able to read and make meaning. Yes, listening to the text will increase a struggling teen reader’s comprehension of that text…but what does it do for their reading skill when they face a new complex text that isn’t or can’t be accompanied by audio?
I’m seriously rethinking all of the differentiation I plan in my class. If my goal is for my teenage readers to “get through” the text and know what happens, or even be able to interpret the literature to depth, the audiobook will suffice if I am teaching content. If I am teaching skills, though, I must focus on differentiating the learning of the skill (how I help kids strengthen the act of reading) rather than being satisfied that they “got” the content. When I think back over 16 years of teaching various complex texts where audiobooks were a go-to mode of differentiating, I feel confident my kids left knowing content but I wonder if I did a darn thing to cultivate their transferable skills. I wonder if I might have inadvertently flattened their potential trajectory as a reader.
A central theme of Romeo and Juliet is that “virtue turns vice, being misapplied.” In other words, being loving is a virtue, being lustful and misapplying that emotion turns that same sentiment to a vice…and in the case of the play, a tragedy rather than a love story.
I now wonder, too, if differentiation of instruction isn’t subject to that same theme: It is a virtuous idea which, if misapplied, might do more harm than good.
I appreciate your reminder that the tool we use all depends on the purpose of the work — are we teaching content or reading skills? And sometimes those can blend together!
My co-teacher and I often give students choices of short, non-fiction texts related to our overall theme; we usually record one of those texts, post it to YouTube (black background — nothing exciting!), and offer that as a support for those who want to use it. We teach students strategies for listening to the audio and marking the text. In this situation, we are trying to teach reading skills while also helping them to be ready to engage in the content discussions we will have about these texts.
A funny note — one of my YouTube recordings of me reading a Malcolm X essay has 5500+ views…. but it’s blocked by my district’s server!
Mark,
I’m curious about how it is going.
I’m going to do what is often not helpful – share a “here’s what I’ve done” story – with the hope that it will be helpful, because I think it’s exactly what you’re talking about.
Like you, I wanted my ninth graders (back when I was teaching ninth grade) to develop the skill and confidence to make sense of challenging texts. The approach that I used, both with R & J and later with The Odyssey (Fitzgerald translation), was “paraphrasing,” which in this case meant translating the text line-by-line into modern English. I modeled doing it, and then we did it all together. Then in groups; then individually. When we were doing Shakespeare, we did it with sonnets first, and then with the play. (For both Shakespeare and The Odyssey, I did a lot of scaffolding prior to even looking at the texts, but that’s not the focus here.)
There was a place for differentiation: some roles or chunks of text were more complex and/or longer than others, so I assigned them to groups or individuals based on what they were ready for. All of the kids were doing the same skill of making sense of very complex text, but some texts were even more complex than others.
This process was transformative for the students, especially when I used it with students in a high-needs school. By the end of the experience, they had confidence in themselves as readers that most of them never thought they would have. And it wasn’t just about the one text; it was about being able to access any demanding text.
I look forward to hearing about your and your students’ experiences if you feel like sharing down the line.
Mark, oh my gosh yes. I taught the LAP reading class at middle school and was stunned at the number of kids who could read aloud–with expression–but had no idea what they had just said.
So I started making them act things out. They had the hardest time figuring out how to show me what the characters were doing, but it meant they had to pay attention to what they were reading.
When I do Shakespeare Club in elementary school, I read the scenes aloud first. Then I ask them how they would stage the scene. Which characters should come in from which direction? What direction should they look? What expressions should they have? We block out the scenes, and then they take roles and read the scene aloud, acting it out. The acting helps it make sense.
(That’s also how I taught my daughter to read. “Sound out the letters. Read the word. Now act it out.” If the word was “cat,” she would crawl around and meow. If it was “hat,” she would run to the closet and put on a hat. She learned the connection between comprehension and decoding right from the start.)
Yes! I wish more parents were provided the kinds of skills like that during home reading.
I’ve tried the acting too… that’s one I’ll need to return to, as it is WAY out of my own comfort zone so I have struggled to effectively facilitate it. It definitely works for some kids, though, so I need to do a better job about utilizing it.
I’d be OK with audiobooks in the required LA class if only there were a supplemental class, for those who use audiobooks, that teaches them actual reading skills (hopefully to fluency in the kinds of things they will have to read in the world of work). To stop reading skills instruction just because a student finds reading difficult, or reads slower than others, at the high school level amounts to giving up on students’ ability to learn to read.
Mark, I am currently teaching R and J. We just finished Act I today. I don’t use the audio version, although I have it. I have the same ideas/fears as you. We read aloud, with a lot of interruptions from the pesky teacher who likes to go off on sideline history lessons. Then we watch film clips to increase comprehension. It works in that it is engaging and they come away understanding the text better. However, I am not sure that many will go on to pick up Shakespeare on their own. And, would they have the skills to do so?
Your musings truly align with the way I have reconstructed my short story unit, with close readings paired with audio and nonfiction supplemental texts. Without the audio, so many struggling students would miss out on the classic stories and how enjoyable literature can be. I try to make up for the reading practice with close reading activities with complex text. Such a tough balance! I think, in the long run, we may be actually contributing to a future generation’s reluctance to read difficult text, no matter how we try to keep the challenge in our classrooms. The truth is, content (at the secondary level) outweighs technique. And, I for one would rather my student learn the joy of learning and find the methods that work best for them. The struggle is real!
Do you read sections aloud in class?
I’ve done it this way. I assign lines to every student the day before the reading so they can practice ahead of time. For students who need more support, I help them with their lines before the class reading. That way, when we have the read-aloud, everyone can read their parts fluently.
It doesn’t work with the whole play, but it gets them feeling like they are able to participate on a more even playing field. And that short time working one-one-one can help you see where they need work with actual reading skill.
We do read aloud in class, and I do have kids review passages beforehand if I sense they are reticent to read aloud. What has always been surprising is how many students can make the sounds come out (read aloud) but not comprehend the concepts of what they’ve read. This adds to my sense of need that my differentiation focus on meaning making separate from sound input or output.
I understand where you’re coming from with how a misapplied differentiation method might have a different outcome than the one you are intending. That does warrant teachers to re-think about what they consider to be acceptable accommodations and modifications. For example, have you considered putting the two together? What if students who rely on audio books had the physical book in front of them so they can follow along while they listen? These students will have the support of the audio when it comes to deciphering the independent words but have access to the text to practice the more concrete skills.
Hi Meghan,
I do always have them read along, but I am still concerned that this shifts their input processing more to auditory than visual/text-processing. For comprehension of a text, it helps for sure. For transferable text skills, I’m not convinced. I think what I will try next is having students tackle small, manageable chunks of complex texts without the audio (but after I’ve armed them with metacognitive practices to use for monitoring their own understanding as they read) and then to use the audio to confirm their understanding of what they read. We’ll see. In my mind it makes sense that this would help hone their (visual) reading skills.