by Jason Caros, June 2014
Reading comprehension and overall academic achievement can be greatly improved, and learning gaps closed, by systematically increasing the amount of academic content knowledge students learn beginning in the elementary grades.
The Sisyphean task
In ancient Greek mythology a king named Sisyphus was cursed by the gods to roll a giant boulder up a hill, but just as he reached the top the boulder would roll back down. Poor Sisyphus would have to repeat the labor throughout eternity. I sometimes wonder if educators are engaged in a Sisyphean task when it comes to their approach to improving student reading comprehension.
Teachers have been hard at work for decades aiming to improve student reading using the latest research in literacy, cutting edge teaching resources, and barrels of educational funding. What has been the result? According to the gold standard of educational assessments, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), elementary student reading scores have seen moderate increases since the 1970s, and this has been due, in large measure, to a growing understanding about the best early instruction in how to read. Unfortunately, reading scores for middle school students have improved only slightly, and scores for students in high school have remained relatively unchanged for over 40 years.
NAEP Long Term Trend in Reading
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress, Long-Term Reading Assessments.
Why is it that high school scores have not budged since the 1970s? Furthermore, why are the scores so low? When reading tests are given at the high school level, at such a critical point in children’s lives, prior to graduation, large numbers of students perform poorly...
Click here to read the full paper with footnotes.
Jason Caros is a husband and father, and he serves as Associate Superintendent for Academics for Founders Classical Academies. He served as a classical school headmaster for twelve years at Founders Classical Academy of Lewisville.