Norris School District

[February, 2005]

“Students who are personally motivated by their own needs and interests will invest time in reading . . . For reading to result in increased achievement, students must be personally motivated to read and engaged in reading.” –Elaine McEwan, Raising Reading Achievement In Middle And High Schools

Reading: it’s a life skill many of us take for granted, but one that must actually be worked upon if it is to evolve to its highest form of critical literacy.  Norris High School’s School Improvement objective is to improve reading comprehension.  This is an appropriate goal for all students and one in which parents can also play a key role.  Reading as a school improvement goal implies that all students can continue to grow in their literacy.  Results of national assessments such as the NAEP and SAT verbal scores suggest this is true: despite the fact that older students may be able to engage in basic comprehension of grade-level texts, these same students may struggle when challenged to offer more sophisticated interpretations that require inferential comprehension skills that go beyond a literal analysis. 

Parents can help.  Parents can model effective reading practices by being avid readers themselves.  The more you read at home, the higher the likelihood that your children will adopt this practice and also become avid readers.  Our goal is to create lifelong readers by instilling in young people the desire to read for a variety of purposes. In this era of technologically-driven recreation, reading tends to have to compete with a vast array of other entertaining diversions and pursuits from video gaming to television viewing.  Most research indicates that adolescents spend an excessive amount of time watching television in comparison to the amount of time they spend reading.  However, teens are aware of the profound importance of reading as indicated by their responses to a survey administered by the National Education Association in 2001 in which teens stated that literacy skills were the single most important things needed for success in life. 

            Indeed, despite its many pleasures, reading is not just for recreation.  It is also a primary means of obtaining information about the world around us.  Content area reading (reading to learn) becomes arguably the most important reading activity engaged in at the high school level.  Students are expected to be able to read and comprehend a varied array of textbooks and technical information from their courses in order to understand the content taught.  Textbook reading can prove cumbersome for many students.  Effectively reading a textbook requires that the reader employ a variety of cognitive strategies in order to fully understand the work, including prediction, hypothesizing, and summarizing.

            Reading for pleasure: Over the winter break I had the opportunity to read a novel and decided to make it Chris Crutcher’s novel Whale Talk (2001, Harper Collins Publishers).  Crutcher is the critically acclaimed author of several young adult novels and a couple short story collections.  Whale Talk is the story of T.J. Jones and the inaugural Cutter High School Swim Team.  Crutcher weaves a fascinating story of devotion and sacrifice through the iconoclastic band of young warriors comprising the swim team.  Through the narrator, T.J., the team finds inspiration and an authentic leader.  T.J. inspires his team of misfits in their pursuit of varsity letters.  More than a sports story, however, T.J.’s narrative gives us a profoundly personal perspective on the lives of the characters and teaches us about how love and the strength of family can help young people overcome the rancor of bigotry and discrimination.  This book was recommended to me by our high school media center specialist Nancy Martin.  I am grateful to Nancy for her recommendation and I highly encourage our Norris students to take advantage of Nancy’s expertise and consult her for recommended authors such as Chris Crutcher.  You’re bound to find something great at your Norris High School Media Center!

            A special thanks to all our parents who take the time at home to model effective reading practice.  When you personally motivate your young people to read at home by engaging in reading yourself for a variety of purposes, you model those effective literacy practices.  Thanks for your support of one of life’s essential skills that also happens to be our school improvement goal.  Read on!