Actually yes

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Home : 2009 : March : 26

Actually yes
By maryteach

I come from elementary. I come from fifth grade. I stand by what I said. Every year, when I bring out appropriate middle school novels, I hear "We read that last year." Or I hear "Our teacher read that to us last year."
And I just smile and tell them they haven't read it with me, and boy oh boy, is that ever true. They're missing the major metaphor that ties the book together. Not one of the kids I have in Tale of Despereaux right now--which is a sixth grade book believe it or not-- was ever taught what chiaroscuro is, and if you don't know that, you miss the entire gist of the novel, the whole metaphor.

You don't understand, if you don't know what chiaroscuro is, that the rat Roscuro fulfills his destiny (and his name) by coming out of the darkness, both physically and metaphorically. I have a feeling their teachers didn't know what chiaroscuro is and didn't bother to find out. If they knew, they didn't bother teaching it to their kids, and their kids missed the WHOLE POINT.

I'm sure the fact that Despereaux is a sixth grade novel is complete news to most elementary teachers reading this. (Maryteach, my kids LOVED that book. They begged for it every single day). I'm sure they did, but they also didn't understand it at the depth it's intended.

Too many teachers rely on Scholastic or AR to level books for them, and those two sources get more levels wrong than they get right. If you're depending on those sources to level your books, you're really missing it. Lexile even misses some of them by a mile. That's because lexile goes by vocabulary and sentence length, but doesn't take into consideration theme, metaphors, ideas...lexile will tell you that The Giver is fine for fifth grade, and it is NOT. It's a seventh grade book. Yet The Giver is done by so many fourth and fifth grade classes around here. It's absolutely ridiculous. And I'm sure they also begged for that every day, and I promise you, I have not once had a sixth grader coming in (who supposedly "did" that book) who understood even the first thing about it.

And angelangst is letting the DISTRICT level books for her. The DISTRICT told her WTM was a 4.9 or something. That's about the worst source for levels I can even imagine. We have to be TEACHERS--we have to read the book ourselves and discern its level. If we're relying on the DISTRICT, that's just crazy.

Would you put a first grader in Tuck Everlasting? Would you put a second grader in The Westing Game? That's the same thing as putting a fourth or fifth grader in Walk Two Moons. It is not one bit different. It's a horrible waste of reading instruction time. There are so many good books that elementary kids need to read to get ready for middle school books. And I'm sorry, but in every middle school language arts classroom around here, we really are shaking our heads. High school teachers would be shaking their heads too if our kids came in having "read" Of Mice and Men, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Not only would I not do those books with my middle school kids, I most certainly would not stamp my foot and insist to those high school teachers that my kids are so smart, they just loved The Grapes of Wrath. When the teachers found that my kids totally MISSED THE WHOLE POINT, I would look pretty weak and pretty clueless.

So yes, I actually do come from fifth. Sorry to burst your bubble. You are wasting your time and your kids' time when you do books that are way too high with them. They don't get the comprehension skills they need when books are too advanced. That's research straight from the IRA (the International Reading Association). They set the standard for the teaching of reading, and they are adamant that kids must be in developmentally appropriate books.

I will continue to do many, many books with kids who have supposedly "done" those books, and I will continue to have kids who are amazed at what they didn't understand when they were too young, kids who are seeing--and UNDERSTANDING-- a book for the first time in middle school. This isn't just my perception. The kids themselves tell me this constantly. Then they ask me why their teacher did it with them when they were too young, and all I can say is, "I don't know."

You're right; teachers should work together to solve problems. But when someone tries to tell the teachers on this thread something that would really help their practice, something they really need to hear, they don't want any part of it. This is a problem and it needs to be solved, but you guys just stick your fingers in your ears ("la-la-la!! Can't hear you!).

Walk Two Moons is an eighth grade book, regardless of what you think or believe. I can't help what is. Only my highest reading sixth graders get a crack at it in sixth grade and when they do it with me, it about kicks their butt. If you're claiming this is appropriate for fourth or fifth grade, then I'm claiming you have no idea in the world what you're talking about, but if you're spending time in a fourth or fifth grade classroom reading an eighth grade book, then you are cheating your students of valuable literacy experiences, and that's just shameful.