A new WestEd Policy Perspectives paper authored by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., argues that U.S. students are failing at math, science, and reading partly because reading experts have overlooked the most important aspect of literacy — that reading comprehension depends on learning factual background knowledge in a broad array of subjects.

In “Why Do We Have a Knowledge Deficit?” Hirsch asserts that educators often mistakenly understand reading comprehension to be a skill, like typing, that can be transferred from one text to another regardless of topic. That approach, which assumes that students can apply all-purpose cognitive skills and critical thinking strategies to unfamiliar texts on any subject, deprives students of the substance and intellectual structure they need to succeed in reading comprehension.

It also can negatively impact student achievement in “all” subject areas (not just reading). The resulting comprehension deficit is apparent in fourth-grade achievement scores nationwide, and it becomes more acute as students advance through each successive grade.

“The only thing that transforms reading skill and critical thinking skill into general, all-purpose abilities is a student’s possession of general, all-purpose knowledge,” says Hirsch, author of the bestselling Cultural Literacy and founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation. “Cognitive science shows that domain-specific background knowledge is the key to comprehension.”

According to Hirsch, American educators have uncritically adopted notions about learning inherited from romanticism, an anti-intellectual 19th century movement, and therefore believe that reading is a natural stage of child development; in other words, children will naturally develop “reading readiness” and learn to read as readily as they learned to talk. American educators also mistakenly believe that kids need only learn formal reading skills disembodied from content, such as prediction, summarizing, questioning, and clarifying.

When student achievement remains low, despite teachers’ good-faith efforts to teach such formal skills and create naturalistic learning environments, educators too often blame other factors — such as poverty and social inequities — rather than faulty reading comprehension methods.

“We must demand curricula that is knowledge oriented,” argues Hirsch. “The reading problem will be solved only when our schools start teaching knowledge itself.” (…)

Source: Hawaii Reporter, HI
http://tinyurl.com/32veds