Many Americans can read but can't comprehend

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@uclink4.berkeley.edu>]

Many to the left of Dr Hirsch criticize his particular definition of 
"cultural literacy" (favoring the eurocentric Western canon over the 
people's histories; e.g. Robert E. Lee vs. Harriet Tubman as a focal point 
for studying the US civil war); but in this op-ed in USA Today he is 
clearly on the side of teaching context and comprehension in reading 
pedagogy, as opposed to atomized, scripted phonics. (Yet he sticks with 
fellow conservatives in defending multiple choice tests as accurate and 
adequate measures of comprehension)

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040225/5954180s.htm
Many Americans can read but can't comprehend

By E.D. Hirsch Jr.

Back in the 1970s, I had a ''Eureka!'' moment as I reviewed the results of 
reading comprehension tests. The community college students we tested had 
done almost as well as students at the highly selective University of 
Virginia -- as long as the passages the community college students were 
asked to read dealt with familiar, everyday topics. But when they 
encountered passages that required historical background, they faltered. 
These Richmond, Va., students had difficulty understanding a passage on 
Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee because many of them were unfamiliar 
with the Civil War. That shocked me.

These students had been cheated. They hadn't acquired important general 
knowledge in their homes and communities, and their schools hadn't 
compensated for that. Their basic intelligence was sound. They simply did 
not have the knowledge they needed to make sense of many texts.

Since then, I have argued for a deeper understanding of reading. Successful 
reading requires more than an ability to decode, or ''sound out,'' words. 
It also requires adequate background knowledge, or ''cultural literacy.'' 
Without background knowledge of history, literature, art, music, science 
and math, students will read -- but without comprehension.

Gap widens

For years, reading scores have remained low. The achievement gap between 
advantaged and disadvantaged children is not only dishearteningly wide, but 
also grows bigger the longer students stay in school. These dismal facts 
help explain the bipartisan agreement Congress mustered to pass the No 
Child Left Behind Act, with its provision that federal grants be contingent 
on all children making ''adequate yearly progress'' in reading.

That provision sent shock waves through schools and prompted more 
complaints about standardized tests -- misplaced complaints, because 
standardized reading tests are valid and reliable. They measure the 
real-world ability to read, and they reliably predict the ability to become 
good learners, earners and citizens. The tests aren't the problem; it's the 
scores our children are making on them.

As a consequence of that law, some localities have mandated that schools 
devote large chunks of time to reading in early grades. In California, for 
example, it's 150 minutes per day. You'd think such an intensity of effort 
would yield proportionately big results; yet, test scores have risen only 
modestly or not all, and the reading gap between groups remains large.

Why? Recall those community college students. They had mastered decoding 
skills. They may have been taught to read by phonics techniques, which are 
now regarded by most educators as the most effective way to teach reading. 
But they hadn't been exposed coherently to important knowledge, such as the 
history of the Civil War. They hadn't developed the broad vocabulary that 
comes with general knowledge.

Time vs. knowledge

Their deficiencies underscore what is missing in the way we teach reading: 
We expand the time spent on reading but don't examine what is being read. 
Most of the precious hours spent on reading should be devoted to history, 
science, literature and art, not bland stories about ''José at the 
supermarket,'' or ''Janice and her new friend.'' Content-rich reading 
selections should be part of an integrated curriculum that builds up the 
broad knowledge and varied vocabulary required for true reading comprehension.

''Some people may ask why first-graders need to know Hammurabi's Code or 
Queen Hatshepsut, or why fifth-graders should read Don Quixote,'' wrote 
Kathy Schaub, a Catholic school principal in San Antonio. ''Why not? . . . 
I have never seen so much enthusiasm for learning.''

History and literature, interesting and exciting in their own rights, also 
will be useful to these students when, for instance, they come across a 
description of someone ''tilting at windmills.'' Because these students 
possess not just decoding skills, but also wide knowledge and cultural 
literacy, they more likely will be strong readers and full participants in 
our democratic society.

E.D. Hirsch Jr., the author of Cultural Literacy and The Schools We Need 
and Why We Don't Have Them, founded the Core Knowledge Foundation, whose 
curriculum is used in more than 600 U.S. schools.