What Do We Do with Above Grade Readers?

Teacher question

I know that you encourage teachers to teach reading with grade level texts even if this means they would be working at their frustration level. But what about the boys and girls who can already read at grade level? What should we do with them?

Shanahan’s response

There is a great deal of diversity in American classrooms. Teachers can expect to be responsible for students at a wide range of reading levels. I suspect this skews low — meaning most teachers will be scrambling to meet the needs of more kids below grade than above it. But that’s statistical. If your class goes the other way, that is what you must deal with.

There is no widely agreed upon idea of what to do with kids who have already mastered grade level skills and content. Teacher responses are likely to depend upon the mix of students in their classrooms. The more low kids there are to teach, the less likely they will try to do anything special with the higher achievers. Then there are school policies, that may forbid teachers from working with above grade level textbooks which can severely limit a teacher’s flexibility.

Let’s consider some possibilities.

One option is to do nothing special. Simply teach those kids with everyone else. Their reading is not likely to improve much from that — and it is possible that they may be a bit bored — but it will allow teachers the opportunity to catch up some of the less advantaged kids. That’s efficient, of course, but it offends the sensibilities of those committed to the learning of all.

An attractive variation on the idea of teaching everyone the same thing whether or not that is what they need is to make sure that the content of the reading tasks is valuable. That way, even if their reading doesn’t improve, they will have access to worthwhile content that they don’t yet know. That’s not nothing.

Another idea is to exempt them from guided reading, allowing those students to read on their own or to play computer games. That would offer modest reading, though students may like it. (Even when they do, this can wear a bit thin, making some of them feel excluded and ignored.)

An important thing to remember is that Carol Connor and her colleagues found, at least with younger kids, that the ones reading at relatively high levels are also the most able to work independently, away from a teacher (Connor, et al., 2011). That would allow advanced readers to be engaged in pedagogically worthwhile activities, without much teacher attention during class time (this will require additional planning time, however).

What kinds of independent activities would make sense?

One possibility is to work with multiple groups. Teaching the kids who cannot yet read third-grade text well with the third-grade texts, and those beyond that with a somewhat harder text. That way everyone gets the chance to work with challenging texts with teacher supervision and guidance. But it requires a reduction in the amount of instruction that each child receives or an increase in the overall amount of time needed for reading instruction. That problem may be ameliorated a bit by offering fewer lessons to the advanced group — they would likely make good progress with fewer resources given their advanced levels of reading.

Another option is “walking reading” letting a third grader go to a fourth or fifth grade class for their reading instruction (Gutiérrez, & Slavin, 1992). If done right, this works. Let’s say some third graders can already read the third-grade texts reasonably well, so sending them to fourth grade can pay off. This works, though it may limit other instructional choices because of the need to coordinate schedules across classrooms.

A third idea, and one more in line with Connor’s data, is to provide semi-independent possibilities for advanced readers — providing them with less direct instruction (since they are less likely to need it) while providing them with constructive activities that they can engage in successfully with limited supervision. Again, in my experience, these kinds of arrangements usually require more teacher time investment up front, though with practice such  demands can usually be markedly reduced.

Some semi-independent activities that make great sense are Literature Circles, Book Club, Project-Based Instruction, and Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI); pretty much anything that involves collaborative inquiry or cooperative learning. I don’t need to provide detailed descriptions of those here — there are multiple books and lots of online resources for each of them for teachers who want more specific details. For the most part, these are activities that would usually be carried out under direct teacher supervision and with explicit instruction, however they are typically used with a wide range of students. In this case, the students would all be relatively good readers and able to be productive with less explicit teaching. Nevertheless, it would be wise to provide some explicit teaching regarding how to participate, to provide rules of engagement, and to scaffold tasks (such as providing writing formats or graphic organizers).

Many of these activities require multiple texts. That’s great because one way to provide sufficient experience with harder texts is to have multiple resources (including video) available on a topic. These resources should be at a range of difficulties. That way, the easier texts can scaffold their attempts to deal with the harder text — with minimum teacher input; a win-win, for sure.

These kinds of activities provide students with opportunities to apply their reading and writing skills to texts of a range of difficulty including those that would present new possibilities of learning.

None of these choices is perfect, but any combination of them is likely to be better than just ignoring that some students can already read the instructional texts well. I’ve included a list of practical resources at the end of this blog entry.

References

Connor, C.M., Morrison, F.J., Fishman, B.J., Giuliani, S., Luck, M., Underwood, P., et al. (2011). Testing the impact of child characteristics X instruction interactions on third graders’ reading comprehension by differentiating literacy instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 46(3), 189–221.

Duke, N. K., Halvorsen, A-L., Strachan, S. L., Kim, J., & Konstantopoulos, S. (2021). Putting PjBL to the test: The impact of project-based learning on second graders’ social studies and literacy learning and motivation in low-SES school settings. American Educational Research Journal, 58(1), 160-200.

Goatley, V. J., Brock, C. H., & Raphael, T. E. (1995). Diverse learners participating in regular education “book clubs.” Reading Research Quarterly, 30(3), 352-380.

Gutiérrez, R., & Slavin, R.E. (1992). Achievement effects of the nongraded elementary school. A best-evidence synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 62, 333-376.

Imbaquingo, A., & Cárdenas, J. (2023). Project-based learning as a methodology to improve reading and comprehension skills in the English language. Education Science, 13, 587

Lattanzi, J. A., Jr. (2014). “Just don’t call it a book club”: Boys’ reading experiences and motivation in school and in an after school book club. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rutgers University.

McMahon, S. I., & Goatley, V. J. (1995). Fifth graders helping peers discuss texts in student-led groups. Journal of Educational Research, 89(1), 23-34.

Book Club

• Breathing New Life into Book Clubs: A Practical Guide for Teachers by Sonja Cherry-Paul and Dana Johansen
• Better Book Clubs by Sara Kugler
• Talking Texts: A Teachers’ Guide to Book Clubs Across the Curriculum by Lesley Roessing and Lester Laminack

Cooperative Learning

• The Teacher’s Sourcebook for Cooperative Learning: Practical Techniques, Basic Principles, and Frequently Asked Questions (opens in a new window) by George M. Jacobs, Michael A. Power, and Loh Wan Inn.    
• The Collaborative Classroom: 50 Cooperative Learning Strategies for Student Engagement (opens in a new window) by Boney Nathan and Seetal Kaur
• Using Collaborative Strategic Reading

CORI

• Overview of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI)

Project-Oriented Reading Instruction

• Inside Information: Developing Powerful Readers and Writers of Informational Text Through Project-Based Instruction (opens in a new window) by Nell Duke 
• Project-Based Learning (opens in a new window) (Nell Duke)

Selected comments

Comment from Gale M.

I saw and heard the reading and writing ability of thousands of elementary schoolers in southeast PA in the last year. I don’t believe we have a good handle on what “above grade level” really looks like. I think a better answer to this would be more clear and direct that students who are reasonably fluent oral readers often are not writing well, with legible letters and correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. So while a teacher works with the kids who need to get caught up, these students should be encoding and then given corrective feedback. Even the brightest kids in the highest performing schools had pronounced weaknesses in basic mechanics, capitalization, spelling, and penmanship. So, in that case, they are not ‘above grade level’ at all. Teachers need to address this. Projects for elementary students, as per Duke, would not be valuable unless they involve modelled writing exercises.

Comment from Harriett J.

Gale says: “I think a better answer to this would be more clear and direct that students who are reasonably fluent oral readers often are not writing well.”

This is what I’ve discovered with my third graders. Students reading well-above grade level are not necessarily adept at analyzing third grade informational text and constructing summaries (or longer pieces) related to that text. Most of my above-level readers do have correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar- — they are simply not equally proficient in extracting and recording ideas. Of course, their reading proficiency makes them invaluable when it comes to “partner reading”, but they are also gaining skills when we do “paragraph shrinking”. So we shouldn’t just differentiate based on reading level when it comes to writing about reading.

Comment from Jan Hasbrouck

Thanks, Tim for taking time to comment on the too-often neglected advanced readers. I’m in agreement with Gale and Harriett. On Nancy Young’s infographic The Ladder of Reading and Writing (opens in a new window) she notes that research supports considering “extended learning or acceleration” and “faster pace and increased implicit learning opportunities” for students who are more advanced readers, but she also notes that these students likely need instructional support for spelling and writing.

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