Getting at the Meaning: How to Help Students Unpack Difficult Text

Astudy that we conducted in 1991 on students’history learning included interviewing eighth gradersas they finished their study of early American history.Aquestion about what happened in the RevolutionaryWar prompted the following response from Jennifer,one of the students:I don’t really remember this too well; I don’tknow why. We always learn about this and Ialways forget. It’s so important too.Something like one of the colonies was toostrong and something happened and they gotinto a war over it, and it was going on for awhile and that’s just one of the things. I don’tknow why I don’t remember this. It’s prettyembarrassing. (Beck & McKeown, 1994)How many teachers have heard or expressed asentiment that reflects Jennifer’s confusion: “I’vespent all week teaching this chapter and the studentsjust aren’t getting it”? That students do not “get it” isa common concern among educators. Despite thebest efforts of teachers and the seeming attentivenessof students, students often fail to understand the ideaspresented in their textbooks. In particular, studentsoften are unable to connect the ideas they haveencountered to information that is presented later. Asone teacher expressed with frustration, “Sometimesthe kids learn something; they even seem to know itfor the test, and then, a month later, it’s like they’venever even heard of it!”P. David Pearson, a reading researcher and theformer Dean of the College of Education at theUniversity of Illinois, recently described hisencounter with this problem (Pearson, 1996):...when I ask teachers their most seriousconcerns in literacy instruction, theyinvariably say—and this is especially true ifthey teach fourth grade or higher—‘Well, ifyou think my kids have trouble with stories,you should come and see what we do withour social studies and science class. That’swhere the real trouble begins.’...If you look in middle school and high schoolclassrooms to examine the role of expositorytext, you are virtually forced to conclude thatit has none. Occasionally teachers assignexpository texts for homework, but whenstudents come to class the next day, clearlyhaving avoided the assignment, teachersprovide them with an oral version of whatthey would have gotten out of the text if theyhad bothered to read it. Most high schoolteachers have quite literally given up on thetextbook for the communication of anyimportant content. While understandable,this approach is, of course, ultimatelycounterproductive. There comes a time inthe lives of students—either when they go tocollege or enter the world of work—whenothers expect them to read and understandinformational text.The concern about reading comprehension—particularly comprehension of expository,informational text—is clearly widespread. Studentsare simply not garnering much meaning from much ofthe expository text they confront. Why? Part of theanswer, of course, is that the texts are often not wellwritten. They assume background information that