Rethinking Core Reading Curriculums: Tweaks to Boost Student Success

Many states have enacted legislation requiring school districts to train teachers in evidence-based practices and to utilize core reading curriculum that is aligned with the Science of Reading.  To that extent, some legislation also requires districts to choose a program off an approved list.  In Virginia, for example, the Virginia Literacy Act requires each district to choose a program off an approved list for core curriculum, supplemental curriculum, and even intervention curriculum.

When I first heard about the Virginia Literacy Act, I was so excited.  Finally, we would have something in place to safeguard against the use of ineffective practices.  I’m sure if you’re living in a state with a similar act, you felt the same.  But what I’m realizing is that there’s a disconnect between the act itself and the practices that these approved curricula are promoting.

Nothing is perfect.  No legislation.  No curriculum.  Nothing.  So today, I want to share some of the issues with core curriculum, then talk about small tweaks we can make to that curriculum to ensure our students become proficient readers. Even if you have just a small amount of autonomy when it comes to your curriculum, these are tweaks you can make.

Issues with Approved Core Reading Curriculum

In Virginia, companies had to have their program evaluated by review committees who used a rubric to determine whether or not the programs would make it onto “the list.”  But one issue with rubrics is that they often ensure certain things are included, but do not evaluate as to whether or not other things are excluded.

For example, on the Virginia rubric for 1st grade there are many things that MUST be included, such as cumulative review, a scope and sequence, predictable phonics routines, segmenting, blending, and more. But there’s nothing about what SHOULDN’T be there.

The truth is this:  textbook companies continue to add things to their textbooks so that they can fit rubrics, without having to take anything away or fundamentally shift their standing on reading instruction.  So, instead of having a targeted curriculum, you have one that is so bloated you can’t possibly teach it all.

Mega-textbook companies are curriculum stuffing, where they put everything you could possibly want into a core reading curriculum so that it will be approved by anyone. You want guided reading? We’ve got it! You want to teach heart words? Sure! You’re into structured literacy or balanced literacy? We’ve got both!

Last year, when my district ordered our approved curriculum “off the list” we got 5 pallets of materials delivered.  Imagine my surprise when this approved program had boxes (and boxes and boxes) of guided reading leveled texts for every grade from kindergarten-fifth.  And guided reading lessons to accompany it. One of the worst offenses was the inclusion of a reading inventory to determine guided reading levels. This is a perfect example of how even the approved programs need to have tweaks.

Core curriculum programs somehow have too much and yet not enough.  So let’s talk about shifts we can make to improve them.

Ways to Alter Curriculum

Build Background Knowledge

One thing that has struck me time and time again with these curricula is the lack of knowledge-building.  What I see instead of knowledge building is the textbook asking teachers to “activate” knowledge.  For example, in one textbook 4^th grade teachers are prompted to ask students what they know about the space race as an opener to their unit on space.

Y’all, 4^th graders don’t know anything about the Space Race.  How are we supposed to activate background knowledge if we’ve never taken the time to build it in the first place?

One easy way to improve a basal curriculum is by adding in activities that will actively build the background knowledge students need.  Take a look at the topic you are teaching—are there videos, maps, globes, illustrations, or photographs that you could bring in to give students a better understanding of the topic before you read it? Take a look at this blog post if you want more in-depth examples of how you can actively build background knowledge with your core curriculum.

Building background knowledge is critical, because knowledge sticks to other knowledge.  We only have so much cognitive desk space.  When we build background knowledge, we clear up some of the cognitive desk space for our students, allowing for deeper thinking and understanding around a word.

Evaluate the Vocabulary Words

If we want to improve comprehension, we cannot overlook, ignore, or underestimate the importance of vocabulary instruction. Did you know that Cunningham and Stanovich (1997) found that “first-grade vocabulary predicted students’ reading achievement in their junior year in high school”(Beck et. al, 2013, p.2)? If we want children to better understand texts at the global level, we need to focus on ensuring they have proper knowledge at the word level.

As adults, we have tens of thousands of words in our vocabulary. When there’s such a large amount of words to learn, its imperative that we carefully choose the vocabulary words we want to explicitly teach in a reading lesson.  We should strive for teaching Tier 2 words, which are academic words that will come up in multiple contexts and settings.  Instead of teaching the most difficult or scientific word when we encounter a new text, we want to teach the words that are most likely to continue coming up throughout a child’s education. (Unless you’re a science teacher, of course. Then, scientific vocabulary is a great focus.)

Most basals have lists of vocabulary words you should teach.  But when time is limited, can you really teach all of them?  Instead of extensively teaching every vocabulary word listed in your basal, choose the ones that are most likely to appear time and time again in texts.

Here’s an example list from a core reading program of words to teach for the week: locomotives, chugged, gadgets, phonograph, sputtered, flop, incandescent, patents. Which of those words do you think children may see time and time again in multiple contexts?

When I think about chugged, we could talk about chugging a drink, a train chugging along, or even a person who is “chugging along” with a task. That is a word that has multiple meanings and will likely help them understand more texts. But what about phonograph? Do we really need to do extensive vocabulary activities with that? Can’t we just tell students it’s like an old-fashioned recorder and move on? Which word is more important to know deeply?

One easy way to work within the confines of your curriculum is to carefully evaluate the vocabulary words and spend less time on the ones that aren’t necessary to know deeply. Looking at you phonograph. (Which, by the way, I had to google to even know what it is. So that alone should tell you something!)

Remove the Fluff

Earlier, I mentioned curriculum stuffing.  One way we can improve reading is to actually REMOVE some of the materials that are in the text.  We don’t have enough time to teach it all anyway, so we may as well eliminate some of the things that aren’t as critically important to our children’s understandings.

For example, in one core program, third grade students read The Wind in the Willows.  Before reading the text, there’s a lot of background about it.  Some of it is useful, like mentioning how this is British English so there will be some spelling differences, but there’s other information that really isn’t necessary and is just prolonging teacher talk.  For example, the teacher is supposed to tell students that this book is a classic and ask them if they know of any other classics (Really?  Odd, but okay).  Then, there’s an entire paragraph about how the author is from Scotland, and that Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, etc.

We know there is too much information in our core reading curriculums. Look at your curriculum and see if there’s any parts of it that can be eliminated, saving you time so that you can actually make it through a lesson in a day.

Increase the Volume of Text

Some core reading curriculum only get you through one text a week.  Do all texts really need to be read three times?  While I understand the reasoning behind rereading texts multiple times for different purposes, it can get boring and prevent our children from wide reading. Our kids need to see a variety of texts, because that is when we begin to understand the nuances of specific words and continue to build our understanding of the world around us.

I’m not saying we should never reread a text, but when we are planning our lessons for the week, let’s evaluate how much text children are actually reading.  Are there ways we can add in additional texts that can both give children the volume of reading they need AND build background knowledge?

If you are unable to bring in additional texts in whole group, think about what you can do in small group. If the unit is on inventors, what if you chose small group texts about different inventors? I love using texts from ReadWorks because they are short, you can print them, and every bit of it is free.

So evaluate your curriculum, see if there’s enough text being read both to and by students, and adjust the best you can!

Decide if you’re talking too much

It’s not easy to look at yourself and wonder if you’re talking too much.  If you’re like me, you just assume you are and work daily to talk less. Joking aside, think about how much your textbook is asking you to just talk to students.  Chances are there’s so much teacher talk that the children very rarely get to do the hard work of learning.

I’ve been exploring a lot of core reading curriculum lately. And the amount that teachers are asked to talk is astounding. Don’t get me wrong-we need teachers to give direct, explicit instruction. And many times that does include us just telling things to students.

But, are there ways that we can talk less so students can engage more? There are some textbooks that spend so much time talking about the text students are going to read that they don’t even get a chance to read it until the next day. Can we eliminate teacher talk and replace some of it with partner discussion or guided practice with feedback?

Look carefully through your lessons for the week, and once again prune places with too much teacher talk.

Final Thoughts

If you are somewhere where your hands are being tied because of a core reading curriculum, I know the frustration behind it and that fidelity is most likely your least favorite F word now.

But there are some small things that we can do that no one would ever know unless they were sitting in our classrooms observing us everyday. Eliminating teacher talk, extra fluff and truly evaluating the vocabulary words are some small tweaks that you can do. Bigger things, like adding in additional texts and building background knowledge may take more time and cause more waves. Start small with one of these tweaks, then continue to add in as you feel more comfortable with the curriculum and ways you can deviate.

Works Cited

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. New York, NY: Guilford Press Book/Childcraft International.