Secondary students are often disengaged with reading in their English lessons but enjoy reading in their own time, and a Federation University research project is helping teachers turn their classes around to love reading at school.
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Several Ballarat schools are among 33 secondary schools that have been part of the six-year project to change the way texts are taught in classrooms and how students engage in school-based reading.
A range of secondary schools including elite private, Catholic, metropolitan, regional and rural schools have taken part and students commonly said that a focus on highly structured written responses, testing and certain interpretations meant many did not bother reading the set texts at all.
"It is interesting because even though they are diverse schools the same patterns come through," said Federation University senior lecturer in education Amanda McGraw.
The project begins each year with group discussions with students about their reading experiences in classrooms, then works with teachers to change their classes to focus on the process of reading rather than the texts themselves.
"What we find is that many students aren't reading the texts in English; it's not that they can't read it, they choose not to read them.
Students can gather information about texts in other ways than reading them. We now have lots of information about texts online, there are a plethora of study aids that relate to the texts and teachers are giving them support so they use the information from the teacher or what's mentioned in class discussion to gain insight about the text and not read it.
- Dr Amanda McGraw
"Others disengage and the main issue is if they are not reading the text it has implications for the sort of response they are giving in written tasks relating to those texts. And they are not building the capacity to read deeply which is what you want them to do."
Dr McGraw said a focus on NAPLAN and other testing meant students were often taught to write essays and give answers to a specific formula or format to maximise marks rather than develop understanding of the text and language used.
"Students can gather information about texts in other ways than reading them. We now have lots of information about texts online, there are a plethora of study aids that relate to the texts and teachers are giving them support so they use the information from the teacher or what's mentioned in class discussion to gain insight about the text and not read it."
The research project has also helped develop a Reading Capabilities Framework to help teachers engage students in their texts in different ways.
"Teachers are really trying to go back to something more student-centred rather than teacher-led. One of the things we develop through the project is a framework of reading capability - when you ready well these are the sort of things you do in your head.
"We need these things to be a focus and the heart of activities we design in English. It's not about making sure kids write essays but connecting students in to effective reading processes - getting students to visualise, to make connections, to have an embodied response when they read that enables that talk to themselves in their head and pose questions.
"As well as that we want students to be nutting things out in conversations with other students so they ... realise there are multiple ways to interpret text."
She said many students were reading outside of school because they had a choice about what and where they read - something that does not happen in a classroom.
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