Reading Resources - Part 1

 Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.
-Richard Steele, The Tatler

     Reading is a privilege that Black people in the past died for.   In a week or so, we will celebrate the accomplishments of  Black men & women who overcame great odds in the 1800 & 1900's despite the résistance they met.  Black History month will cause us to marvel at the bravery they showed while learning to read despite being prohibited by slave owners and later entering schools that they were not welcomed in.  Black Americans in the past knew illiteracy locked them out of any chances of a better life.

     As the Black middle class is faced with predictions of doom in 2015, we need to remind ourselves and our children that illiteracy is one of the main barriers to attaining higher goals.
In order to ensure our kids are where they need to be, parents need to be knowledgeable about literacy.   It is developmental.  Most kids in middle class areas " learn to read"- meaning the benchmarks that must be met by 3rd grade are normally met.  It is when they need to kick it up a notch and "read to learn", the benchmarks for 4th grade and up, that the problems begin.   Reading is the foundational building block for learning. With that in mind, parents must know where their kids fall on the reading development ladder. 

      The ability to read and comprehend increasingly difficult material is essential to our children's success in academia.  College degrees are one of the hallmarks of the occupations of the "Middle Class" and many occupations are no longer attainable with just a Baccalaureate degree.   Reading needs to start early & continue to build.  Just like the quote says above, it's like exercise for the mind.
It's not unreasonable to expect your kids to read 30-60 minutes a day.
     
      This is a hard time for raising middle class kids of  any race but for Black kids especially.  Our kids have a lot of luxury in their lives and a lot of the time, we don't make them do anything hard. Establishing habits that will enhance their education and get them ready to succeed will probably be hard.  When it comes to reading, set standards that will help your kids become better students in the end.  Start small if needed, but be intentional.   Buy books or check them out from the library.  My kids have been dragged to the library all their lives! I love libraries and we live in a great nation with wonderful ones everywhere.  

     I am no expert educator, but you don't have to be for your kids to read well. Most anyone can teach a child to read and you can certainly know if they are struggling.  I have put reading lists, reading assessment tests and links to literacy sites on the PAGES on this site- next to the Home tab.  Listen to your child read aloud- even in high school-reading aloud works to improve struggling readers and make reluctant readers read. It also builds confidence and poise for public speaking which in turn provides benefits in interviews and other social interactions. I read with my 10th grader still- especially if it's a hard text - we will take turns.  Last year, he read the unabridged Illiad by Homer and he read parts of it to me and I read parts to him. * don't ridicule, teach gently any mispronunciations.

A few Guidelines when it comes to Reading:

#1- Start reading  aloud to your babies from day 1! 

According to, http://1000booksbeforekindergarten.org/, " Reading aloud is widely recognized as the single most important activity leading to language development. Among other things, reading aloud builds word-sound awareness in children, a potent predictor of reading success"

"Research shows that the more words parents use when speaking to an 8-month-old infant, the greater the size of their child's vocabulary at age 3.  The landmark Hart-Risley study on language development documented that children from low-income families hear as many as 30 million fewer words than their more affluent peers before the age of 4".

The brain has to think when words are used to develop a story, the brain forms pictures of the little bears, goldilocks, etc.  Watching T.V.- the work of imagination is already done.  They only hear dialogue. 

#2 Make sure your child is reading by 1st grade, BUT beware of gimmicks!
Things like "Teach your baby to read"- are normally a waste & could be damaging in the end.
Reading is like potty training in the sense, the optimum time is child dependent.  I have 4 kids &  they all started reading at different times.  Generally, learning to read is not a problem for middle class students, Black or White.  It's what happens after they learn to read that is the problem.

*I will say though, I ended up teaching my youngest how to read over his 1st grade Christmas break. I  homeschooled him in K-5 and he wasn't ready to read.  I really didn't worry about it, but when his 1st grade teacher sent readers home, he had no real tools for figuring out the words.  After a conference with the teacher & finding out she had no real plan for teaching reading, I knew I had to intervene.  With a set of index cards & Bob Books- he was reading in 2 weeks.  By the beginning of the 2nd grade he was the only boy in the highest reading group.  If your child is not where they need to be - intervene. 

http://www.readingrockets.org/atoz/1122/all  (Excellent website about reading!)

#3 Make sure your child is proficient at reading by the end of 3rd grade !
 From the website www.gradelevelreading.net -
"Research shows that proficiency in reading by the end of third grade enables students to shift from learning to read to reading to learn, and to master the more complex subject matter they encounter in the fourth grade curriculum. Most students who fail to reach this critical milestone falter in the later grades and often drop out before earning a high school diploma. Yet two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders are not proficient readers, according to national reading assessment data. This disturbing statistic is made even worse by the fact that more than four out of every five low-income students miss this critical milestone."

#4 Don't stop Reading Aloud to your kids when they learn to read! 
You want to continue to expose your child to books that have a rich story line & vocabulary.  What they can read at grade level in the 3rd & 4th grade may not really enrich them.  When my youngest son Nick was in the 4th grade one of his assigned books was Rifles for Waite about a boy in a border state during the Civil War.  He could have read it, but for times sake- we got it on CD's from the library.  On the way to soccer & back we listened to this great book.  It became one of our fondest memories & started a tradition.  We would listen to books as we drove to practices, games, etc.  I would quiz him for retention & some had study guides.  He made A's on the reading tests, so it became a supplement.  A word of caution- this doesn't take the place of individual reading.  Your kids need to actually read.  It was in addition.  We homeschooled using a book heavy curriculum so it help to do some reading aloud.

#5 In the 4th grade start to introduce harder reading selections.  
By the 5th grade a strong reader needs to shift to stronger books. This will make the middle grades count.  By 9th & 10th they will be able to handle advanced texts & AP courses.

Some of the books on my 5th & 6th graders book list were-

The Bronze Bow, Elizabeth George Speare.
 The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff.
Tales of the Greek Heroes
Tales of Ancient Egypt
Padraic Colum, The Children’s Homer (Iliad and Odyssey)
Beowulf: A New Telling, by Robert Nye (Laurel Leaf, 1982); a good (and very exciting)
adaptation on about a sixth-grade level.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, verse translation by J.R. R. Tolkein
The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White’s marvelous reworking of Malory’s Morte
d’Arthur (Philomel Books, 1993)
Shakespeare Stories, by Leon Garfield (Houghton Mifflin, 1998),

Reading lists are on the Pages portion of this blog.
Look for my next post -Reading Resources Part 2
Gloria J. Adams
Fortify!

Reading

     After my ACT post on 1/24/15,  I received some requests for reading lists- I have put them as well as other resources on PAGES at the top of the blog.

     First, a Disclaimer.  I am not a professional educator.  I am just a Black middle class mom, who has been on a 24 year journey to ensure my own kids received the type of education they needed to be successful adults.  I am neither a public school basher nor a homeschool advocate. I have been involved in both.   I am a parent advocate.  I believe God expects us to raise our kids, protect, nurture, prepare and launch them.  In this role, we must use whatever resources are necessary to help us achieve this lofty goal. Sharing the information, knowledge and resources I've gained over the years is my purpose for Fortify!  Armed with help, middle class parents can beat the odds of their kids not doing well.
    
     There is a huge body of information available on reading, yet reading scores for Black middle class kids remain low.  All the knowledge in the world won't help if we don't access it and then insist our children do what they are supposed to.  I will be developing posts addressing the critical benchmarks parents should be aware of with reading.  If you are a middle class or even a working class parent you can ensure your child can reach these benchmarks.  There is no excuse for anyone to find out all of a sudden that their 7th grade child can't really read that well.  We should know what they are doing and how they are doing  throughout their education.

     There are tools you can use in your home to determine where you child is at.  You will need to spend time with your kids daily (or at least a couple of times a week), have them read to you- out loud even into high school.  Then take note of what you find and don't criticize- strategize. If you feel like you don't know or can't tell what they are doing wrong, then there is no problem in looking up word together in the dictionary. Learning is something that we should all arrive to do every single day. That is how growth happens, a little bit at a time. Everyday.

    A good plan would be:
1) Read my post Reading Resources Part 1
2) Use one of the tools for reading assessment under Pages
3) Pick a reading list & set a reading goal

Let me know how I can help!
Gloria J. Adams
Fortify!

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free"

- Frederick Douglass.

ACT Scores & Why They Matter.

      Many of my son Nick’s friends are juniors and they are starting to get their ACT scores back.  A lot of them were disappointed. Many are planning to take ACT Prep classes before taking it again, hoping to improve their scores.  So, I thought it would be a good time to talk about standardized testing in general & specifically the ACT.  Standardized testing gets a bad rap in the Black community.  Historically, Black children have not performed well as a group on standardized tests. According to the 2014 ACT stats for Alabama, the mean score for Black students was 17.2.  I’m not sure how that’s even possible unless you were asleep. Even in better schools, studies say Black kids do worse on average. It is not true of all Black students of course. My middle son and many of his friends made scores of 32-36.  What made the difference?  What is the root cause for this poor performance?  Testing is not going away, so what can we do to raise ACT scores?

       First, we need to understand the test.  The ACT doesn’t measure how smart you are per se.  It’s not an IQ test. A person may be very intelligent and have extreme potential, but if they have not mastered the subject matter while in school then they will probably not do well on this test.  The ACT simply tests for college and career readiness.  It answers the question of whether or not a student has learned enough English, Reading, Science and Math to be considered educated. The scores are from 11-36.   Each correlates to a level of mastery in a subject. 

     That is why I have an issue with the tendency to excuse black students’ bad scores.  The truth is, a lot of the time they have not been challenged enough! They don't have a good handle on grammar and composition causing poor performance in English. They haven't read enough difficult books to perform well on the Science Reasoning and Reading Comprehension which are really both reading tests. So, yes, the scores come back: 17.2.   There is no mystery to the ACT, it is a tool to gauge where our students are. The ACT tests the skills needed to perform at a high enough level to successfully engage in college level work.  Colleges use it to determine if a student will be able to function in college and if they will be able to read and comprehend the material.  Will they be able to write the papers, can they do the math?

      The ACT has set benchmarks- at the 8^th (Explore), 10^th (Plan) & 12th (ACT)  grade levels  The benchmarks are numerical levels your student should be at if they plan to be ready for college.  If they are not, there is time to adjust and improve.  High ACT scores are an indicator to colleges that a student has high potential for degree completion. Low scores mean the opposite- the likelihood of them finishing a degree program is slim. Will ACT prep courses help?  They might help with strategy, but not with mastery of the content. At best, these prep courses help a student identify weaknesses to focus on for the next testing iteration. 

    Secondly, MASTER MATH! The earlier, the better.  Ideally, you should plan for your student to master arithmetic by 6^th grade. Then take Pre-Algebra in the 7^th & Algebra in the 8^th.  This will allow them to go as high in math as possible.  Even if they are not “good” , they need high level math. They should memorize math facts & formulas. If they are struggling you might need to get a tutor. I couldn’t help my 10^th grader with Algebra 1 & changed textbooks twice, tried on-line & ended with a text way too hard for me even with answers.  I finally broke down & took him to a place called Mathnesium in Inverness, AL.  For $300/month, he had unlimited tutoring sessions. I took him & the text book to the owner and said help!!  It was an awesome experience.  He had mastered all of the Algebra 1 concepts & the text ended up being very advanced.  The best thing was Nick had confidence in his math ability.  We used the service for 2 months.

     Lastly, the thing that really has the greatest lasting impact is READING. Read, read, and read. I can tell you already-your school does not assign enough reading.  Students need to read full length books that increase in difficulty.  Back when my son Devin was in the 4^th grade, one of my husband’s clients' kids went to the Advent school (a private school in Birmingham, Al)  and I always liked to know about school reading lists.   Her daughter had books like the Prince & the Pauper assigned, while my neighbors in Hoover were reading A 4^th grade Nothing .  The Advent is a feeder school for The Altamont and Indian Springs- both are nationally ranked, elite private schools.  Altamont has rigorous reading requirements for their students- 3 books a month, not including school work.  From the 5^th grade on my son Devin read from a Classic book list.  He read a lot of books (& skipped a few), but we never did any reading comprehension books.  They can just read & tell you what happened. Devin &  I both were shocked when he got a 33 on Reading & a 33 on Science (lots of reading) on his ACT.  We did nothing special, but read lots of good books.  * He loved reading though and read all the Harry Potters in the 6^th grade.

     What if your student hates reading?  Or doesn’t hate it just could live without it?  Make him read anyway- tie it to food, the phone, car keys- after 30 pages you can have dinner that usually works.

     Having better ACT scores is possible for black students, but not if they don’t do the hard work.  It’s the same for everybody.

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

          -Colin Powell

That may sound corny, but it's true.  As parents we must hold our kids to a high standard.
Gloria J. Adams


© 2015

Why I had to start this blog- FORTIFY!

01/21/2015
     Statistics are funny little things- used for good or evil, for building a case or tearing one down.  Monday, on MLK day,  I read a couple of  blog posts with statistics so alarming, to not respond would be neglect.  The timing I'm sure, done for drama, gave them the intended punch. Both painted a dismal picture of the black "middle class".  The alarming statistic said,  " 7 out of 10 middle class black kids will experience downward mobility as adults".   That means 70% of our kids, not just the kids in the "hood", but our kids, in our nice homes & our nice neighborhoods will more than likely not be able to attain what we did.  And worse, will be in the same neighborhoods we worked to avoid.  At first I was in a state of despair. How could this be? We just arrived at "middle class" a couple of generations ago, so it can't be over already, not yet.   I know several kids of friends & family that somehow grew up & are now unemployed or underemployed.  Therefore, they did have downward mobility. So it could be true, BUT what was missing from these articles was why this has happened & what can be done to stop it. Where was the remedy, the hope?

     Now, I am really nobody, I am not a "leader", I hold no political office, I'm not a doctor or a judge.  I am simply a 2nd generation Black middle class woman who is sick of being lumped in statistics that only spin the story the media wants. Appealing to God after calming done - I thought of some things that are important, things not included in the posts.  There are facts and there is truth, but they are not the same.  Facts are grounded in reality, the now- what we see.  Truth is grounded in faith, the future- what we hope for.  These posts were full of facts and that's good.  The facts are sobering.  They let us know where we stand.  They let us know what we are up against, but they are not the end of the story.

     There is a reason why our kids are slipping and there are solutions to ensure they get and stay on higher ground.  I began to think of how it's like in Revelations, where an angel goes to all of these churches, telling them what they did good and what they are lacking- to the church at Sardis in Rev. 3 he says, "strengthen that which remains".  There are 3 out of 10 making it- what are they doing different?   What made the difference?  We need to highlight successful practices and replicate them.  We can change the statistics to 4 out of 10, then 5 out of 10, etc.. We have to, we must. For our own children & the generations to come.

     This blog is aimed at -strengthening- fortifying wherever you & your children are. In order to do that there is an investment that has to be made- of time, of patience, of learning and sometimes money, so you can help your kids. Be concerned, but not alarmed.  The links to the blog posts I referred to are below. I will be posting regularly- please post a comment or I can be reached at reapinjoy@aol.com.

Gloria J. Adams
Fortify!

© 2015

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/social-mobility-memos/posts/2015/01/15-mlk-black-opportunity-reeves

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/how-black-middle-class-kids-become-black-lower-class-adults/384613/