A Simple Reading Exercise, a Profound Teaching Impact

It was a simple exercise, an exercise teachers employ daily in classrooms across the globe. The student stands and reads a passage aloud in front of other people. There was nothing remarkable about it - except the results. Even highly skilled teachers need not only to challenge their students to greater learning, but to challenge themselves as well. The student bravely struggling to read a difficult passage aloud in this instance happened to be me. I have been teaching students to read this language for quite a while now, yet for the first time perhaps since my student teaching days, I connected to the inner mindset of my students in a visceral way.

The assignment was to tape record myself reading aloud from a text difficult even for a college educated adult. In reading aloud from a medical text, I found myself doing exactly the kinds of things I've routinely observed from my fourth grade students. I mispronounced unfamiliar words, hesitated - if ever so briefly - on words that were particularly challenging to correctly phonetically decode and thereby pronounce correctly, I substituted words without even realizing it, and most surprisingly to me, I read a couple of entire sentences without fully connecting to their meaning.

Next, I repeated the exercise in front of a colleague. Even as I labored to read the unfamiliar material smoothly and to safeguard my image as an intelligent human being, I found myself making the very same mistakes, although my presentation was more fluid. As I recovered from the bruises to my dignity, I found myself impressed with the simplicity and brilliance of this exercise. I have stood in front of a classroom for years, and never felt self-conscious. I once made my living as an actor, I still often perform on-stage and at school functions, I meet new people and discuss their child's educational progress regularly and while doing so, I always feel perfectly comfortable. Yet, when reading a jargon laden, difficult passage aloud in front of one other adult, I felt fearful and embarrassed at my every tiny miscue or hesitation.

It would be easy to say, "Now I know how my students feel," but it would be wildly inaccurate. I, after all, am not still learning the rules of spelling, grammar and phonetics. I'm not a shy nine year old, desperate to please their teacher - and by extension their parents - and equally fearful of subjecting myself to the ridicule of my classmates, who at this stage of social development comprise nearly the whole of my universe.

This simple exercise in empathy crystallized in my mind the concept that I must make my students absolutely certain that I, as their teacher, am there to facilitate their learning. I must and will ensure that they do not perceive me as some judge - or worse, a prosecutor - looking to mete out punishment for imperfection. This applies not merely to reading, but to all subjects.
In addition to now being armed with a greater understanding of my students and the challenges reading aloud presents them, some practical applications of my newly found empathy will impact my future teaching strategies.

First, I'll be explaining to my students that in learning to read, making mistakes is not only predicable, it is required. Nobody learns to read and speak this complex language overnight, and we will encounter words throughout our lives that have been previously unfamiliar to us - and which will therefore be a challenge to pronounce and comprehend.

Secondly, I'll make my students aware that learning anything requires being willing to make errors. Just as a basketball coach (assuming they're not legendary hothead, Bobby Knight) does not expect a player to make every shot, no reasonable teacher is going to lambaste them for still being in the process of learning, in any the area of study.

Finally, this exercise will result in my making students aware that ridiculing another student, while always unacceptable, will have profound consequences if the ridicule is directed at a fellow student's performance in reading aloud. This will not be undertaken because I enjoy being punitive, authoritarian or a disciplinarian; it will invoke this response because the implications for negatively impacting another student's ability to learn, coupled with the potentially staggering blow to their self-esteem is simply not permissible. I'll make it clear to my poorer readers that while they are still learning, I will not tolerate their being shown any disrespect. My better readers will be encouraged to challenge themselves with more advanced material - material difficult enough to make them aware that while they are accomplished and deserve to feel pride in their achievements, they also have more to learn.

It was the simplest of exercises; it had the most profound effects. Today, I became a better teacher.