“I Don’t Like Answering Questions”

“Mr. Stygles, we don’t like having to answer questions about reading and use evidence to explain our answers.”

This was the consensus after our third and final interim assessment, the April administration of the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey (ERAS).  The first question related to academic reading, asked students if they liked answering questions after reading.

I was not surprised by this answer, as it’s often the case, year after year, when students, regardless of age are introduced to close reading.

There are several reasons for this, in addition to me allegedly making their lives miserable by having to slow down their reading, highlight evidence, and organize it in writing.

The reasons are as follows:

1)      Discerning the difference between aesthetic reading and efferent reading

2)      Experience with responding to questions about reading.

3)      The reading processes a student engages in.

The first reading is discerning between aesthetic reading and efferent reading. Most of the time, when I begin working with students, be it fourth to sixth grade, students don’t know the difference in styles of reading.  They equate reading with pleasure reading because many influences around them are happy they are reading, that is choosing books on their own and quietly reading when necessary. The confusion for readers is my advice, a more strong recommendation, that they “use their strategies” while reading to glean deeper meaning from their reading. Secondly, there is the expectation that they are able to talk about the book they are reading (Beyond saying, “It was good.”) which requires specific details and paraphrasing.  While it’s not beyond reason for any reader to be able to earmark and quote parts of any text they are reading, I understand such activity can be a giant leap for maturing readers and it’s our responsibility to plant those seeds in our time together.

The catch is that students generalize such activity in their pleasure reading as a threat to their enjoyment, the same enjoyment they’ve been encouraged to foster since they began reading independently and borrowing books from the library.  Such sentiment is exemplified when students chime “I just want to read.” While I share this sentiment with them and for them, I am also inclined to value their perceptions about their reading and the perspective about the text, which can often fall short if they are just reading for pleasure, that is to say, passively, with no goals for their reading purpose other than to enjoy reading at that moment.

It’s not as if I am asking them to answer text-based questions on their independent reading, however, research indicates, and we all know from experience, that consolidating what we have learned or experienced in our reading through writing afterward is beneficial. Needless to say, I am often the one who has to bring this new perspective into their reading lives and introduce new dimensions to their reading process, which can often be a threat to their reading identity.

Second is their experience with answering questions. Their experience with efferent reading, in the domain of close reading, is at an introductory level, to say the least.  This doesn’t mean they don’t have experience answering questions about reading.  Rather, be it from short passages and literal comprehension questions that follow, be it TPT downloads, EPIC! Reads, or other formats, students are rather accustomed to reading and answering questions with one-word to short answers, mainly from memory or at best a glance back to find a “right there” answer.

Understanding who you are as a reader and building an identity as a reader that is based on the success of reading short passages and answering literal comprehension is great as students exit their primary year.  As early as fourth grade, students should begin answering comprehension questions with at least references to the text.  Unfortunately, when reading response questions are reduced to worksheets students begin to build a perception of themselves as readers that is not based on an authentic reading experience. Thus, their understanding of what comprehension, which is contextualized, is likely valid under a given circumstance, which is not responding to text-dependent questions.  Herein lies one of the critical conflicts in my classroom – the shifting of self-perception and self-efficacy based on how comprehension is framed, which leads students to wonder if they are still “good” readers.

Finally, what reading process does the student engage in? Are they reading actively or passively? Were the reading selections chosen for them? If so, does the content capture their interest? How does the assigned reading resemble their self-selected reading?  These are all questions students consider as we engage them in reading assignments

For example, students tend to read passively during independent reading.  Now they have to read actively. The entire point of the exercise is to learn how to use text advantageously (Although it’s always amazing to see how many students read the assignment with a pleasure reading process or a read/answer task).

My students love to lament the selections I choose for short passages and close reading activities.  It’s never what they are interested in.  And as they say all the time, year after year, “I only have to read what I’m interested in.”  Well… no. The idea here is that I don’t ruin what you are interested in and if lucky, we can uncover a new interest!  Still, students tune out when the text doesn’t appeal to them, which makes the task cumbersome. Further, it shows that students aren’t ready to break from the concept of pleasure reading and pleasure reading only.

Finally, does the close reading resemble their pleasure reading?  My intent is no, but as written earlier, some students automatically engage in the task as if it’s their independent reading or reading the answer. If the text looks like they would read something to enjoy they feel robbed. If it doesn’t look like something they want to read, they can be averse to it, which leads us to the point – working through unfamiliar text or otherwise avoided text to gain skills working with non-preferred reading – a very real part of life.

All of this factors into a student’s motivation, which can be difficult to navigate.

Ultimately, I can see why students’ attitudes regarding answering questions decrease throughout the year. Nonetheless, someone has to break the mold to give readers basic insight into text-dependent questions and deep comprehension before they are expected to respond in such a fashion regularly.