August 23, 2007

Subject: New Reading Program Helps College Students Succeed in Math, Science, and Social Science Courses

“I enjoy reading for the first time in my life.”

“I focus more on what the author is talking about.”

“I am reading faster and smoother and have more comprehension.”

These type of comments showed up frequently on a student survey administered to students who had taken a new class initiated by Spokane Falls Community College (SFCC) two years ago to provide the “missing piece” in their developmental reading course offerings.

Helping Struggling Readers Succeed in Math, Science, and Social Science Courses

“Best practices” college reading programs typically offer study strategy courses, and at SFCC, study skills are often linked or paired with content area classes such as Elementary Algebra, Biology, and American History. While those courses and strategies have proven to be effective, SFCC’s reading faculty knew that study skills alone were not enough—there was still a gap in students’ ability to read and comprehend text at the literal level.

Reading College Texts—The Challenge

One of the challenges that college freshmen face in reading college textbooks is that many are sufficiently complex in both language and concepts that readability formulae would place them at high levels—most of them beyond 12^th grade. Contrast this with the reality that most entering freshmen at a community college display reading abilities less than a 12^th grade norm. The discrepancy between the students’ abilities and the demands of the texts creates a situation that is rife with danger of failure. It’s no wonder that “77% of 2-year college students nearing the end of their degree programs are not proficient in their abilities to analyze either prose or documents.” (Stephane Bakii, American Institutes for Research, 2003).

So what is a college or, more specifically, a college reading instructor to do to help students cope? SFCC tries to help the students out by identifying Reading Intensive courses in its class schedule every term so students can make good decisions about which classes to take. This approach—though commendable—does little to solve the basic issue: community college students’ reading abilities are frequently not sufficient to easily and comfortably get information from college texts.

Reading College Texts—The Solution

To solve this serious problem SFCC introduced Read Right, a reading intervention program with a very successful track record with adult students in workplace environments and in secondary schools across the country. Read Right is proving to be the answer for SFCC’s Reading Program. This highly structured methodology rapidly improves the reading ability of adult learners, and SFCC students are no exception. In the two years that SFCC has offered Read Right tutoring, over 200 students have been tutored, averaging one grade level gain for every 8-10 hours of tutoring.

Both teachers and students are thrilled with the transformative effect on students. Joan Nealey, Director of the Communications Learning Center at SFCC reports:

"I think this Read Right student summarizes every reading teacher's goal for student readers: ‘When I read I feel different; I feel that it is easier. I don’t struggle to read each word. I simply look at text, and it seems like text is talking to me. It flows in a line of thought; as a result it is much easier to understand. It doesn’t feel to me as though I am reading, it sounds. . . I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it is like reading someone’s thoughts. It’s not about the text; it’s all about meanings and I think I just get the meanings.'"

Such a significant transformation in students’ reading abilities has a profound effect on their lives and attitudes. Feedback from both students and instructors in other classes indicates that Read Right students become much more participatory in class, are much more likely to succeed, experience enhanced self-esteem, display a marked increase in confidence, and become more goal-oriented. Students’ cumulative data from 2006-2007 student surveys indicates that 78% of all Read Right students felt they were better readers as a result of being in Read Right, and 96% of the students reported that they would recommend Read Right to other students who need help in reading. (For a full copy of the 2006-07 survey results, contact Jan Swinton at jans@readright.com.)

It is interesting to note that many of the Read Right students who were referred by SFCC faculty were not aware that they could benefit from help in reading. Their reading abilities were “good enough” from their points of view, and they didn’t realize that their reading skill constituted a barrier to maximizing academic performance. After a relatively short time in the program (as compared to students with severe reading problems), they experienced the same transformative benefits.