KidNuz Convos: Sun, sand, lemonade and a good book: The importance of summer reading!

Tori

Good morning, and welcome to Kid News Convos. I'm Tori. This is our first Convos of the summer, a time for most kids to relax and get a break from school. Many like to play sports, hang out with friends, or read lots of books. But for some, that last one can be tricky as some kids have a tough time learning that essential skill. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are some simple steps to help everyone experience the rewards of reading, and summer is a great time to make that happen.

Joining me now to talk about this is Doctor Marnie Ginsberg, a former English teacher who worked with students and teachers for twenty-five years, has a PhD focusing on literacy, and became a reading expert who's helped thousands and thousands of students.

Thank you for joining me today, doctor.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Why thank you so much, Tori. It's my pleasure.

Tori

So you've obviously been doing this for a little while. Do you feel that kids are having a harder time learning to read now compared to when you started teaching?

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Well, it's interesting because in some ways, yes, we actually have data that it's getting a little bit harder and some there's forces working against reading like digital devices. That makes it harder for all of us to actually get the time in to read, including adults. But we've also been struggling in the U.S. about how to teach reading for many decades. The U.S. government has measured students' reading achievement since 1992, and it's been pretty consistent since then, and it's been not so good. In fact, it's dipped a little bit just recently after the pandemic, and… if you look at fourth graders, about seventy percent of them are not proficient. So that's a pretty big group of kids. I'm sure those who are listening and, you know, include some of them because so many of our kids are struggling with reading. And it’s a pity because researchers have actually worked really intensely on how the brain learns to read and also how to teach it to kids. And is it possible for all kids to learn to read? Because many do struggle. But they have found that when they do evidence-based instruction and with sufficient intensity, as few as two or five percent should struggle.

Tori

Wow.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

So we really have a mismatch there in what the potential is and the actual current state of affairs. So that's why I've been working at this so passionately, and I know many other teachers and advocates, have been doing the same because we know it. We can do better.

Tori

Yeah. And there's a lot to, kind of unpack there and discuss. Bu…one thing that caught my ear, if you will, was you mentioned fourth graders, and that seems to be a critical age. And I remember when my kids were young and they were in that third, fourth grade level, and the teacher said, the first part of elementary school, you learn to read.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Mhmm.

Tori

The second part, you read to learn. And that's… why it's so important to test reading at that age?

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

It is a pretty significant break there, so to speak, in the data. Some kids can kind of limp along, if you will, up until through, you know, through third grade, and then the text get longer and harder. And if you don't have those foundational skills and you haven't had a lot of practice, then it's hard to read a extended text on a topic that you may or may not have heard anything about before. So, yeah, there is some truth to that learn to read versus read to learn, but a lot of what is seems to be broken in the system is the first stage. We're just not doing a great job making sure kids learn to crack the code. Our written language is a code for sound. So if you see the word cat, those little squiggles, the c-a-t, they represent the sound c-a-t. And we have to learn as beginners how to crack that code. So we need to, that one's kind of easy, but we need to understand how it applies in all sorts of combinations. Some kids have a little more natural aptitude picking that up than others, and then some are receiving better instruction in how to pick that code up.

Tori

So for kids who are struggling to crack the code, and if they haven't learned early on, I'm sure it must be a little frustrating, you know, for kids.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

It's very frustrating, yeah.

Tori

And so.. what can be done?

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

We're mostly speaking to kids, and that's… there's only so much that a child has the ability to make the change of for parents and teachers and advocates. We really need to understand that early intervention is vital. That means kindergarten and first grade that as soon as there's any sign of struggle, we the system should swoop in and, give extra help to that child so that he or she doesn't drag that problem into later elementary and middle and high school. Not only does that make it hard to be a good student, but it it breeds a dissatisfaction with the self in many cases, low self esteem.

Now for the child out there who wants to learn to read, she knows that she's going to be smarter and make school easier. She wants to read the books that maybe some of her friends are reading. One thing she can do probably is get an adult or a better reader in her life to sit with her and coach her on words that she struggles with. That may mean sometimes they just give her the word or maybe if she's struggling with the word “boat” that they point to the “o-a” and they say, well, this is “o,” and then she does the rest of the work. So that kind of feedback is vital for anyone in that early developing stage or anyone who's struggling. And another thing that a child can do is to go to the library or access things on your tablets and devices where you can listen to text and look at the print at the same time. That's very powerful. That can kind of help you self teach yourself a little bit.

Tori

Interesting.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

I don't wanna put all the burden on the child, of course, but those are maybe some inspirational ideas to go, take advantage of this summer when you have more free time.

Tori

Right. And, actually, that's something that some educators have told us (about) how they use KidNuz, our podcast, because we do offer a printed transcript.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

I love that idea.

Tori

Yeah. So a lot of kids can listen and read along at the same time. And so I guess that helps, like you said, imprint it in the brain to be able to…

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

It can… it'll reveal things that they didn't understand about the code potentially. If they're trying to look at those letters now.. why is “instead” spelled that way? And it'll and if they hear it, it'll give them some tools.

Tori

Okay.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Listening more than once is also very helpful. So for KidNuz, they could go through it once, twice, three times, and some of those words will stick permanently potentially after that.

Tori

We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, I'm gonna ask doctor Marnie Ginsberg about the big debate over the best way to teach kids to read and a great resource to find the perfect book for you to read this summer. You're listening to Kid News Convos.

A friendly reminder that Kid News is a nonprofit that survives and thrives on the generosity of our audience. Every penny supports the production of our regular kid friendly news podcast five days a week. Plus, these Kid News Convos episodes featuring conversations on a single topic of interest to kids. Please consider making a donation on our website, kidnuz.org.

And we're back with more Kid News Convos on the rewards of reading. I'm Tori talking with literacy expert, Dr. Marnie Ginsberg.

I know there's a bit of a debate, an ongoing debate in the teaching to read world about phonics versus whole language, and it seems to kind of swing back and forth.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Yes.

Tori

And so it sounds like you're more in the phonics camp.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Right.

Tori

Could you explain to kids or maybe some adults listening also the difference between the two techniques?

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Right. Well, it is peculiar that for over two hundred years, the grown ups in The United States have not been able to agree on how to teach our children. And as a result, there have been arguments among grown ups, teachers, and, the people that train teachers, researchers. I think that's really the main reason that we have that proficiency gap that I talked about at the opening because we've been misled. Teachers have been misled. They have been taught incorrect information that doesn't align with the science.

But the main differences, historically, are one paradigm or viewpoint is whole word, whole language, which also became balanced literacy. Now there are variations among those things, but, fundamentally, they put a lot more stock in the child's ability to look at the whole word and learn it as a whole. And that seemed to be compelling for a while, but for over fifty years now, we have growing evidence that the brain actually can't do that. Our language is so diverse. There's hundreds of thousands of words in the English language.

You probably will know 20 to 40,000 words by the time you graduate from high school. You can't memorize that many things as individual items. You have to understand the code, and you have time, so to speak, for your brain to think about the meaning. Because that's ultimately what we're doing when we read. If we're successful, we're thinking about the meaning, and the recognizing of the words is barely in our consciousness.

Tori

But I assume that we're all different and kids are different and the kids learn at different levels or learn in different ways. So for a child who, you know, sees a friend or a sibling reading really easily and they find it really frustrating, that's, I'm sure that teachers can handle teaching kids with different skill levels how to read or who learn differently.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Right. Yeah. It is very frustrating for many children. In fact, we see even frustration crop up in kindergarten if students feel that they're not succeeding, and they know if they're not cutting it. And so that's, again, why it's so important for us as a system and the adults to jump in and remediate that problem or solve that problem as quickly as possible. What's interesting about learning to read is that the underlying aptitude or ability that makes it easier is something called phonological awareness. That's a big word.

Tori

That's a big word.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Yes. Phonological has the root of phone or in as in to hear. Are you aware of the sounds and the words? That's why I've been talking about the c-a-t because that is what helps us see the code. We actually go through our hearing system to be able to crack the code, which we think of as a written thing. Right? Because you're just using your eyes. Right? Well, actually, the first kind of ability that makes or breaks the experience is whether you perceive those sounds and words really easily, and you can process that fast. So if you can hear the word “slim” and quickly understand that it's sl-i-m, you're much better equipped for learning how to read many, many words. So that aptitude is like any skill or gift, just like some kids can sing in tune and some kids can't as easily.

Tori

That would be me not singing in tune.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

And it's actually not associated very tightly with IQ or, you know, intellectual abilities or intelligence. It's just this one little kind of minor mental ability that some people have, and then it makes it easier for them to pick up the code. And then many, many don't have that aptitude. And so, again, we go back to instruction. That's why it's so important we teach them how to perceive those sounds and tie it to those symbols.

Tori

You're obviously very passionate about this topic. Could you kind of briefly describe to us what prompted you to go down this path and become the expert that you are?

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

I didn't intend to do this. I just feel like I was led to it or stumbled into it, because I was a middle school English language arts teacher, social studies teacher, and a lot of my kids were just frustrated with reading. And I had a master's degree, and I didn't know how to teach them how to read. And I looked around, read a lot of books, realized, oh, you know what? This is not an uncommon thing. Teacher who has been prepared to go into teaching hasn't really been prepared. And why are so many of our kids so far behind? Because I was teaching a sixth grade class, classes. I had about 80 kids across the course of the middle school day, and they were reading on average at the fourth grade level. And a lot of that was because they couldn't attack an unfamiliar word. So I finally found some things that worked, made a big difference with two nonreaders in my sixth grade class. The last year I was in the public school, and they moved up about four grade levels with me just kind of fumbling around with an approach that I was just learning. And then that really triggered me.

I thought, like, these kids, they were in school for seven years, and they were nonreaders. And with an approach that worked for them, they learned that much in that short of time. So that really set me on this path to find a way to get better at teaching kids, but then also disseminate or share with others how to make it easy to teach kids how to read. And I've been really enjoying that work. It's been very gratifying.

Tori

That's wonderful. And so because of this discovery that there is a way to teach kids, you started your own business. Can you tell us about it?

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

I went from public school then to private tutoring, and then I went to get my doctorate at the University of North Carolina when I was there. I as a student, I had an unusual opportunity to develop an intervention, which is a program to help kids who are struggling become good readers, and it worked. And there's lots of research articles about it showing that it was effective, and the federal government has it on a clearinghouse or a recommended site called the What Works Clearinghouse. So that was very exciting that we could see that change. But as is very common with research, it doesn't actually get into practice. There's something called the research to practice gap, and I was really experiencing that. So that's why I decided to develop the business called Reading Simplified, which is trying to get the ideas out about easier ways for teachers to learn how to teach anyone how to read. And I've been doing that for about ten years.

Tori

So your program is more for teachers versus, like, parents?

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Teachers and parents and tutors. Kind of anyone who has a beginning or struggling reader in their life that they want to get out of that.

Tori

Right. Because I was thinking with the beginning of summer, I know kids are, you know, enjoying a summer break, but it could be a good time to work on improving reading skills.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Yes. It's vital. There's a very famous, phrase called the summer slide where kids lose a lot of their academic accomplishments, and it could be really bad in reading. And, some research has suggested that reading as few as four simple chapter books can prevent the reading slide. So whether you get some instruction in how to crack the code or you just listen along to text and read some more text or read them on your own, you're likely to either get better or certainly just not weaken your ability. So you start the next school year really strong.

Tori

So I was curious if you had any fun summer reading book recommendations. When my boys were little, they and, you know, very young and learning to read, they loved Captain Underpants. You know, which was really silly, but it cracked them up and it encouraged them to read. And then as they got older, they loved Alex Ryder and, you know, just Lord of the Rings. So do you have just a few recommendations?

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

I think it's so individual and personal. Some kids are gonna really love fantasy. Some kids are gonna want biography. So, my advice to kids, but also especially the grown ups in their lives, look for a series that might hook your child because that's a way to get them to voraciously read because they are into that series. And I love to go to imaginationsoup.net. My friend Melissa Taylor is a great reviewer of kids' books. So if you want second grade fantasy, you can find something on her site or fourth grade historical fiction, you know, and she's got lists of summer books. So definitely check out imaginationsoup.net for great recommendations there. It's really just a matter of what's your interest and what hooks you. And then it doesn't have to be a series, but I'm just telling you that that can be a real a trick to make it more fun.

Tori

This has been great. I really appreciate, you know, such great advice. Anything else you'd like to add for reading for the summer, especially?

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Well, this is such a perfect time to put your device down. It's fun, but it's like cotton candy. And the substantive steak is the reading that's gonna last you and give you much better nutrition, for your life, so to speak. So if you become a good reader first of all, to become a good reader, you have to just do it. You have to practice a lot, and if you have to get help if you need it. But when you do become a good reader because you've practiced a lot, then so much opens up to you in life. You can find school pretty easy, and then you have more choices when you graduate from school where to go into the next things of your life. What kinds of jobs are gonna open up to you? You'll know more about the world. You can talk better with other people about lots of different things. There's so many advantages besides just it can be really fun. I find that it's not fun initially when you're frustrated or you haven't learned to love it. It does take time and practice, but if you find the books that interest you, then I believe everyone can be can learn to love to read, and they can, really thrive at doing that.

Tori

Well, we certainly hope that's the case for all of our KidNuz listeners. Doctor Ginsberg, it's been wonderful talking with you, and I hope you have a wonderful summer and lots of good reading.

Dr. Marnie Ginsberg

Thank you. You too.

Tori

And you can find more information on Dr. Ginsburg's program at her website, readingsimplified.com. Thank you for joining us today for this latest Kid News Convos episode. We hope you found it helpful, and let us know what you're reading this summer.

Send a comment to our email, we hear you at KidNuz.org. Our next convos will be on July 5, featuring two winners of America's Field Trip Contest as part of an effort to raise awareness for our country's 250th birthday next year. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.

To hear the interview, please listen here.