Teaching's Made Easier with Age Labels. Why Are British Authors Against It?
I’m throwing my humble hat into the labeling books for age appropriateness discussion ring. Lately, there’s been all this jabber about delegating age labels on children's stories and novels. The ruckus started across the pond when a few English blokes said, “Hey, can you help us find appropriate books for our kiddies?” As a licensed media specialist and teacher who was once censored from teaching a particular -more famous than famous British- novel, I am vehemently against censorship. However, I’ve a few opinions that lead me to side with the age appropriate labelers, especially when you consider my background working with struggling readers.
As a teacher, my time was limited. Very. I used several sources to scour for new and exciting materials. I would narrow the selections down by identifying stories that were recommended by peers and held topics of interest on the reading level of my particular students.
Once I made my initial selections, I would read the stories and choose the most appropriate ones for my students, which usually meant different books for my struggling readers, my average readers and my high achievers. Believe me - it would heave been MUCH easier to choose just one, but that’s not how good child-centered, needs-based teaching works.
The silly little label for age appropriateness, which the US publishers already put in our editions, was one less step in my crazy teaching life. Sure, I know how to perform a readability test on a story, and I was going to pre-read the whole thing anyway, but taking that step out of the equation made sorting to best choice so much easier. By knowing to look for the RL5 or Ages 8-12 label, my task was lessened and I could concentrate on planning lessons to meet the needs of my students.
The US readability labels are NOT interest labels and I’ll throw out the thought that adding interest labels wouldn’t be such a bad idea either. Those who argue content over readability level are in for another fight, as I believe the two go completely hand-in-hand. If you’ve spent the amount of frustrating time I’ve spent with struggling sixth and ninth grade readers, you’ll know where I’m coming from on this one. If she can’t read it comfortably, she can’t understand it (and I’m not talking about those readers who should be expanding their horizons, I’m representing for those poor souls who missed the reading joy along the way).
An example of why readability levels aren’t enough comes from one of my favorite books, The Giver. There’s a scene where the boy starts to have ‘feelings’ at night. The implication is there and many of my mature sixth graders giggled at the implication. But it was sixth grade and a letter had gone home to the parents stating the novel we would be reading and asking that they preview it before their child read it (humble opinion #2 - any teacher who doesn’t use this method is asking for trouble in today’s sue-happy culture). I once saw a teacher trying to read The Giver with fourth graders. Its readability label is 4.5. Certainly that teacher never pre-viewed the book with its abstract themes on free will, not an easy discussion in the average fourth grade setting. Shoot… I only used it with the advanced sixth grade readers.
So what’s the big deal? I guess this new age-banding, as it’s called, is going to be something more than what we already do here in the US. I find it amazing that many parents and even some booksellers have no idea that most U.S. children’s literature has a readability label hidden either on the back flap or inside cover (click image to see it larger). Why can’t England just do that? Does it have to be this flashing NC17 sign on the book? The kids I know, and many adults too, have never even noticed the U.S. age labeling. It all seems like a bigger ruckus than it need be. Note to splendidly accented, make me swoon at the knees Englishmen: just put nondescript labels next to the copyright. No one will even notice.
... In the interest of fair discussion, you can read the author Philip Pullman’s petition to stop age-banding: HERE. This is really difficult for me, as ten of my favorite writers have signed!
There’s also a fair discussion over on Pop Goes The Library: Here
Meg Rosoff writes in a Guardian article, HERE, that she found out the hard way that, “just because you can read book doesn't mean you should.” She also makes a good point about parents not pre-viewing their child’s reading materials, something I find deficient.
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3 comments:
Very interesting from the perspective of a teacher!
I guess I always thought the "age labels" were silly because everyone reads a different level. And nothing--no label--should override a preview. I worry about labeling books like movies and now tv shows are rated: beyond "reading level" everything is subjective. Content ratings are subjective.
That is crazy that a 4th grade teacher would be reading The Giver. I think that is a great example of a low-reading level book for older kids--a type of book that there needs to be more of for students that struggle to learn to read.
Rebecca: Content is not subjective from a teaching point of view. My Giver example tries to explain that some of the themes inherent to that book are quite lofty and until a child reaches a formal operational stage (Piaget), they'll have trouble grasping the concepts in a dystopia.
One of the teaching methods I used with The Giver was to have the students debate free will vs. safety & security for all. I gave the two groups a couple days to plan, assigned lawyers to ask questions, a jury to award points (with a pre-made rubric given to the debaters prior to the debate) and I served as mediator. I cannot tell you how awesome that debate was every year! But there is absolutely no way my low achieving readers in the same grade could have completed that task.
They'd have spent the majority of their time decoding the text and trying to comprehend the story. Does this mean that they wouldn't have enjoyed it? Not necessarily. It simply means that the content was too abstract for those particular students in a TEACHING setting. Maybe if they had read the novel for entertainment, they'd have been fine and loved the book as much as their higher achieving peers. Reading for learning vs. reading for pleasure are two different beasts even though their lines are quite blurred and teachers pray that their lessons are also entertaining enough to impart the lesson :-)!!!
This is why there are all sorts of literature guides to assist teachers in making informed selections. I've written a few myself and really miss that part of teaching/learning. So much so that I've offered to do a literature guide for Farworld: Water Keep over on my children's literature site & hope to have it done my the book's release.
Thanks for stopping in :-)
Thanks for the input from the teacher's point of view. I really am not familiar with it! Such an interesting discussion.
My mother teaches 6-8th grade ESL. I'll have to see what her thoughts are on this too!
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