Literacy at CSH
“Some say they get lost in books, but I find myself, again and again, in the pages of a good book. Humanly speaking, there is no greater teacher, no greater therapist, no greater healer of the soul, than a well-stocked library.”
― L.R.Knost
Literacy!
When you think of literacy, I’m sure that an obvious wide range of emotions is thought of. It’s a word that could have many meanings to anyone. The most basic, though, is that literacy is our ability to read and write in life.
This means that everyone has literacy skills, right? That these skills are important to develop for us, right?
This has been a question of spotlight in Comp Sci High recently, as many students and teachers alike talk about it due to one of our newest revamps to a school program: ‘Literacy Block’ during the study hall period. We all know what literacy block is. Read for 25 minutes, read a certain amount of pages, log your book in at the end of the reading period, you get the idea. We can all agree that this is a locked in situation, though not all of us like the idea of it.
“Why is literacy so important? What does it do for me? We need to fix this program! I just don’t like it.” These are the common responses we hear but never answer, so I decided to look into why such a small word like ‘Literacy’ sparks such a reaction within our community.
Chapter 1: Let's Go Literacy!
To fix a complaint or understand it, the obvious point is to learn of its origin and reasoning behind it. Literacy block was added to develop our students’ literacy levels; reading and writing levels had been going up and down, to up and down again across grades. You know those iReady tests we dread taking each trimester? That's what tells the teachers your reading and writing skills, so seeing those levels helps identify what these students need to develop on, and what support they need. The reason we see it in our study hall period is because it's one of the only times students might read. Ask yourself: “do I read in my free time? How many books might I finish by the end of the year?”
Sit and think about that for a second.
In a statement given by Common Sense Media: ”33% of thirteen year olds and 45% of seventeen year olds reported they read for fun no more than once or twice a year.” A shocking statistic at best, but it isn’t a surprising one. I knew that many around me didn’t like reading during study hall, and I wasn’t the biggest fan of it either at first, but soon it did grow on me. But I wanted to hear more voices and opinions from across grades, everyone likes things differently, so I reached out to some fellow students.
I sat down and talked to student Jaylynn Ortiz, a current 10th grader in Comp Sci High. Though I never interacted with lower grades much, Ms.Golden had told me about her: “Jaylynn used to never like reading and had feelings about study hall. But once she found her book it's the first time I saw her fall in love with reading and growing so well.” Hearing that sparked me to talk to this student.
When conversing with her, I asked the common question “What do you like about the literacy block?”
She replied almost immediately, “Taking time out of your day to sit down and read. To have that moment, to read personally has grown on me.Before the literacy block I used to never read, But now it has allowed me to see improvement within myself.”
That response made me question even further, “How has this literacy period helped you improve?”
She smiled abruptly and answered proudly, “It has helped me grow in English class alot, during this week I got (Hood Feminism) to pick up a topic to write about. This book helped me get inspired by my essay about feminism and the fear of it. It has helped me so much as a writer.” Quickly she added after, “it has helped me develop a love for the english arts.”
Literacy has helped shine in our school clearly, and hearing a student's growing favor of it was surprising. So to learn how this literacy could have such a profound effect on one student, hopefully even more, I asked the one and only Ms.Golden.
She sat across from me with a big grin about our upcoming conversation, Ms.Golden has been such a strong advocate for Literacy. She makes slideshows, holds meetings and develops standards that students and teachers should follow during study hall for its literacy portion. Of course hearing it from the boss herself would make things clear.
I asked more logical questions, such as “Why is the Literacy block so important to incorporate into a school day?”
“When I reviewed the diagnostic from the 2022-23, I saw a major decline in reading level within our school setting, seemingly every new diagnostic.The data tell us that students who read more have better academic achievement, so we want to build in a literacy block in study halls so students can perform better academically.”
Ms. Golden stated that seeing the reading levels change so abruptly and taking action was important. The fact was that literacy helped improve students academically, and it’s also a big part of our everyday lives. No matter what, you read something everyday, write everyday, and speak everyday!
Those skills require literacy and those skills are needed academically, they help improve you academically. Studies shown like one by the Institutes for Education found that students who read for fun had a 14.4% advantage in vocabulary and a 9.9% advantage in math compared to students who don't read. Perhaps you never even thought that Literacy had a big effect on your mathematics classes...I didn’t either!
I asked the most common complaint that I heard from students:“Do you think study hall times affect the levels?”
Me and Golden came to an agreement, she said-”Yes the scheduling affects student production, and this initiative is new so we are trying to work on it because it's a new process we want to constantly improve.” Not everything is crafted to perfection, we know our own study hall times and what we might want to do instead during it. But for the teachers to even take time out of their day to work with us to read and find books on our own is a big step in the right direction. At the start we were forced to read articles depending on your reading level, now at least in my study hall period all students are allowed to read a book of our choice. This from what I saw got many students to actually sit down and read in peace even if it took a couple of days.
Ms. Golden even added: “This period also allowed the students to finally find a book that they will enjoy; we start trimester one as the starting point to get students interested in what they will be reading and help them with that self discovery.” Another point is to let the students discover within themselves what they might like to read, and discover the importance of reading, even literacy in itself.
Chapter 2: The Honest Struggle
“There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book.”
― Frank Serafini
Everyone has a reason to not like something. Or to have something associated that prevents them from trying something new and doing it in compliance or their own will.
When I was in elementary school, I was born with a heavy speech impediment. Something that affects my ability to speak and understand certain words, speech patterns, just literacy itself. I took speech programs to help improve my speech but that took years to even get to the point you won’t even notice it now. During a popcorn reading, I was asked to read a page in 5th grade; I remember the fear I felt and anxiety with having to read in front of the class. And I attempted to read, some words I paused, attempted, and paused again to sound it out like I was taught in those speech classes. The teacher laughed abruptly, so students followed suit. I was red and trying to finish the page as quickly as possible, so I stumbled and stuttered again. Once I was done I buried my face, now stained in tears, and listened to students who read perfectly and happily. I grew a disdain for reading after that, the idea of enjoying something that caused me constant trouble. Who would want to do that?
I share that because I am not the only person who has dealt with that. There is a type of Trauma associated with literacy. Humorous or stupid you might think it sounds, but everyone is different! I don’t say I have trauma with it but the embarrassment is lingering, and plenty of students may read slower then others, and many may stumble over their reading or even struggle in writing while watching other students be great at it in their eyes. Again, I would encourage you to stop and think if you dislike literacy, why?
The second major issue I came to realize, is that a student's economic standing plays a part for someone's access to literacy. In the Bronx you can find some public libraries here or there. But they are exactly that, here or there. My closest library near me is a couple blocks away, not taken care of, hard to apply for and seemingly always closed. How many times have you been to a public library? It's not surprising if you have never been in one until you started school. Now with the rise of prices due to inflation, books cost so much more now! When I go out to buy books, three books may cost me around 60..only 3!
Surely we also have all seen those book fairs school would hold. Many times students would not have enough money to even afford a folder, or parents can’t split their money for a book because of the working struggle. Why is something deemed accessible for all and important for someone's social and academic skills so hard to reach. In our building most classrooms have bookshelves, but students may not find the books fun or enjoyable to read. The building does also have a library downstairs we can access, but we also share that library with other schools and other needs.
At the ages until we are adults, we are all sponges, and we absorb from those around us. Many times the adults in your life like parental figures may not read, nor might they have a book lying around the house that might be fit for you. If you don’t see them doing anything associated with literacy, or encourage you to try this then it's the idea of ‘Why should I?’ A parental figure's connected trauma or resentment towards literacy affects how their children will portray themselves.. You see this alot during summer vacation, if students are assigned literacy assignments they may or may not get it done because they don’t take pleasure in reading during their break. Sadly even if they don’t have any work, it was found that most lower class students can’t afford to participate in literacy compared to the common middle or upper class students; The learning gap between the three widens very far.
But enough with statistics; perhaps it’s not that ‘deep’. So I reached out to a senior and what they think of literacy being more major in their final year of high school before college and well the real world.
I messaged them some questions and within time they replied back.
I first typed out: “Why do you hate the literacy block?”
They replied quickly, firmly, and honestly: “I dislike it because you sometimes just don’t want to sit down and read. I feel like I could be doing something else, like if we are reading something in English during that period of time that's cool. But we are not always assigned that, it's more like we have things to do so I rather have that literacy block also be for work.”
When I had read that It actually made me pause and remember something Ms.Golden said about the positives: “So 9th graders are more nervous and try to focus academically, but as you reach senior level that decline is obvious due to the idea of college and growing adulthood.” And that was the honest truth. How many seniors actually rather read than get work done from an apprenticeship, classes or working on supplement essays and applications for college or the workforce? Not many I assure you but there still are some. Yes, 9th graders may want to be more academically focused, but that does not mean other students like seniors are not either, they just have other values and stuff that gets ahead of the literacy block. They can be flourishing in their classes but just don’t want to read for pleasure.
CHAPTER 3: What Now?
With everything I gathered it made me think of one thing: Student involvement on how the literacy block will work and how to curate a safe space. Ms. Golden’s main goal is to curate a safe space with this block to benefit students for their education and future life goals. It's a beautiful achievement Comp Sci High wants students to reach, and that can also be curated by their own students not just only staff involvement.
I thought of some possible solutions:
Each study hall creates goals students have to reach within the week for reading, the students and teachers set realistic goals for themselves. This means that some days students have to read the 25 and other days spend time for their work or get a needed resting period. It builds habits and a better understanding between students and adults.
Students create their own reading list, at the start of each trimester students spend a week picking a book that interests them and they will actually read. Submitting these students can go to the library downstairs or ask the school to order the books.
Create study groups, so that, when it's a work period, students sit together and work with people that also have similar assignments. While creating a certain voice level and work goals that have to be met.
In the end, Literacy is important! But that does not mean it's not without hardships, it's something that requires development and ownership. No one improves in literacy without motivation. Literacy is all around us. And that means we need time to develop it, but also work on other skills.
I encourage you to give it a try but also communicate responsibly with teachers about your struggles with literacy and other things that require your attention.