The CIA Is Looking For A Few Good First Graders

Have you seen the movie A Beautiful Mind?  The one where Russell Crowe portrays a brilliant Cold War era economics professor who is drafted by the CIA to break Soviet Union code.  It’s a very intriguing movie and I won’t give anymore away, because the twist will knock your socks off. 

I mention this movie because the first grade has been immersed in some subversive activity as well.  It’s all very hush-hush.  We are spies and operatives involved in top secret code breaking that is vital to the future of… well, of us.

A year ago when I was taking a Reading Methods course, the instructor placed a sheet of paper in front of me that was crisscrossed with indecipherable lines and squiggles.  She asked us to “read” it.  Really?  I stared at the darn thing until my eyeballs ached.  “Does it really say anything?”  I finally asked.  Very smugly, she assured us that it did indeed have written words on it.  Finally one of my more gifted classmates shouted exultantly, “I see it!”  See WHAT??  I could not discern a blessed thing.  But then again, (and this is hard to admit), I could never Magic Eye either.  I would stare at those goofy pictures until my corneas began to harden, and I just couldn’t decipher the hidden picture.  I can’t seem to look beyond the obvious and see the hidden. No kidding, it must have taken me 10 minutes to (kinda’) see words in that mess of lines and grids. 

The point of the whole ridiculous (and effective) exercise was to remind we future teachers just how difficult and frustrating learning to read can be for young children.  It just looks like strange lines and squiggles to emergent readers.  And yet, we brilliant educators get frustrated when they seem to struggle and tell them to “try harder.”  Worse yet, we make accusations and judgments about levels of ability, motivation, or even intelligence.  The problem with that approach is that trying usually isn’t the real issue.  The approach we SHOULD take is to give them strategies for breaking that indecipherable code.  A child should be armed with a variety of strategies in order to attack those mysterious and frustrating words.

I remember when I was very young, probably three or four, my father (an educator) found a “groundbreaking” system for teaching children to read that incorporated flash cards of sight words.  My father set about to teach his oldest child (me) to read before I had even started kindergarten, which just wasn’t an expectation back then.  Children weren’t pushed to begin reading until first grade.  Well, he had a moldable brain in his hands and, by gum, I would beat the odds and shine like the young Einstein I was.  And so, for what seemed an eternity each day, he would hold those hated flash cards in front of my face and expect me to read those indecipherable words fluently.  They might as well have been written in Mandarin Chinese.  I had no idea what they were supposed to say or mean.  The worst part was, after a few sessions, I began to sense his frustration with my slowness, and that only exaggerated my stupidity.  I WANTED to read for my dad, but just couldn’t.  The desire was there, but not the ability.  I could feel his dreams for the next Madame Currie being slowly snuffed out.  After a few weeks he stopped tormenting both of us.

In many cases, we practice the same ineffective teaching methods today.  We say READ and think that the command is akin to waving a magic wand.  It’s not.  We must find their learning style, and equip them with several different strategies, so that when they bump into an unfamiliar word, the first reaction is not stress or panic (which causes the mind to shut down), but rather methodological attack.  They must learn to break the code, like Russell Crowe and his covert drop-off box.

I recently handed my reading intervention group a take-home reader, each receiving a copy of the book in their own particular level of ability.  As a teacher, it is challenging to find text that is easy enough for the student to read that will instill confidence, while challenging enough to keep them moving forward.  I then asked them to find an alone spot and read independently.  I always ask them to read aloud quietly so that I may listen in and make sure they are actually reading.   I’m always a little suspect when they appear instantly at my elbow claiming they have finished their book.  Oh really?  How’s that speed reading course you’re taking coming along?

One of my students came back to my table within a few minutes and handed the book back to me proudly.  I looked at him dubiously.  “Are you really done?  You read all of it?”  “Yep” he shot back.  I wasn’t satisfied.  “So you’re telling me that you read every word in this book?,”  I pressed.  “Yep” he repeated confidently.  “And you understood it?”  I just couldn’t let it go.  He leaned close to my face, his eyes wide behind thick lenses.  In a conspiratorial voice he whispered, “I broke the code.”  It took me a moment to catch on to what he was saying.  Then as understanding dawned I broke into a grin.  Here was a child who had always found reading to be incredibly frustrating.  He didn’t like to read and did as little of it as possible.  What he was really telling me at that moment was that he no longer felt powerless to face hard words.  He would attack each one using whichever strategy fit the word, moment, or even his mood at the time.  And if one didn’t work, he would try another.  He had found a way to feel in control of his reading.  It no longer intimidated him.

I smiled all day over that little exchange.  Reading is such an important part of my life and has brought me so much pleasure and broadening of my world, that I want all kids to experience the same joy in it that I feel.  I learned to read with Dick and Jane readers.  It worked for me.  But I had plenty of classmates that were lost in a morass of confusion and embarrassment over their lack of reading ability. 

Even four months into my teaching career, I can see how formative these first experiences with reading are.  I see the students who fly through words like they’re cutting butter with a hot knife.  And then there are the students who struggle constantly.  Reading doesn’t come naturally and it isn’t fun for them.  They would rather not, thank you very much.

It is for these little ones that I so long to help them succeed.  Reading can change the course of a life!  And so I look at each student and think, “What will it take to get you motivated to become a code breaker?  How can I reach that place inside you that flips the switch of ‘want-to’?”  It’s a little overwhelming to understand the gravity of such an assignment.  Time will tell if I can be effective.

But for now, my little agents will keep cracking the code and keep improving little by little. 

Our future is safe in their hands.