Re: [Phys-l] Students' READING abilities

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@mindspring.com>]

At 15:36 -0700 02/23/2009, John Denker wrote:
> What I'm about to say may seem heretical, but please hear me out.
>
> I think it's going too far to tell students they must understand
> every sentence in the assigned reading.  IMHO that's an extreme
> position.  I am not arguing for the opposite extreme, but I am
> arguing for some moderation.
OK. I'll admit to making a point by overstating it. But there is also 
a difference between reading a book on a topic about which you 
already know something and reading one in which you are starting from 
scratch. I often read books about which I know a good deal, mainly to 
see if the author has anything new to offer, or if the approach to 
the subject is sufficiently different that I can deepen my 
understanding from it. On those occasions where I'm looking at a new 
subject, I have to work a lot harder to make sure I understand what 
the author is doing before I can go on. Otherwise, I will find myself 
hopelessly lost in pretty short order.

I think most of the students we are talking about here are in this 
latter category, and they should expect to have to read very 
carefully and at least know when the author is taking them into new 
and uncharted (for the student, at least) territory, and they need to 
make sure that they are following the arguments well enough that they 
can make sense of what comes next, and if what comes next doesn't 
make any sense, they need to stop and see if its possible to make 
sense out of it, and if not, seek some help.

It's always possible that the author is either wrong, or misleading, 
and the beginning student will not always realize this, so sometimes 
the reason the student is having problems is because what the author 
is saying really doesn't make sense. That's when the student needs to 
seek help, and the teacher needs to alert students to just such 
eventualities. That might make them less reluctant to seek help. It 
doesn't hurt to remind the students every so often that no book is 
perfect, and what is giving the students problems may well be a 
mistake of the author's.

Of course a text needs to have relatively few errors to be 
worthwhile. If the book is full of errors it shouldn't be used. But 
the occasional error and be used to advantage--it can be a great 
confidence-builder to the student to be the one who discovers and 
error, and it can often be a teaching moment for the teacher.

But, yes, I agree that it is not reasonable to expect the students to 
understand 100% of what they read. I haven't yet achieved that goal 
myself, so I won't demand it of my students. But they need to read 
with close enough attention, that they will at least know that 
something isn't making sense to them, and to wonder why. The more 
they practice that technique, the less they will have to actually 
think about it, and the reading should go more smoothly.

I also agree with the remark about teachers of science teaching the 
reading of science tests in their classes. But I really don't know 
how to do it, other than by haranguing the students to pay better 
attention while reading, a technique widely known for its 
ineffectiveness. Perhaps all teachers need a course in now to teach 
textbook reading, along with time to do so in their curricula (but 
just what will we leave out of the already vastly overcrowded physics 
curriculum?).

Hugh


--
Hugh Haskell
mailto: hugh@ieer.org
mailto:hhaskell@mindspring,.com

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