Context and Comprehension

Recently, I did a craft program at one of our libraries that had a mix of kids, tweens and teens in the room. In order to ease the process, I had created a list of the materials each participant needed to complete their project, went over it before I had each table come up to get the materials, then stood at the table helping them pick out their supplies. Here is what they needed:

1 large wood bead

1 whole pipe cleaner

1 half pipe cleaner

28 pony beads

1 bell

felt

So I helped the kids get their materials and it wasn't working. It was like they were ignoring what I was saying. Okay, I'm used to this, but something was kind of poking me in the back of my brain and about half an hour into the program I realized that they weren't ignoring me--they just had no idea what I was talking about. They did not know what felt or a pipe cleaner was and they couldn't distinguish the round jingle bells I had brought from a bead. As a crafter from the time I was three years old, this freaked me out completely, but then I started thinking about the big picture and I REALLY freaked out.

Reading is more just than just being able to sound out or recognize words and say them aloud. It requires comprehension, probably the hardest thing to both learn and master. What comprehension requires (among other things, I'm sure) is enough contextual knowledge of the world to be able to grasp or figure out meaning.

So using the kids in my craft program (who were wonderful, btw; this isn't a dig at them by any means) as an example, if they were reading a paragraph and it said something about a pipe cleaner, they don't have the contextual knowledge to know what that is, so that image is a hole in their comprehension.

This happens a lot, especially in as diverse a world as we all live in. I was in one of my classes a few weeks ago and the professor and several of the students had an in-depth conversation about whether Lil' Kim or Nikki Minaj was the reigning queen of hip-hop and I was lost after the first thirty seconds because I don't have strong contextual knowledge of hip-hop. My husband and I went with my stepson (age 14) to see Hairspray at LaGuardia High School and my stepson didn't get half the jokes. Again, lack of knowledge.

Here's another example. I was reading a book this weekend to review for VOYA and came across a couple of sentences that really jumped out at me in the context of this post:

"The angle grinder was a small hand held tool with a diamond wheel like a miniature circular saw used for cutting anything from concrete to tile."

So to fully comprehend that sentence, the reader needs to know what a circular saw is, and that a diamond wheel is a special kind of saw blade that has diamond on it to cut through hard-to-cut materials. As a teen, I would have understood this because I watched a lot of "This Old House" and spent a good deal of time in home improvement stores with my brother; but would the average teen girl for whom this book is written know this?

Here's another example in the same vein:

"We'll need . . . Some heavy-duty extension cords, a decent socket set, what else?"

See what I mean? How many teen girls know what a socket set is?

And when the texts young people are most expected to comprehend show clear bias toward the experiences of the dominant social group, those outside of that group are not only at a disadvantage when it comes to comprehension, they are getting the not-so-subtle message that their own context is not as important.

So again, I am making my pitch that one of the most important things we can do as librarians is to broaden the knowledge of the teens we work with so that they have a better understanding of the context in which they live and read. You don't necessarily have to bring in a socket set (although I am suddenly struck with the need to do wood craft programs--another initiative for 2011 to balance out the sewing programs--sweet!! Details TBA.) but think broadly about what you're doing for and with teens.

Examples: there have been so many really cool science discoveries in the news (my favorite is the one about the arsenic-metabolizing bacteria discovered in a lake in California) that could easily be made into a display, an impromptu trivia game or an online scavenger hunt.

Or what about the project ABC News is doing about simple, personal things we can all do to "save a life"? (I admit I didn't watch the special but I did see a clip about how Stanford University students developed warming suits for premature babies born in villages without electricity which is pretty cool.) The premise is to take a problem, focus on it and come up with solutions. We could do lots of things like this in the library, local problems, world problems, social problems, health problems. You get the idea.

Bottom line: if you want to help your teens be better readers, open up the world to them!

Cash in the Coffee Can: $180