A Call for an End to Reading Comprehension Instruction?

As the conservative movement to turn back the clock on reading instruction flourishes in this age of Trump, the Simple Viewers are launching a muted attack on reading comprehension—sending out trial balloons. I’ve heard loops of arguments against teaching students how to “get the main idea” on Science-of-Reading YouTubes and read SoR papers claiming that comprehension strategies by the scores I used to teach in my Secondary Reading Methods courses are a waste of time. SoR has evolved. I am an anachronism.

Emily Hanford and Natalie Wexler have formed an uneasy reading instructional alliance on opposite poles, one favoring reading as speaking words distinctly without regard to meaning, one favoring summarizing knowledge accurately without regard to comprehension or understanding. The underlying theoretical connection between the two is located in the physical brain somewhere in deep storage. Phonics and Knowledge, in this view, are products of raw memory, and the way to stock memory is by reducing the cognitive load. Good teachers know how to reduce cognitive loads; what good would it do to muddy the waters with self-initiated student cognitive strategies to build capacity to shoulder stiffer loads? Why waste time teaching metacognition if reducing cognition is the teaching task, if learning means memorizing?

The new mantra goes something like “We were sold a story on phonics, and we were told a half-truth about comprehension.” Essentially, for this politically charged if loosely organized group, the recipe is phonics for all first, read alouds to build vocabulary, and then some simplified version of E.D. Hirsch’s knowledge curriculum. Reading instruction as we in the field have known it is a waste of time past second grade. Time thereafter should be devoted to disciplinary knowledge building—teaching and storing declarative knowledge of history, science, etc., in long term memory—the banking concept. Phonics, read alouds, then knowledge packaged and shipped just add water. Comprehension takes care of itself through accumulation of knowledge. We all know the strong relationship between knowledge and comprehension.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon an article titled “Teaching and Assessing Metacognition in Law School” (Gundlach & Santangelo, 2019). I was doing two searches of the university library, one looking for current research on the political unconscious (I want to understand how the guy of the 13 Keys managed to predict eight of the last nine presidential elections, missing only on George W. vs Al Gore) and one looking for anything to support the idea that the teaching of comprehension strategies has been, what, discredited? How did I miss the news?

On the contrary, teaching strategies for comprehending and understanding are still ok. Metacognition is big again, at least in legal education. “Over the past few decades, law schools in the United States have reevaluated the content and teaching methods of legal education,” Gundlach and Santangelo (2019) wrote. “This shift is primarily in response to the changing nature of the practice of law and increased awareness and study of learning theory.”

Alleva and Gundlach (2016) set the stage for moving into the implementation phase of metacognitive instruction in law schools by quoting a philosopher who was interested in consciousness and its power to direct itself toward desired understanding:

“The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see, and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself: and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance, and make it its own object. But whatever be the difficulties, that lie in the way of this inquiry; . . . sure I am, that all the light we can let in upon our own minds; all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings, . . . bring us great advantage, in directing our thoughts in the search of other things.”

—John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Legal education has been undergoing significant changes in recent years, with a growing emphasis on experiential learning, skills-based training, and the integration of technology. William M. Sullivan et al. (2007) published Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law also known as the "Carnegie Report," arguing for a more integrated approach to legal education that combines legal analysis, practical skills, and professional identity formation. “Thinking like a lawyer” in 2007 was sort of thinking like an automaton, treating every lawyerly human encounter as if it were just another case study, the single teaching method used uniformly across law schools. What was missing was an ethical compass:

“Being told repeatedly that such matters fall, as they do, outside the precise and orderly ‘legal landscape,’ students often conclude that they are secondary to what really counts for success in law school—and in legal practice. In their all-consuming first year, students are told to set aside their desire for justice. They are warned not to let their moral concerns or compassion for the people in the cases they discuss cloud their legal analyses…”

As I read this excerpt for the first time, I saw its unintended link to the type of pedagogy elementary school teachers following the idea of learning all the way to the bank for knowledge deposits as per the new and improved old tough love style of literacy as rocket science buy into: ‘They are warned not to let their moral concerns or compassion for the learners in their classrooms cloud their pedagogical decision-making.’ Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a warm and fuzzy teacher in the classroom. My goal is to support each learner to stretch their knowledge, their skills, their competence—as human beings living hopefully long, satisfying, and productive lives.

So metacognition is not irrelevant nor wasteful of precious instructional time. On the contrary, where some would argue that summary is the pinnacle comprehension performance, others, including wannabe lawyers, might argue for metacognition.