Fourth Graders Participate in Impressive Reading Program

By Martha Coville

At Head O’ Meadow School, a nationally acclaimed reading program introduces fourth grade students to ideas as complex as “the other.”

Lynn Lajoie volunteers with the Head O’ Meadow PTA. She explained that the Junior Great Books program “teaches children to become critical readers. It’s designed to have them read more than just words.” 

“When students first start the program,” she said, “they’re saying ‘We don’t like to read.’”

But when The Bee caught up with a small discussion group, moderated by HOM teacher Pat Kurz, the fourth graders were critically and emotionally engaged in a surprisingly difficult short story. They had just finished reading science fiction writer Ray Bradbury’s short story “All of Summer in an Afternoon.”

Language arts and English teachers, even at the high school level, often complain that students have never been taught how to participate in a genuine discussion about a piece of writing. This was not the case with Ms Kurz’s students. Although she gently encouraged students to examine particular aspects of the story, the discussion itself was driven by the students. 

For example, when student Chris Mandredi told Austin Bliss-Martinez, “I disagree with you,” he politely justified his opinion. Austin had just suggested that Margot stood among her classmates because they locked her in the closet. “But I think if that were true,” Chris argued, “the author would have said, ‘This wasn’t the first time they locked her in the closet.’” A third student, Sarah Lynn jumped in to support Austin. “But it seems like the kids have done a lot of stuff to her before,” Sarah said. “They bullied her.”

And when Steven Faxlander said he agreed with a another idea suggested by Chris, Ms Kurz pushed him further. “Tell me why you agree,” she told him.

“Make sure you get it from the text,” she told the group. “Get a page number.” Ms Lajoie explained that teaching students to support their assertions with references to specific passages in the text is central to the Junior Great Books philosophy.

This kind of close reading seemed to encourage a sincere engagement with Bradbury’s story.

Educators such as Mark McQuillian, the commissioner of the Connecticut State Department of Education, and Newtown Schools Superintendent Janet Robinson agree that engagement is essential to successful learning. In fact, engagement is one of the cornerstones of Dr McQuillian’s proposed educational reforms.

The HOM students became, not just critically, but also emotionally involved in the story. They sympathized deeply with Margot as a victim of bullying.

‘What It Does Mean To Stand Apart?’

Ms Kurz explained that her job was to moderate the discussion without directing it. She pushed her students to ask what exclusion, something every school child experiences, actually means. Do Margot’s classmates exclude her, she asked, or does she exclude herself from them?

“What does it mean to stand apart?”

“Today, we’re asking, ‘Why does Margot stand apart from the other students,’” she said. “Does being locked in the closet make her stand apart? The students who locked her in the closet have a sense of meanness. Does Margot have this sense of meanness? If she stands apart from the others, what does ‘other’ mean?”

In Bradbury’s story, Margot moves from Earth to Venus, where the sun shines for exactly two hours every year. Although she remembers sunshine very clearly, her classmates have never actually seen the sun.

Austin groped to understand what made Margot stand apart. “She has an image of the sun that they don’t have,” he said.

Madeline Sieber took his idea further. Margot excluded herself from the others, she said, because “she knew she had her memories in her head. So she didn’t care what the other kids thought.”

And finally, Will Roman suggested something Margot and her classmates will someday have in common. “In the next seven years, they will all remember the sun, like she does,” he said.