Some of my most treasured memories with my children involve me or my husband reading to our wide-eyed brood, sometimes piled on a chair meant for two but holding four, sometimes sprawled out on a sheepskin in front of a roaring fire in midwinter. The stories that have captivated us most are familiar titles, tales passed down from one generation to another like a favorite family recipe or beloved heirloom. For my children, listening to those stories read aloud is tantamount to joining a community, entering into a heritage of poetry and prose that their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins have explored before them. Most of us long for our children to be swept up in the same classic stories that we ourselves have been shaped by and come to love—but how do we help struggling readers access such experiences? We rightly begin with basic phonics and decoding skills, targets for which numerous texts and programs exist, but how do we move struggling readers from the end of a reading curriculum into a sometimes quite difficult bank of readings we call classic literature?
In order to problem-solve, we must first identify the particular challenges our students face. A few immediate obstacles arise when struggling students encounter more difficult, classic texts: (1) the vocabulary may be archaic or unfamiliar, (2) the length of the text may appear overwhelming, leading students to negativity and despair, (3) the readability of older texts may be poor due to tiny font size or too many lines of text on a page, and (4) the ideas within the texts signal an increased cognitive load, articulating lofty concepts and requiring a new depth of concentration and analysis.
One remedy for these challenges is to incorporate short, digestible classic texts into a student’s reading training. CiRCE’s recent publication, The Fables of Aesop: Essential Wisdom for Every Age, offers a wonderful resource for this purpose. The individual tales are quite brief, enabling the student to wrestle with some unfamiliar vocabulary (this particular version primarily utilizes a 19th-century translation) with increased motivation. To further engage students, a teacher can highlight difficult words as a pre-reading task before reading each passage, then circle back to those words within—and again after—the story itself. In addition to motivating students to approach archaic or unfamiliar vocabulary, Fables of Aesop does not spell out the moral of the story at the end of each entry, making it a uniquely appealing resource. This intentional omission offers teachers a ready option for teaching inductive reasoning, equipping readers to handle increasingly complex ideas. It also makes the text much more enticing to older readers who might ordinarily categorize Aesop (or other short classic readings) as childish! Working through each fable can be accomplished within minutes and practiced repeatedly, giving struggling students exactly what they need: consistency, repetition, motivation, and a taste of success!
CiRCE’s two volumes of fairy tales, Tales of Wonder: Vol. 1 & II offer similar benefits for parents and teachers hoping to draw their struggling readers into the classics. Each chapter includes a preface that provides some background information about the story, including the mention of alternative components present in some versions but not others. These brief introductions serve to activate schema in the reader, orienting him to story elements such as character, plot, and setting and helping him connect new information to what he already knows. The introductions may also pique a reader’s curiosity and interest as she reads to discover which version of the story lies within this particular translation! The stories themselves, while not as brief as Aesop’s fables, do not overwhelm at first sight. Most consist of 5-8 pages of text, interrupted a few times by text boxes which include questions to pause and reflect upon before continuing. This structure is highly motivating for struggling readers who will often begin a reading task by counting how many pages they must read and will sometimes even look for breaks—such as the end of a paragraph or a text box with a question—along the way. The benefits continue as the reader finishes each tale: he will practice narration, consider a few key questions about the story, and then compare and contrast each fairy tale with stories from the Bible and other notable texts. This last component is not to be missed! Offering struggling students the opportunity to “listen for echoes” across literature increases their practice of and capacity for analysis and synthesis, and invites them to discover the beauty and power of the reading life.
In addition to these wonderful resources from CiRCE Press, parents and teachers can leverage other tools for helping struggling readers approach the classics.¹ Finding short, digestible texts, such as short stories or novellas, can motivate your student to read. Increasing text length slowly and incrementally often increases a struggling student’s confidence. Readers may also use a folded piece of paper or viewfinder to help eliminate distraction from many small words on a cluttered page. Making good use of pre-reading activities can also encourage reluctant readers to engage with classic texts; previewing vocabulary, orienting to genre, and even discussing time period or setting can empower struggling readers to approach a classic text with confidence. When time is an issue, consider encouraging your student to read a key portion of a text in print, but allowing him to listen to an audio version of the text in its entirety, providing both decoding/fluency practice and an avenue for processing the whole story in a meaningful way. Finally, acknowledge the role of abridged or adapted classics, such as beautiful illustrated retellings of The Iliad and the Odyssey, in supporting struggling readers. So often these texts serve as catalysts for encountering the original versions when further skill has been built!
Above all, refuse the temptation to believe that struggling students cannot access the classics. Not only can such students enter into this great tradition of excellent literature with some encouragement, instruction, and care, but they will find far more than improved reading skills as a result! In an effort to help your students who may encounter unique struggles within the limitations of our humanity, give them access to the human story told time and time again in the world’s best literature. Give them the classics; such texts will enrich their minds and their hearts.
¹ For more help and encouragement for leading struggling readers into the classics, see Sara’s book Reading for the Long Run: Leading Struggling Students into the Reading Life.
