Laura Patranella makes it a priority to read at least one novel each year with her elementary school students, relishing both the depth of these works and students鈥� communal experience of talking about them.
This year, her 5th graders took on Love That Dog, a novel-in-verse by the young adult author Sharon Creech. The novel tells the story of Jack, a boy who initially resists poetry assignments from his teacher, but eventually uses them to work through his emotions and find his own voice. It ends with a dramatic reveal: The dog Jack used to have, the subject of his poems, died in a car accident before the book began.
鈥淪haron Creech is so good at this, where she just hits you hard,鈥� said Patranella, who teaches in Seguin, Texas. A collective sadness blanketed the room when students read the end together in class, she said. 鈥淭hat was a really powerful time for everyone.鈥�
Moments like these push Patranella to find the time for studying novels together in her classroom, even though the curriculum her district has chosen doesn鈥檛 include them in core reading lessons.
Patranella鈥檚 challenge鈥攈ow to fit in longer works鈥攊s a microcosm for what has begun to emerge as a major concern in reading and English classrooms: Whether students are getting a dwindling diet of lengthy, more challenging, and complete texts, especially novels, in school. Much of the concern in literacy circles has focused on high school and college students thanks to recent, viral articles鈥攍ike claiming that college students struggle with lengthy assigned reading or report having never read a book cover to cover in high school.
But there are signs that some classrooms are shifting away from long-form reading much earlier, as far back as elementary school. And a debate is growing over whether popular curricula increasingly being taught in those grades is the culprit鈥攐r whether the causes are fundamentally broader.
One thing is clear, reading researchers say: Novels, and longer works in general, are powerful teaching tools for children in upper elementary grades and beyond.
鈥淭he reading brain needs to be exercised,鈥� said Maryanne Wolf, the director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the University of California, Los Angeles. 鈥淥ne of the major ways to exercise it is prolonged, denser reading that is continuous.鈥�
Are students truly reading fewer books?
Some signals suggest that middle grades students鈥攁nd even high schoolers鈥攎ight be reading fewer books in class, although most of the available evidence relies on relatively small samples and anecdotes.
In 2023, in data accompanying an EdWeek story on reading stamina, a quarter of 糖心动漫vlog in grades 3-8 said that reading classrooms in their schools rely primarily on excerpts. The data came from a nationally representative EdWeek Research Center survey of about 300 district administrators, school leaders, and teachers conducted that year. About half said they used a mix of excerpts or basals鈥攁 type of anthologized reader typically containing many excerpts鈥攁nd whole texts.
Outside of school, the percentages of 9- and 13-year-olds reading for fun daily or weekly have steadily declined since the 1980s, . Even , suggesting the trend towards less reading might transcend age.
Determining what to do about the apparent decline isn鈥檛 so clear cut. While teachers and researchers alike agreed that students should read some full books in the curriculum, their prescriptions on how to accomplish that differed, as did what they consider the right mix of readings.
The issue implicates the very purpose of the English classroom: Is it to teach love of literature? To prepare students for the reading they will do in the workplace and civic life? To expose them to a set of widely referenced topics and works, an American canon? Or some combination of all the above?
Patranella has started to see calls for more novels in elementary curricula in the online forums for reading teachers she frequents, a development that gives her pause鈥攅ven though she prioritizes whole-book reading in her classes.
鈥淚 feel like it鈥檚 just being framed really simplistically,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not OK鈥� when reading programs don鈥檛 include a single novel all year. But the ideal classroom would represent a mix of text types, she said. 鈥淓ven if you look at the curricula that do have novels, it鈥檚 not like they鈥檙e only teaching novels.鈥�
And while it might seem obvious that whole books鈥攏ovels, plays, memoirs, nonfiction鈥攚ould be at the center of reading instruction, the education field has long debated exactly what, and how much, students should be reading in class. In fact, the use of excerpts in lessons dates back almost 200 years.
The basal reader has a long and contentious history in American education
That old tool鈥攖he basal reader鈥攊s one of the culprits now blamed in contemporary debates about reading.
These anthologies are specifically created to teach reading, and generally feature excerpts from fiction and nonfiction books paired with skill and strategy questions. They have a long and controversial history in U.S. education and in English-speaking countries in general.
The first anthologies designed specifically for students date back to the mid-19th century. Most notable are the McGuffey Readers, which included lessons in reading, spelling, and vocabulary along with excerpts from Shakespeare plays, Charles Dickens novels, and the Bible, among other works.
Excerpts were selected to teach morality, and introduce students to cultural capital, said Seth Lerer, a visiting professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., and the author of Children鈥檚 Literature: A Reader鈥檚 History from Aesop to Harry Potter.
The approach, said Lerer, amounted to: 鈥淟et鈥檚 take works of literature, and find the most teachable, didactic thing in them, and extract them.鈥�
Basals have had a secure place in elementary school classrooms since, joined in the 1950s and 鈥�60s by some supplemental novels of students鈥� choice, often read during a dedicated 鈥渟ustained silent reading鈥� period.
By the early 2000s, many schools embraced readers鈥� 鈥渨orkshop鈥� models, in which teachers introduce comprehension skills that students then practice on their own in different books designed to match each student鈥檚 particular reading level.
The ongoing 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� movement has taken aim at these reading workshop programs鈥攊n large part because these curricula didn鈥檛 systematically teach foundational reading skills, like phonics, in the early grades. Some reading researchers also criticized the workshop approach, arguing that independent practice in typically easy books gave struggling readers especially 鈥渓ittle support or motivation鈥� to read and discuss with others increasingly challenging, grade-level text.
The teacher鈥檚 role in leading lessons around a challenging, grade-level book is key, said Phil Capin, an assistant professor of education at Harvard University who studies effective reading instructional practices, especially for students with reading difficulties. Studies on sustained silent reading鈥攎eaning providing time for students to read independently, with little or no direction鈥攄on鈥檛 show a big effect on comprehension, he said.
The research doesn鈥檛 suggest those strategies bring consistent benefits, most likely because 鈥渓earners benefit from explicit instruction and feedback,鈥� Capin said.
How popular elementary curricula include鈥攐r exclude鈥攏ovels
Now, as the science of reading movement has pushed workshop curricula out of classrooms, a host of other programs have rushed in to take their place, all branding themselves as evidence-based鈥攂ut with differing approaches to whole-book, whole-class reading.
Some of them, like Bookworms, ask older elementary students to read five or more novels and nonfiction books over the course of a year; others feature mostly shorter children鈥檚 books and excerpts throughout elementary school, with optional novels teachers can choose to use for reading instruction.
Data on curriculum adoption provides some clues about which approaches are taking root. Programs that center anthology readers in upper elementary grades are growing in popularity, according to a preliminary Education Week analysis of school district purchases directly from the curriculum publishers from GovSpend, a platform for searching and analyzing government procurement data, including spending by school districts.
Into Reading, published by HMH, and Wonders, published by McGraw Hill, both include student readers composed of short texts and excerpts as a core component of instruction. Total district spending on these curricula has nearly doubled since 2020, according to GovSpend data. (The purchase data also may include some ancillary purchases, of professional development materials and other resources, in which the name of the curriculum was included in the purchase data. The dollar amounts are not adjusted for inflation.)
Both of these series have received top marks from EdReports, a widely used and influential rating system of curricula that has shaped state and district adoptions. Several of the whole-text focused curricula have not cleared EdReports鈥� highest bar. Such decisions have been .
You need to model somewhere in the curriculum what it means to read a whole text in the company of an engaged community.
Still, it鈥檚 hard to know exactly how any of these programs are being used. Both Wonders and Into Reading include a vast suite of materials, from classroom read-alouds to supplementary novels that can be integrated into small group work. Some teachers might use these materials; some might not.
About 80% of all the resources in Into Reading, including optional supplements, are whole texts, said Jennifer Hitt, the vice president of product management and strategy for K-6 literacy at HMH. The program鈥檚 core reader is a mix of full short works, such as picture books, and excerpts.
鈥淲e want to expose children to broader content knowledge, and in order to do that, it sometimes makes sense to pull an excerpt,鈥� Hitt said.
Including excerpts also provides exposure to multiple text types, Hitt said, referencing a 3rd grade unit on animal behaviors that includes informational text, narrative nonfiction, and fiction. If students are interested in reading the full text of something that has been excerpted, Hitt said, 鈥渢hey could certainly go check those books out from their library; we encourage that.鈥�
Katie McClarty, the chief academic officer at McGraw Hill, said in an emailed statement that Wonders includes 鈥渕any full-length authentic texts as well as some excerpts.鈥�
鈥淲e strongly believe that students should be reading longer texts, especially as they get older. It鈥檚 also important for students to have opportunities to engage with different types of complex texts and learn how to approach them and access them,鈥� she said.
Teachers鈥� opinions run the gamut on the whole-text debate
If the reading habits of elementary and middle school students are largely unknown, the landscape is even murkier in high school. Since the rollout of the Common Core State Standards more than a decade ago, 糖心动漫vlog and experts have warned that the academic guidelines鈥� focus on nonfiction reading could crowd out literature from classrooms.
But a survey this year from the National Council of Teachers of English found that the most popular texts used in middle and high school are all plays and novels long taught in the traditional Western canon. (The survey doesn鈥檛 probe how teachers use these works鈥攚hether, for instance, students read them in full, or primarily engage with excerpts or adaptations.)
Educators who spoke with Education Week ran the gamut. Some had always used novels and plays and planned to continue to do so.
鈥淭o my knowledge, most people use full texts in the classroom,鈥� said Jay Arellano, a high school English teacher at Legacy High School in Broomfield, Colo. His 9th and 10th graders have read The House on Mango Street, Of Mice and Men, Night, and Romeo and Juliet in recent years.
Others said they were reluctantly pulling Shakespeare from the curriculum.
For the past few years, 8th graders in Texas鈥檚 Aldine Independent school district have read A Midsummer Night鈥檚 Dream, said Janeth Cornejo, a middle school district literacy coach. In observations at the district鈥檚 14 middle schools, though, Cornejo saw most teachers using modern-day translations鈥攐ne had students read a graphic novel version of the play instead, she said.
鈥淗aving them independently read [Shakespeare] at home, when they might be at a 4th grade level, is hard,鈥� she said. Next year, Cornejo said, middle schools will plan to skip the play altogether.
There鈥檚 value in having students read and discuss books, she said, but Shakespeare is too steep of a struggle. And teaching fewer long works leaves more time for shorter, informational texts focused on science and social studies, which align more with what students might see on an end-of-year standardized test, she added.
鈥淚 hate teaching to the test,鈥� Cornejo said, 鈥渂ut that鈥檚 where we are right now.鈥�
What the research says about whole-book reading
Standardized testing, too, is commonly blamed for the rise of short passages, though the use of these assessments long predates the current concern about whole text vs. excerpts.
The argument for using excerpts in the high-stakes testing environment is that if reading comprehension is measured by students鈥� ability to make meaning of several-paragraph-long selections, it makes sense for them to practice with text of that length.
But studies generally contradict that notion.
There鈥檚 a that demonstrates students who read more are better readers, and that these traits are reciprocal: Children with stronger reading abilities read more, and reading more, in turn, makes children even stronger readers.
There are some clues as to what this volume should look like. A of more than 2,500 Finnish students found that children who read more books in their leisure time had stronger reading comprehension, but that the same relationship didn鈥檛 hold between magazine reading and reading ability. Notably, digital reading was negatively correlated with reading comprehension.
But there isn鈥檛 substantial research that pits teaching reading with mostly excerpts against teaching with mostly whole books, like novels or plays, said Tim Shanahan, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies reading. Shanahan has also contributed as an author on Wonders, the McGraw Hill curriculum.
He a both-and approach. There are good reasons to teach with some shorter works, like poems or short stories, he said. 鈥淥ne of the issues is the canon鈥攚hat should kids be reading?鈥� Shanahan said. 鈥淚f I鈥檓 supposed to expose my kids to a variety of authors, in terms of race, in terms of gender, in terms of era, how many novels am I going to read in a year?鈥�
But there鈥檚 also evidence that at least some whole-class study of longer books鈥攏ovels, plays, and nonfiction鈥攃ould confer benefits.
We鈥檙e dealing with shorter attention spans. You can want to recognize it, and react to it鈥攁nd also help students prolong their attention spans.
In 2015, researchers at the University of Sussex in England asked a group of 20 English teachers in Year 8, the U.S. equivalent of 7th grade, to change their practice for 12 weeks. During that period, they would read two novels back to back, with all of the reading done in class鈥攁 much faster pace than these students, who usually read two books over the course of a year, were used to.
At the end of the 12 weeks, average reading comprehension for all students鈥攁s measured by a standardized test鈥攊mproved by the equivalent of 8.5 months of regular instruction. The effect nearly doubled for struggling readers, who made 16 months improvement during that period. (The did not include a control group with business-as-usual instruction, so the comparison measure of months of regular instruction was estimated from average yearly progress.)
Importantly, children read together in class, with teachers regularly checking to make sure that students understood how the story was unfolding, said Julia Sutherland, a professor of education, literacy, and language at the University of Sussex, and an author on the paper.
鈥淲e鈥檙e forever trying to get kids to read for pleasure outside of lessons. The trouble is, they鈥檙e not doing it, these kids who have gotten into this struggling reading mode,鈥� said Sutherland.
鈥淭here are a whole set of reasons why they鈥檙e not doing it, that don鈥檛 have to do with them being badly behaved children,鈥� she continued. 鈥淵ou need to model somewhere in the curriculum what it means to read a whole text in the company of an engaged community.鈥�
Sutherland, who conducted in-class observations as part of her research, remembered students bursting with excitement to dig into books. 鈥淲e had kids running into the classroom, saying 鈥楳iss, are we going to read today?鈥欌��
The idea that experiencing a novel as a class can give students a stronger connection to the written word than short-form content could provide resonates with Patranella, the 5th grade teacher.
That engagement makes her students want to analyze a story鈥檚 themes, or its language, in a way they wouldn鈥檛 with a decontextualized excerpt. Ultimately, she said, 鈥渒ids want to think.鈥�
Novel study requires intentional planning, teachers say
Teachers who do assign whole novels for the class to read together say the process can be a bit of an uphill climb鈥攊n part, because it鈥檚 a challenge to get students to actually do the reading and understand it.
In some ways, it鈥檚 is an old problem. Spark Notes, for instance, has existed for more than 25 years. Before that there were Cliffs Notes, Reader鈥檚 Digest, and any number of other cribs.
鈥淚 think that鈥檚 kind of a constant,鈥� said Shanahan. 鈥淎dolescents are supposed to be somewhat resistant. Not just to books, but to everything.鈥�
Even so, this age of ubiquitous screens and short-form content creates new challenges. Researchers say that too much exposure to electronic devices too early could hinder children鈥檚 later ability to do sustained, deep reading. A large majority of 糖心动漫vlog, 83%, said that the reading stamina of their students in grades 3-8 had decreased a lot or a little from 2019 to 2024, in the EdWeek Research Center survey from 2023.
And 12th graders鈥� own confidence in their reading abilities fell slightly during the same period, as measured by on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
鈥淲e鈥檙e dealing with shorter attention spans,鈥� said Michelle Wolfe, a high school English teacher at East Hardy High School in Baker, W.Va. 鈥淵ou can want to recognize it, and react to it鈥攁nd also help students prolong their attention spans.鈥�
Wolfe, whose students read Fahrenheit 451 and several Shakespeare plays, does more pre-planning now than she used to, breaking the text down into 鈥渃hunks鈥� centered on exciting plot points, and giving students lots of opportunities to discuss and solidify their understanding.
She encourages her high schoolers to make connections to modern media, like when one student compared Macbeth鈥檚 brutal quest for power to chemistry teacher Walter White鈥檚 transformation into a drug kingpin in the television show Breaking Bad.
鈥淚 have changed my instruction over time,鈥� said Andrew Rodbro, a high school English teacher in his 28th year. While Rodbro, who teaches at Warren Township High School in Gurnee, Ill., still assigns reading for homework, he gradually over the past decade started to devote more class time for students to read together to make sure they at least start passages, and have some understanding.
But that, too, has tradeoffs: 鈥淏y devoting so much time to reading in class, there鈥檚 only a certain level of question that you have time for students to study, and it tends to be the lower-level questions.鈥�
Helping students grasp the main idea of a novel, and make connections through the text over time, requires intentional instruction, researchers say. Some of those techniques are longstanding tools, like providing context for books set in unfamiliar eras or environments, said Wolf, of UCLA. That might mean introducing some key vocabulary or explicitly teaching background knowledge.
鈥淲e should be looking and saying, 鈥榃hat鈥檚 going to confuse kids when we get to this chapter?鈥欌�� said Shanahan. And even high school teachers can practice summarization and recall with students, helping them build a mental model of the story that can sustain concentration and engagement over time.
It might also make sense to appeal to teenagers鈥� innate countercultural desires, Wolf said. In a world in which monetized short-video platforms compete for kids鈥� attention minute to minute, keeping viewers in what Wolf calls a 鈥減erpetual cerebral fugue state,鈥� deep reading interrupts that cycle.
鈥淭ell them,鈥� Wolf said, 鈥溾�楻eading a book is an act of resistance in our society.鈥欌��
