Reconciling Learning to Read with Reading to Learn

I recently read an article from Language Arts that detailed the joint efforts of an experienced kindergarten teacher and a college professor to situate children's reading in real-world contexts, specifically a donut shop.

In this program, the children opened their own donut shop in a corner of their classroom, starting by researching how a donut shop works on a field trip, applying for a building permit with actual building inspectors, applying for a loan and soliciting shareholders, all culminating in a grand opening at the end of the project.  At each stage, literacy was worked into the tasks (taking notes at the donut shop, writing to prospective shareholders, filling out a loan application, etc.), and students engaged with real members of their community.  Not only was the project undertaken to facilitate the children's literacy, but also to provide them with a sense of empowerment and engagement which is often absent in traditionally under-served urban communities.

The merits of this type of program seem manifold and obvious.  But it is precisely in the type of urban communities addressed by this article that administrators and policy-makers are calling for less of this sort of situated literacy and for more and more "schooled literacy," that is, literacy addressed as discrete skills alienated from any sort of real-world context.

Given the increasing time restraints imposed by ever more data collection and test preparation, how can this sort of holistic program really be integrated in the communities where it is most needed?