Richer texts for remedial students

TEACHERS have been advised to offer challenging books to struggling students.

TEACHERS have been advised to offer challenging books to struggling students rather than remedial texts that offer "dumbed-down" stories providing a comfortable but not enriching experience.

In its suggested reading list for English, the NSW Board of Studies says less successful readers are often offered books that "have little interest or appeal" when they need books that "stir the emotions" and are as demanding as books for better readers.

"So-called remedial texts have often proved to be unsuccessful as story and feeling are sometimes sacrificed in favour of excessively simple language," it says. "When students are given access to good writers, their resistance to reading can be overcome and they can gain confidence that the books others read are not beyond them."

President of the board Tom Alegounarias said simpler language should not come at the expense of the complexity of ideas, and all students should be presented with the same sophisticated ideas and emotions explored in good literature.

"The idea of differentiating students is often a euphemism for dumbing down and very often all we end up doing is providing a comfort, not an enriching reading experience, but comfort literature, babysitting literature," he said.

"In selecting texts appropriate for students, there can be a tendency to emphasise students' own everyday experiences and what might be 'real world' contexts to assure interest. That's not a bad starting point, but the end point must be to challenge and expand students' horizons.

"With less successful students in particular there is an undeniable temptation to linger on what they know and feel comfortable with.

"Inevitably, this has a socio-economic dimension with less-advantaged students getting a less challenging experience."

Mr Alegounarias said the advice in the suggested reading list arose from the board's belief that it was important to push for high standards and complex, challenging literature for all.

He said all English courses in NSW were designed to ensure every student regardless of ability studied literature and all students had the potential to achieve at the same level.

The list of suggested English texts for students up to Year 10, released by the board about two weeks ago, says many plays, poems, films and multimedia texts suggested are stimulating to all while more accessible for struggling students because they tend to be short or based in everyday language.