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Beyond Comprehension
We have frequently mentioned the importance of phonics in beginning reading and how important it is that children learn how to decode. After all, it’s pretty hard to understand a written passage if you can’t read the words!
However, merely learning to decode is not the whole story. It is also necessary that children be able to understand the words they are reading. And that’s where vocabulary and general knowledge enter the picture - as brilliantly elucidated by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. in this article from the latest issue of American Educator, the magazine of the American Federation of Teachers. Consider the following passage (taken from Dr. Hirsch’s article).
“When Luca Turin was a boy growing up in Paris, according to Chandler Burr’s ebullient new book about him, ‘he was famous for boring everyone to death with useless, disconnected facts, like the distance between the earth and the moon in Egyptian cubits’. Mr. Burr sets out to explain how such obsessive curiosity turned Mr. Turin into a pioneering scientist who, in the author’s estimation, deserves a Nobel Prize.”
Dr. Hirsch points out that, although the passage does not require expert background knowledge, there are still a number of things that readers need to know if they are to comprehend it. “We need to know first that this is a book review, which aims to tell us what the book is about and whether it is worth reading. We need to understand that the reviewer is favorably disposed to the book, calling it ‘ebullient’, and that it is a nonfiction work about a scientist named Luca Turin. we need to have at least a vague semantic grasp of key words like ebullient, boring, obsessive, pioneering, estimation. We need to know some of the things mentioned with exactness, but not others. It’s not necessary to know how long a cubit is. Indeed, the text implies that this is an odd bit of information, and we can infer that it is some form of measurement. We need to know in general what Paris is, what the moon is and that it circles the earth, that it is not too far away in celestial terms, and we need to have some idea what a Nobel Prize is and that it is very prestigious. Consider the knowledge domains included in this list. Paris belongs to history and geography; so does Egypt. The moon belongs to astronomy and natural history. The Nobel Prize belongs to general history and science.”
The article goes on to explain how important a shared background of vocabulary and general knowledge are. Dr. Hirsch is making the case that all schools should teach a common curriculum - especially important given the incredible extent of student mobility (about one-third of American students every year, according to the article).
I have tried to hit the highlights of the article because I know that, with the exception of Nancy, few of our readers are likely to take the time to read the whole thing. However, it deals with an important concept, one with far-reaching implications, and I do urge you to take the time to learn about the importance of providing all children with excellent vocabularies and a generous fund of shared general knowledge.