Q. Do you read the novels with the Invisibles program?
The novels are great additions to any CI program. My problem has been that we introduce them too early, before half the kids in the class can effortlessly read them. That word “effortless” – it is such a key word in Krashen’s research – doesn’t happen much with the novels. That’s why we developed the whole backwards planning thing for the kids to be able to read a chapter.
Q Can you explain that briefly?
We extract the words that the kids need to know to be able to read a chapter and put them in a list. Then we create stories to teach them the words so that they can read the chapter. But it doesn’t work. There are too many words. It would take three or four sstories to prepare for the reading of one chapter. The result is that the kids are constantly reading with the engagement of their conscious minds, kind of being overwhelmed and not, as my mentor Susan Gross has said, so effortlessly that what they are reading is like the text is “a movie in their minds”.
Q So should I give up on the novels?
Not at all. The kids just need to be able to read them effortlessly. If they can’t read a novel effortlessly without all the backwards planning, and even with it a lot of the time, then isn’t it safe to assume that it is above their level and would thus kick in the conscious analytical/reasoning faculty that is so antithetical to the research? What the kids need is more auditory input and reading of the stories they create in class, which are not above their level, before reading the novels.
Q. What do you recommend then?
I recommend that everybody move the novels back one year level. So if the publisher recommends a certain book for a certain level, bump that up a year. A first year book would be read by a second year class, etc. The whole backwards planning thing was always a bust for me. I could be way off on this. Some of the best CI teachers out there seem to have no trouble with backwards planning. Joey Dziedzic’s kids would read like up to six novels a year. We all do it differently and all this is just my own opinion.