I recently adapted a book for a young reader. I had it "published" and bound. It has an ISBN number...I can sell it or have it in libraries if I want. I'd call it a work of love, but it was more of an obsession, really.
In my role as an Instructional Assistant, I was charged with tutoring a fourth-grade boy in reading. I'm not sure of his age, but he was the tallest boy there. He was incredibly smart, and kids in the class liked him. He was easy to like.
My first day with him was pretty uneventful. He told me he only planned on staying with me for half the time I was assigned to him. I must say, I admire his self-agency. Because I wasn't clear about how I was supposed to work with him, I allowed him to dictate the time.
His teacher gave us a first-grade book to read. She also gave a list of first-grade spelling words. He flew through the spelling words, getting them all correct. His reading was less smooth. The book we were reading was a "decodable" book, meaning that the words can be decoded by sounding them out. He stumbled over a few words, but that could have been performance anxiety.
He hated every part of working with me. When the teacher called him, he ran ahead of me, and I struggled to keep up. The first few times we worked together, he asked to use the bathroom and didn't come back until our time was up.
Finding a place to work was hurdle number one. The unused classroom we were told to use was occupied by another couple of students with a similar tutoring session. That room was out of the question for a few reasons. Not the least of which was a lack of privacy.
We found another room that was only marginally better. It was private, but it was in the same hall as his class. This meant every time a student walked by, he was afraid of being seen by a peer. He was literally jumpy.
Finally, we found a room in a separate hall with loads of privacy. It was only then that I could see what we were dealing with. The book we were given was babyish. It was about a squirrel searching for nuts. It had sweet illustrations that a first grader would enjoy, but had nothing to appeal to a fourth grader. It was only a few pages long with two sentences per page. We were finished with that book in no time, so I sent him back to class.
The next day, his teacher told me I needed to keep him the entire time we were assigned. I asked her for additional work so that we could fill the time, but her answer was that we re-read the book we were given again and again. I agree with re-reading books and passages to gain fluency, but even I was bored by the prospect of reading this book multiple times.
I reached out to the reading specialist for more direction. She provided a few more of the easy readers, similar to what we were already reading. Argh. I couldn't blame him for wanting to escape the torture of these insulting books. Although he was behind on his reading, his intelligence shone through. He was able to discuss complex science and nature topics in depth. Many of the subjects he understood were ones I did not understand.
I returned to the reading teacher to try to understand what was causing the disconnect between his intelligence and his reading. I learned that he had been homeschooled until this year, when he enrolled at our school. The family had moved quite a bit and lived in several states during his early school years. Starting new schools with each move would have been disruptive for him. Home schooling during that time made sense to me.
His general knowledge of science and how things worked was superior, but his reading made keeping up with his classmates a struggle. His inability to read at grade level affected his ability to keep up with most of what was being taught. His math suffered because it involved word problems. Keeping up with the reading-focused subjects of social studies and science was also problematic.
Because he was new to the school system, he was not eligible to be tested for learning disabilities. I don't know why that rule is in place, but the state requires a year of observation and teaching interventions before assessments can begin.
Regardless of the whys, this is where we were. With hurdle number one handled (the question of "where" we would work), it was time to tackle getting suitable reading material. I again went to the reading specialist to ask for a high-interest book written for a lower reading level. Unfortunately, she said that what I hoped for did not exist. This didn't make sense to me. Surely my student was not the only one who had missed out on reading skills during the early learning window. How could we expect to hold his attention long enough to get the basics? The future reward of being able to read more interesting things just isn't enough to make it worth it to a fourth grader.
I looked online for books adapted for readers with lower reading levels. While I found a few, they were expensive, and there was no way to preview the books for appropriateness. For me, the lack of reading options for his level was simply unacceptable.
What, I wondered, would a fourth-grade boy want to read? Wilderness and adventure books were an obvious answer. Gary Paulsen came to mind. In fact, some students in his class were reading The Hatchet and were creating book reports about it. Though trying to dive into that book would have been too difficult and frustrating. But I believed a good story was key to igniting the desire to read.
I remembered reading Jack London's The Call of the Wild. I must have read this in elementary school. It was not an assigned book, but one I had checked out of the school library. I had a vivid memory of the plot and some of the scenes. The story of a sled dog, Buck, fighting to stay alive in the wild Arctic was gold. This book could be a contender.
Unbelievably, the book is over a hundred years old. This means it is no longer under copyright and is now in the public domain. Further research confirmed that the text can be used without permission. Further, the text can be changed without violating copyright laws.
On the weekend, I began to rewrite the story for a younger reader. I started with chapters one through three. Chapter three has a natural stopping point. The bulk of Buck's major conflict is solved in that chapter.
Keeping the integrity of the story, while changing the reading level, was paramount. I used the text and rewrote each sentence in easier-to-read prose. I also edited to get the story into bite-sized pieces.
Did I rewrite the story using only decodable words? Absolutely not. That would have watered down the story, defeating the purpose.
I've researched the order of teaching reading and the concept of decodable words, but we were past that point. What do you do when the student misses that instruction at the appropriate time? This is where my research let me down. There wasn't an answer. The literature says that from kindergarten to second grade, students are learning to read. From third grade onward, students are reading to learn. How do we bridge that gap?
Some articles articulated the dilemma. English is not inherently a phonetic language. Memorization of sight words is no longer recommended. However, memorization of phonetic rules and exceptions is key to learning this language. For example, we have to learn to recognize when "ough" sounds like "f" and when it sounds like "oh". English is full of words that simply can't be sounded out.
My final adaptation was definitely above the level that my student was currently reading, which was a low first-grade level. I wanted to make sure that the reading stretched his ability. The final text included both decodable and non-decodable words.
Once I had adapted chapters one through three, I had us begin to read the story. As he read the first few pages, he stopped to ask questions. I could see him trying to imagine the scenes described in the story. He was hooked!
As we worked together each day, I alternated my approach. On some days, I introduced him to difficult words before we got started. On other days, I wanted him to work out the word based on context. Sometimes I would read to him while he read along. I wanted to give him the benefit of hearing the language as he followed along.
At the end of each session, I asked him to summarize what we had read. I was encouraged that his comprehension of the reading was higher than his reading fluency.
Each day, we progressed through the story, which kept his attention. He was always checking to see how many pages were left in a chapter. He seemed proud of the progress we kept making.
When we completed chapters one through three, I told him that we had to reread them several times before I would give him the rest of the chapters. I was surprised he didn't fight me on this. Even my first graders resist rereading a story. He grasped the action and arc of the story, but his out-loud reading was still halting. I told him I wanted him to become a fluent reader who could hold a listener's attention.
At the end of the school year, I gave him a professionally published version of the book. It included art from Jack London's original edition. I told my student he was equipped to read the rest of the book with his mother.
Post Script: The student's reading growth increased from first-grade level in the fall to a mid-range third-grade level in the spring. I was proud to be a part of the team that worked with him.
The Book:
