Am I doing it wrong?

[u/helpme7500]

My colleagues seem to fly through novels and lessons throughout the year. We are starting week 4, and the other teachers have already started their first novel. I am still teaching the skill I want them to use once we start the novel. I want to practice with some shorter texts first. Am I doing it wrong? Should I jump in first and teach the skill later? Maybe I am doing too much??? Am I making it harder than it needs to be?

I apologize. I know I am rambling. Imposter syndrome kicking in. *Sigh*

Honesty and constructive criticism will be appreciated.

[u/Holiday_Scheme7219]

Why not use the novel to teach those skills?

[u/Accomplished-Web5642]

What skills are you teaching? Whatever it is, I'd likely categorise it as a strategy. 

One thing to remember is reading comprehension isn't really a skill in the same way math skills are. You can't master character traits or theme. You can become broadly aware of what they are and maybe learn some strategies that help you think about them, but becoming a better reader is negotiating the barriers and affordances a text offers. 

All this is to say that you can briefly teach a strategy or standard so students are aware of what it is and isn't (and how to do it if it's a strategy), but don't get hung up on teaching it to mastery. In saying this, if you are actually teaching kids a strategy that involves steps, you'd want the kids to be proficient with those steps so they are pretty automatic before letting them loose. 

[u/New_Examination_1447]

I do the same thing. My counterpart flies through a couple novels a month, and I take my time building skills. At the end of the day, ELA is not a content driven class. We are skill driven. The content we use to teach those skills often overshadows the skills because we love a good book, but the quantity of things we read really doesn’t matter if we’re focusing on those analytical skills we’re supposed to be teaching.

I know it’s anecdotal evidence, but I will say when I get my counterpart’s students in their senior year they remember very little of what they’ve read, and they’re weak in analytical and writing skills. Other teachers tell me they can tell which kids were mine and which ones were my counterpart’s just based on their writing. And we all hate testing, but my students outperform on that metric too. Ultimately, I say if it works for you and your kids don’t stress what others are doing.

[u/BaileyAMR → u/New_Examination_1447]

I would slightly push back on your content comment: ELA is knowledge building. If units are content rich, students will come out knowing more about the world.

[u/New_Examination_1447 → u/BaileyAMR]

I agree with that. I interpreted OP’s comment more through the lens of curriculum pacing. For example, a history teacher might have specific content they have to get through by a certain time (ex. Pre-colonial North America - The American Revolution). In ELA curriculum mapping we usually talk more about what skills need to be taught by a certain time - at least in my district. The content is important of course because it’s what we’re using to teach the skills, but it’s not as critical that we read a certain number of pieces by a certain time.

[u/Cultural-Purchase833 → u/New_Examination_1447]

Yes, it looks like just powering through whole books results in unexpected gains- see this English study (if not already posted): . https://www.aft.org/ae/winter2025-2026/wexler

[u/Cultural-Purchase833 → u/Cultural-Purchase833]

" According to the authors of the study, in England (as in the United States) struggling readers “are often regarded by teachers as unable to read whole narratives and given short, simplified texts, yet are expected to analyze every part in a slow laborious read-through.” The 20 teachers participating in the study were, in contrast, advised to move through the novels at a fairly brisk pace, pausing only when needed (e.g., when students looked confused or at the end of a section) to make sure everyone was following the story. At the beginning and end of the 12-week period, students were given standardized reading comprehension tests. On average, students made almost nine months of progress; weak readers made  16 months of progress."

[u/Bibliofile22]

However, there's a way to balance. Working on one strategy/skill per novel for weeks in isolation before using it in shorter texts, before entering the novel is a lot. (I'm not saying that is what you did, it's worst-case scenario.) Just be sure that you're setting it up so that they're practicing the strategy daily within the novel (or as often as is practical) and that you're making it explicit and releasing responsibility for it along the way. Be sure they know what their end goal will be so they know what they're gathering evidence for.

[u/KirbyRock]

Do you not have a pacing calendar? I’ve found that even if I move ahead without 100% of the kids on level, they’ll get the skills reiterated in upcoming lessons. My first principal told me this: “If you’ve got 80% of your class proficient-enough, leave the rest of the 20% to catch up.” I use my intervention time to focus on these 20% to try and help with that. Usually, these are the students with exceptionalities. They need the help desperately, but most pacing guides don’t allow for that. You’ve just got to keep going…or they’ll find someone who will. Another piece of advice from an old coworker: “Close your door and do what’s best for your kids.” I lean on that one. Every day.

[u/Spallanzani333]

I don't think you should fly through a bunch of novels at the expense of skills, but week 4 seems like a reasonable amount of time. I also don't think there's much difference between practicing skills on short works versus passages from a novel you're reading. You can definitely teach the skills as you go, as long as you're allowing yourself the time. The main thing is not to fly through the novels and end up spending little time on the skills because you're only talking about plot.

Without knowing more about what you mean by teaching skills, I can't say for sure either way. Both approaches seem fine.

[u/odom_insea]

Only you can judge how much front loading your class needs to achieve success. Follow your gut. I spent a whole week on color mapping and annotating before I even started my first short story. Don’t worry about the pacing of others as long as you stay on track.

[u/BaileyAMR → u/odom_insea]

What is color mapping?

[u/crazyira-thedouche]

Teach those skills alongside the novel, only preach what they absolutely need beforehand. It makes it mist more interesting!

[u/nuerospicy542]

If you have a system to ensure the kids are actually doing the reading, then I think you can go faster. I forget which of her books I read this in (I’m pretty sure it was “a novel approach”) but Kate Roberts points out that we go so slow in English class especially with novels, when if you think about how people read they rarely spend 1+ month on a single text. Plus reading more is how the kids build stamina. Anyways, check out Kate Roberts work, both A Novel Approach and Falling in Love With Close Reading are books that changed my teaching for the better. They are full of great ideas related to some of the questions you are asking yourself, and they are heavily skills focused. I’m sure you’ll find ones that speak to you.

[u/Latex_Leather_Linen]

No, not particularly.

Week 2 and I've started a novel with one grade level; I started a short story unit with another.

Practicing with shorter texts, in my opinion, is really a good idea. Picking out themes, for example, is easy to do with poems and short stories since in novels themes may not be obvious until 1/2 or 3/4 through the story.

It also matters how long you have your students. A 90min block schedule vs. 45min period schedule will cover curriculum vastly different. When I have students all year for 45min classes, you bet we're taking our sweet time!

[u/doogietrouser_md]

No, you're not doing it wrong. There are a million different ways to design, sequence, and pace a year of curriculum. Don't compare yourself to others without also recognizing differences in experience level, student population, and approach. If you show up before the first bell and leave after the last one, you're a teacher. No imposters here, friend. You are probably an awesome one too because you are asking for guidance to improve your efficacy and therefore student outcomes.

Something that could be motivating them to jump into novels sooner is the law of diminishing returns. In the past, I've tried to perform a full cycle of mastery-style instruction on a skill in isolation before we jumped into a unit where we used that skill in practice. And that was too much. When we put the skill into practice, I saw the gaps that would only show up when we actually road-tested it. Now, I skill teach for half that time and then jump right into applied practice. I still get most of the value of the original instruction with half the time spent and get to find those issues in applied practice that much faster. I found that more time on the same things didn't move the needle as much as getting mostly confident that most where mostly ready and then jumping in because I knew we were still building in the same area. Perhaps they cover their bases quicker and more shallowly than you do before moving forward because the extra time doesn't make a huge difference in their experience?

[u/More-Engineer-7915]

You're not doing it wrong at all—in fact, you're building a stronger foundation. Teaching the skill with shorter texts first reduces cognitive load so students can actually master the skill before applying it to a full-length novel. Quality and comprehension always beat pacing through books just to check a box. Trust your process!

[u/Mitch1musPrime]

One thing to consider: do all the students need this skill for sure, or do you have readers who might be ready to tackle the text? If you have some ready to tackle, consider what you’ve done enough to begin novel and then use small groups to target readers who need that skill enrichment to truly grapple the text. This way, you’re more advanced readers don’t get disengaged with a classroom pace that moves too slow.

[u/jumary]

I also found that especially with sixth graders I had to be flexible from year to year regarding how long to take with each book or section.

[u/DrTLovesBooks]

I would routinely spend more time than my colleagues getting students set up at the start of the year so we could be more efficient and ready to roll once we got started. Then I was able to move a bit faster through material.

But it varied from year to year. If you feel like you have sound reasons for doing things the way you're doing them, don't get too in your head about whether you're keeping pace with your colleagues, especially if keeping up with them means you're going to feel like you're not giving your students the best learning experience.

[u/Negative_Spinach]

It’s possible to go too slowly and just kill the joy of reading. It’s a difficult needle to thread because you are trying to do some actual teaching, which means making sure everyone has got it.

I like to start with short stories for teaching skills, then building up to a novel.

Ok I feel so cheesy for saying this corny platitude, but you know how admin is always saying ‘remember your why.’… well I realized my why is: I just really like reading stories with kids, and try to do that as much as possible. So do what’s meaningful for you. Good luck

[u/Key-Philosophy-3820]

I wouldn’t say I’m teaching any specific skill for a month, but I do dive deeply into what we read. In this way, I feel your colleagues are moving too quickly.

I also start with poems for the first few weeks. We do one a day. They are learning to make observations, detect patterns, understand devices, unpack everything for its significance, and discuss all of this as a class. It’s more manageable than a novel, and I know they’re reading it. I’m also trying to get everyone engaged immediately.

[u/thaibookworm]

Only you can decide your pace. Do your kids appear to have the skill down? Have you assessed it yet? If they're struggling, you need to take the time, but you don't have to beat a dead horse either. You said four weeks; was that all one skill? That's probably overkill. But four weeks pre-teaching several skills before a novel could be fine. Just make sure you're assessing regularly so you don't bore the kids or keep them from progressing when they already know the skill.

[u/Accomplished-Web5642 → u/thaibookworm]

How do you assess a reading skill so you know kids have mastered it? I don't think that's possible 

[u/thaibookworm → u/Accomplished-Web5642]

I'm not 100% sure what you're suggesting/asking here. Are we arguing semantics about mastery, or do you not assess your students in practice? You can't master "theme," but if your standard and learning objective are to explain how details develop a theme over a text, there are ways to assess that the students are capable of that at a grade-appropriate level. If you don't want the students to spend 4 weeks on a strategy, how else do you recommend a concerned teacher determine when to move on? Vibes? What other teachers are doing?

Edit: removed an assumption about experience that wasn't in the original post

[u/Accomplished-Web5642 → u/thaibookworm]

Two ways to go about it. 

You can have a sequence of standards that you are going to teach and then use whatever text you wish to teach them. 

The other way is that you have a text that you want to teach because it is interesting or has some other value. You then teach the standards that best allow your students to fully and deeply understand this text. 

Regarding assessment and semantics, I wouldn't take them not being able to write about how the details in a text support a theme as evidence of them not understanding the standard. They might understand the standard but not the language, vocab, or syntax of certain sections that reveal the theme. 

[u/thaibookworm → u/Accomplished-Web5642]

I remain baffled. What point are you making here? OP asked if they should move through their curriculum faster like their peers or continue to practice a skill. I said assess to determine if they're ready to move on. You said assessment is not possible, which unless you're meaning something else, is kind of wild to say. I reiterate it is possible and ask how else you would determine readiness to move on, which again, is the point of the post, and you respond with what looks like planning advice? It doesn't matter if we pick the text first or standards first; OP asked when to move on from preliminary skill instruction to novel studies. I don't even know what you mean by saying students may understand the standard but not understand the language. This is a whole separate issue about whether your assessment is accurately assessing the standard, and I never even brought up writing specifically. I'm trying to engage with you, but I really don't think I'm understanding what you're trying to contribute.

My point for OP remains. Assessment is possible, and I'd argue assessment is the only practical way to know if you should move on or practice more.

[u/Accomplished-Web5642 → u/thaibookworm]

1. In response to your bafflement. Your suggestion is to use precise assessments of individual reading comprehension/analysis assessments to determine whether to move on. I'm saying that there aren't any assessments or any way to precisely measure those standards. There is pretty large scale research from ACT showing that kids performance on those standards doesn't vary in a meaningful way. I'm not aware of a single study that shows you can actually discretely measure the reading standards. If you have one, or some novel way to measure them, please do share. 

2. When to move on? I think the whole premise of the post is wrong. I'll just copy and paste another comment I made in this thread. 

"What skills are you teaching? Whatever it is, I'd likely categorise it as a strategy. 

One thing to remember is reading comprehension isn't really a skill in the same way math skills are. You can't master character traits or theme. You can become broadly aware of what they are and maybe learn some strategies that help you think about them, but becoming a better reader is negotiating the barriers and affordances a text offers. 

All this is to say that you can briefly teach a strategy or standard so students are aware of what it is and isn't (and how to do it if it's a strategy), but don't get hung up on teaching it to mastery. In saying this, if you are actually teaching kids a strategy that involves steps, you'd want the kids to be proficient with those steps so they are pretty automatic before letting them loose."

This is all to say: if you are teaching a strategy, assess that they understand the strategy and can use it. . . You can do this with a novel, but I introducing it might be better with shorter texts. 

If you are treating the standards as skills, then I'd suggest you don't, because reading comprehension isn't a collection of comprehension skills. 

[u/thaibookworm → u/Accomplished-Web5642]

Thanks for clarifying. You appear to be adding details and ideas to my statements based on a pedantic obsession with definitions that does not align with standard colloquial use such as teachers may engage in on Reddit on the weekend rather than in a doctoral defense. That indeed would be confusing for a conversation partner. The road was long and windy, but clearly we both agree that OP should check that their students understand what was taught before moving on or repeating it forever. One might even call that assessment.

[u/Accomplished-Web5642 → u/thaibookworm]

Yeah, you still don't really understand the point I'm making. I'm saying that you can't teach someone a comprehension standard for a few weeks and then assess them to see if they got that standard (which is the suggestion you are putting forward). So no, we don't actually agree and our disagreement isn't semantic. 

Btw - no need to be condescending. 

[u/thaibookworm → u/Accomplished-Web5642]

This is probably not going to accomplish anything, but I've got time to kill and one of my flaws is I hate being misunderstood. I also think it's good practice because my whole job is explaining things to people.

I do get the point you're making. You care about the difference between a strategy and a skill more than the average bear. After delineating the difference, you suggested that the strategy should be introduced and then applied to texts, giving the merits of both short stories and novels. The general gist I got from your original comment, i.e. the one posted independently from my mine, is that OP should check to see that students understand the strategy and then move on to texts, and you're not overly concerned about whether those texts are short stories or novels. Let me know if I've represented you accurately here.

What seems to be the sticking point for you is that a skill is mastered and students move on without returning to it. I think you tried to reframe OP's post because you don't want them to move on entirely because reading comprehension involves strategies, not skills. I used OP's term "skills" in my response (as did others in this thread, but apparently I'm the only one who merited a response). Presumably because you had already defined skills and made the connection to math, you appear to have made assumptions about what I meant by assessing skills. The breakdown in communication occurred because I never actually said those things (like moving on from a standard totally because it was mastered or writing being a good way to assess understanding a standard). Because I didn't say those things, your responses were confusing initially. Once you clarified what you thought I meant, I realized you were making assumptions. I did get condescending. I'd argue the basis of your argument was inherently condescending first, though, because it was based on the assumption that I don't know how to teach and/or assess reading comprehension.

You appear to be a precise person, and I'll admit that my wording was casual, and my explanation was not thorough. I would remind you, though, that I was on Reddit on a Sunday afternoon, and I didn't think I'd have to defend my diction. I would argue that my point was still generally clear. If Reddit has any merit whatsoever as a forum for professionals to discuss education, then we have to be able to assume good intentions and general competence (unless a poster makes it clear they don't understand something). If I say "assess a reading skill," then my experience with other certified teachers tells me that most people know what I mean. When you said you would argue that assessment was impossible, my knee-jerk reaction was "What kind of teacher doesn't believe in assessment?" I paused, gave you the benefit of the doubt, and asked for clarification. You didn't give me that same professional courtesy when you assumed I was testing discrete reading comprehension strategies as skills, assuming mastery, and moving on forever.

I've written a novella here, and I don't think that's the most effective way to communicate on Reddit. It's why my original comment was not so thorough. But if you want the precise breakdown, and why I think we inherently agree other than your objection to my imprecise word choice, here it is: I think front-loading basic definitions and strategies is only useful for so long. OP has spent four weeks on something they call skills. I don't have enough info on what that means, but it sounds like OP has picked a general concept from the standards, like character motivation or theme development, and is teaching definitions and strategies. It sounds like OP has not applied this to a text yet, which seems odd because there's only so much time you can spend on basic understanding of a reading comprehension strategy without reading a text. I could be wrong about that. It does seem like there is an expectation that OP will have to move on to novels eventually because the team does, but OP wanted to practice on short stories first. If I am correct, then OP needs to assess, however they choose to do so, whether the students understand the definitions and strategies discussed so far to the level that OP desires. If they do get it, OP needs to move on. I don't mean OP will never teach character motivation or theme development again. I mean OP should be done preparing students and move on to practical application with a text. I also mean that there is only so long OP can reasonably spend on any one standard. Even though students will never master the standard and finally achieve true and automatic theme analysis like they would a math skill, OP still has to teach plot structure, objective summary, inferences, cultural perspective, and adaptations (to use 9th ELA standards), and that's only the reading literature standards. OP has to move on for now, but when The Odyssey or Romeo & Juliet come up, OP will return to character motivation and theme development, naturally.

So what I'm saying, and what I think we agree on, is that OP should assess whether students have understood the strategy, and if so, move on to teaching texts. If the team is teaching novels, they should probably teach novels, but short stories work, too. This is a reasonable answer to OP's question. Where I think you see disagreement is in the semantics of it all because you took umbrage with my use of the word skills and made assumptions about what that assessment would look like based on your (admittedly more correct and technical) definition of skill. That's frustrating and pedantic. I took umbrage at your assumption, based on that one word, that I don't know how to teach reading comprehension and my assessments are inherently flawed. None of this is truly useful to OP unless they are very inexperienced and don't really understand how to teach reading comprehension, and I'm not going to make that assumption.

[u/Accomplished-Web5642 → u/thaibookworm]

1. Yes, I think OP can briefly teach a strategy, which I'm defining as a set of steps you can follow to help you understand a element of a text, and then assess whether students are generally able to follow those steps. I assume that is different to what OP is thinking of and I'd assumed that was different to what you were thinking of. For instance, I don't know anyone who assesses strategies in this way, because in my eyes, all you would be assessing is their ability to do the strategy... You wouldn't be assessing whether they were able to successfully comprehend the text through the use of the strategy. You wouldn't be using this as a gradable assessment and it wouldn't really tell you much about their comprehension abilities at all. If you already assumed all of the above when you said to assess before moving on, then my apologies. 

2. Reading comprehension is extremely misunderstood. From my experience, it's treated as a skill that is composed of several comprehension sub skills. If you don't hold this view, then again, I apologise, but I didn't get that impression from your writing. 

[u/SoupBeans25]

You can bet that while your colleagues are flying through those novels, the students are most assuredly not reading them

[u/racingturtlesforfun]

This is the difference between teaching content and skills. Your colleagues are just reading a book and not teaching skills. I run into the same problem. I get blank stares from my team whenever I ask, “what skills are we teaching with this?” Stick to how you do it. In a sit down with admin or the district, I can easily justify and show how my lessons build skills and measurable student learning growth. My colleagues can’t.