Football, Surgery and Reading
After reading an article in the New York Times entitled, “The Hack that Doctors Should Take from Popstars and Quarterbacks,” my mind went straight to reading. In fairness, my default is always to connect back to reading; literacy is a priority in my professional and personal life. In this particular instance, my mind crafted a new title for this article: “The Hack Parents and Doctors Should Take from Popstars and Quarterbacks.”
The Times article, published by physicians and researchers at Harvard Medical School, made the important note that quarterbacks prep and practice immediately before stepping onto the field for their games. Singers, dancers and performers are well-rehearsed right before they take the stage. The doctors in this article asked a critical question: why are surgeons not taking the same measures as quarterbacks and pop stars to prepare themselves before surgery, especially when the stakes are so much greater?
The authors of this article conducted a study with two groups of doctors: one group who received coaching for five- to ten-minutes before intubating infants for surgery and one group who did not. The results were striking. The coached team correctly placed the breathing pipe 92% of the time - some 10 points higher than the control group. And in addition to improved accuracy, the procedure was completed more quickly.
This is the point where I went to reading. In teaching young readers, we’re focused on two core components of decoding (the process of sounding out words) – we’re hoping the reader can read accurately as well as fluently. The ultimate goal of course is comprehension. So I began to think – perhaps prepping young readers with a quick warm-up before asking them to open a book can improve both accuracy and fluency. If surgeons and quarterbacks do better with preparation, young readers can do better on comprehension with it as well.
In psychology, it is well documented that positive outcomes beget more positive outcomes. Whether in surgery or in reading, the psychology of feeling successful can actually promote success. Cognitively, when surgeons become better and faster at procedures such as intubation, they’re able to use more of their brain power in other parts of the surgery. By warming up our kids before reading, we are alleviating the cognitive load and allowing young brains to preserve capacity for challenging decoding or comprehension.
Thinking back to my days teaching reading in small and large groups, we began each lesson with a warmup. I would often lead my class through the sequential phonics sounds they had learned. They would repeat out loud words such as “ch-chin-chu” and “ing-ring-ing.” We would then progress to our readers workshop where students would read independently. In my years playing viola in the orchestra, we spent at least 15 minutes (and at times what felt like three days) going through scales before we tackled Beethoven.
I hadn’t thought of my reading warmups or viola scales as a means to achieving better accuracy and fluency, but reflecting upon it now, it makes a lot of sense. And with hindsight, of course quarterbacks and popstars warm up! It is surprising the notion of warmups before cognitive tasks are so underappreciated, even though the stakes are higher – children who do not learn to read accurately by third grade are at risk of falling behind and not graduating from high school.
So coming full circle, I think we need to include parents in the title of this article. Because like football players, popstars and surgeons, kids would greatly benefit from a parent-led warmup before jumping into reading.
I know this isn’t easy! Though I’ve taught reading for over a decade, I find this to be difficult myself. My kids often fly in from soccer practice and shower then I yell something about brushing teeth and opening a book! But the effort will be worth it in the end. After all, our future surgeons are young readers right now!