“Your time is finite. So stop trying to do everything and focus on what truly matters.”
― Oliver Burkeman, 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Daffodil Hill Press is a publisher of decodable books, but we know that these decodable books fit within the larger flow of a school day. Time is limited. And yet, the field (teaching, inside the classroom) seems to be on a long arc of... more. In the early literacy world, a lot of this push for more explicit phonics instruction and more knowledge building was course correction—and needed.
But we don't have unlimited time. So it's important to think about how to make the most of the time we have in classrooms.
Of course, we might do this by eliminating time wasters that don't have big payoff and supporting quicker transitions. That's always worth thinking about.
But it's also worth questioning a bit, too. We can ask: More compared to what? More at what cost?
The economics concept of diminishing returns is the point at which adding more inputs starts producing less output per unit. Essentially, there's a slope that rises like a nice sled riding hill and then starts to level off. (You could also think about an airplane that takes off at a steep angle and then slows at crusing altitude.) There's a good payoff for a period of time, and then there's not as much.
We can ask about diminishing returns with anything, including our school schedule. Thinking about diminishing returns might nudge us to ask:
- Do I need to do this every single day with students?
- If I need to do this every single day, is it all year long?
- For how many weeks, months, years do students need instruction on this concept or in this area?
In some cases, there are studies that point us to diminishing returns. For example, we know there are diminishing returns on phonemic awareness instruction after a point.
Sometimes we don't know exactly when the point of diminishing returns is, but we do know the amount of instruction that's been tested. (Take the example of strategy instruction.)
Other literacy- and decodable book- related diminishing returns questions might be:
- Does a knowledge building language arts block in kindergarten need to be the same length as one in fifth grade?
- Does a decodable book or passage need to be 16–32 sentences long?
- Does every ELA lesson need to end with an opportunity for students to write a short response?
- Should kids only read decodable books?
It's not that any of these things are "bad" in and of themselves. It's that when time is limited, other things get crowded out.
Perhaps what's crowded out is the opportunity for students to read books that aren't just handouts (decodable and beyond), to talk, to play, to take a little longer on something. Perhaps what gets crowded out is time to visit the school garden or invite families and community members into the classroom. Perhaps what gets crowded out is the opportunity to do science experiments or have rich discussions about important books we're reading together.
We'll be the first to say we've been part of the push for more and we're constantly thinking about what's missing—we've recommended longer blocks, more complex and rich texts, more lessons, more practice. Some of it is right. And yet we still need to keep asking these questions.
At some point, more stops being more. It just becomes more.The thing we have to figure out is: at what point?
As we plan and set goals and consider our schedules and curricula, maybe instead of asking what should I add? We ask: what's the smallest amount of this that still works so there's room left for everything else?
Some of the Daffodil Hill team's answers to questions about time and diminishing returns led us to make our decodable books the way we did:
- Do decodable texts need to be long? Not all of them! Longer isn't better for new readers, or when you want to finish a whole book in one sitting, or when kids just need quick practice.
- Should "more" squeeze out the chance for kids to read real books? All kids should have the chance to choose books to read now and then, and to get practice and build automaticity and enjoy reading. (This doesn't mean long stretches of independent reading without support or D.E.A.R. Time). Kids need to apply their phonics to books!