I Taught It, but They’re Not Doing It. Now What?

12/11/2025

I Taught It, but They’re Not Doing It. Now What?

When the lesson hooks but the reading stalls, these moves help students jump in.

DR. LAURA RIGOLOSI
Curriculum & Literacy Specialist

I’m in a 9th grade science class and it is first period. Students have trickled in and the teacher allows them to finish their breakfasts as they begin class. The teacher opens class with a short, engaging video about rising ocean temperatures, and the potential effects of rising seawaters, even right here in the Bronx. Students comment on how crazy it would be if parts of New York City were underwater. We pull up a map to see how far inland our school in the South Bronx is compared with the coasts of New York City, to give students a sense of the coastland and interior parts of the city, and how far inland the seawaters could potentially reach depending on the rising ocean temperature.

Their interest is piqued, and the teacher has officially launched the Weather and Climate unit in the Earth and Space Sciences. We are off to a good start for this class, despite how depressing it is to look at climate change from a scientific perspective.

The teacher feels strongly that students lose focus and attention when they are on their laptops, so he provides a physical handout of the reading on this topic, along with a few questions that are based on the reading. The questions vary in terms of being “right there” questions and questions that are more thought-provoking and analytical.

Here’s when I notice class starts to shift a bit.

The Gap Between Knowing and Doing

The teacher has distributed all of the handouts. The breakfasts have been completed and cereal boxes and tin foil wrappers have been thrown out, so there are no distractions.

But students are doing anything but reading.

Two students ask to go to the bathroom. Another student puts her head down. Another student starts poking a classmate with his elbow and then pretends he didn’t when he’s asked to stop. One student starts rifling through her bag looking for something. You get the idea…one student is looking at the reading, but just looking — his eyes are not moving he is just staring at the page. Students are looking for ways to do anything but read the text on climate change, a topic that a minute ago they were so curious about!

I visit with the teacher, who is taking attendance and fielding a few latecomers.

“It looks like they are having a hard time getting started on this reading. Maybe you should remind them to annotate the reading or something, so they can stay more focused? Or start them off on the reading as a class?”

“I’ve taught them so many times how to annotate, so they should know what to do.”

“Hmm, but I don’t really see them annotating right now, do you?”

At the risk of being a nudge, I feel compelled to point this out as the students were not moving forward with the reading and seemed stuck. He agreed that he should say something.

“Okay everyone, you all should be annotating. Take out a pen or pencil and annotate like we have done before.”

This evolves into several students raising their hand because they need a pen, and the teacher lamenting over lending out pens and never getting them back. A quarter of the period has passed, and no one is reading or learning more about weather and climate.

Once everyone had a pen or pencil, the class appeared more settled, and their attention was back on the papers. What I noticed though, is most students jumped right to answering the questions instead of reading first. I wondered, is that okay? Is the purpose of this class to answer the questions, or to learn about the content through reading, and to use the questions as a check for understanding?

When I met with the teacher later, we discussed again how he had shown them how to annotate a few times — I was even there for a lesson where he modeled annotating on the projector! So why isn’t this clicking?

He has shown them what to do, but when it’s their turn to actively read and annotate, there is a disconnect.

Pushing Past Resistance

Annotation is not a magical skill, but it is a way to encourage students to read actively and stay focused on the reading. This is increasingly important as content area standardized tests include more and more reading passages, and if students can understand the reading, then they can have access to being a more successful student. Aside from assessments, exposing students to reading in all subject areas and asking them to practice active reading skills can increase their comprehension skills, which is a building block for critical thinking.

Of course, asking high school students to read anything is often met with a healthy dose of pushback. Americans read less and less each year. According to the National Literacy Institute, in 2024, 54% of adults had a literacy level below sixth grade, and 60% of behavioral issues in school happen when students are asked to read because of their low literacy skills. But while we might be met with resistance, this does not mean we give up on the skill of teaching reading and annotating; we have to keep at it, be creative, and continue to encourage students to actively read.

The frustrating aspect of this particular lesson is that the pre-reading hook was wonderful! Students were engaged by the climate change videos and trying to identify our school and places in their neighborhood within the sea rising graph. Even with their raised interest, you could almost hear a collective whomp whomp when the reading and questions handout were distributed.

So what can we do to ease this transition, even after the pre-reading hook is so effective? Reading is too important of a life skill to give up on; beyond state and national assessments, it is a skill that can open doors and empower people.

Guiding Students Into Action

Meeting with this teacher after class, we discussed the following moves the next time he starts with a great hook and transitions into a content-heavy reading:

If students aren’t engaging with the reading, it’s important to notice this and take action. When students all suddenly need to use the bathroom or put their heads down or start trying to poke their neighbors, it’s time to regroup and redirect.
Students may need help getting started. If they do, maybe read aloud and think aloud the very first sentence to get them started. “It looks like we are having a hard time getting started. I’m going to show you how I started off reading this passage and what I jotted down in the margins, and why I jotted it down...” Share your thinking and explore how the title of the text and the image (if there is any) will help you make predictions or ask questions about the text. While reading the first sentence or two, share any questions, connections or wonderings you have just from that first sentence. This will show your students what actively reading this text looks like, and this brief model may be able to get them started.
Strong readers create a purpose for reading so they know what to look for and notice as they read. It might be worth checking with students what they think they will be looking for or noticing in the reading before they begin, and what keywords are associated with that lens. In the earth science class I was visiting, for instance, students could have adopted a lens in the reading for what causes climate change, and how can individuals slow the process or prevent it?
If you notice students are beginning to read and annotate, take a moment for positive narrations, such as, “I love how Damian is writing in the margins and using arrows to make connections to other sentences and images.
If students are stuck and not reading, open it up to pair read. There is no age limit to pair reading, which includes taking turns reading the text aloud, discussing it by restating what was understood, and/or asking each other to clarify any confusing moments. Sheridan Blau, one of our esteemed professors in the English Education department at Teachers College, reminds us that “reading is a social activity.” When students engage with a text and help each other intellectually make meaning, they will practice and grow their literacy and thinking skills.

Even when a lesson starts off with deep curiosity, the transition to reading may still be bumpy. Address this with your students, and try any of the strategies listed above. We want our students to be active and thoughtful citizens, so let’s continue building their literacy skills, even if it requires some reteaching or regrouping. Just as it is worth combating climate change and making adjustments to mitigate this issue, practicing and improving students’ reading in all subject areas is worth fighting for.

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