Kelly Gallagher's Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It defines readicide as "the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools" (vii). Reading the foreward, introduction, and The Elephant in the Room (chaper 1) were very difficult for me. I wholeheartedly agree with Gallagher's main ideas about how the tyranny of testing is creating a generation of students who can't and/or don't read. Many students are perpetually struggling with reading and all the emphasis is placed on remediation so they can pass a reading component on a standardized assessment as opposed to developing a love for reading through building real-life reading skills. The concept of aliterates (vii) that he introduces was a new term for me, but, sadly, it is a true definition of the majority of our nation's population.
I think one reason why these terms and definitions were so hard for me to fathom and upsetting to read because I am an avid reader and love nothing more than to spend an afternoon curled up with a great book. Bringing standardized testing into the equation created a whole new stir in me. Highlighting the detrimental effects of standardized testing on todays' students is a passion of mine. My undergraduate senior capstone was on this topic and I am continuing to persue this in my action research this semester. Gallagher's Paige Paradox was especially intriguing and I would urge all educators to read this work. Those who are proponents of the current method of mass standardized testing should be made aware of the issues testing brings up and those of us who believe the amount and pressure of these tests are causing more damage than good will have more information to back up and defende thier beliefs.
Many parts of this chapter were helpful and led to a deeper understanding of how readicide is occuring in our schools each and every day. One that stood out to me immediately was that "authentic interest is generated when students are given the opportunity to delve deeply into an interesting idea...by sacrificing deep, rich teaching, we begin chipping away at our students' motivation" (10). From our Annenberg study last semester on motivation, we learned that student interest is of paramount importance. This is especially true for reading. Having students really dig into a text that they are interested in will always generate deeper understanding, retention, and excitement for the subject. This is not occuring in many of today's classrooms, however, because of the emphasis on the standardized assessments that are checking for memorized facts and test-taking skills as opposed to critical thinking and other skills that developing citizens should be acquiring at school.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
What is readicide?
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This whole test taking it out of hand. All we hear is make sure we are at this standard, make sure you cover this for the test. Teach for understanding bottom line also read for understanding. Why read if your not going to be able to understand it, why even teach if we are not going to teach for understanding. We can point the finger but it usually does little good, but we can as future teachers vow to teach for understanding and bring back the joy of reading. I am far from an avid reader but once in a while I will find a book that I enjoy and yes it is usually sports related but I enjoy it. We need to bring by the enjoyment of reading to all students. I cannot stress enough that at my current placement the students reading involvement is unreal. We have to tell them to stop reading so that we can teach our content and from what I have seen this is a good problem to have at a school. Reading has got to be fun and teachers have to be involved in the process. Somewhere along the line Beth you were introduced and fell in love with reading whether being read to as a child or encouraged by a teacher it has been a mainstay in your life. Not every student is going to be a bookworm but regardless students need to be encouraged to read for content, understanding, and for enjoyment.
ReplyDeleteBeth, I completely agree with your blog. I touched on this a little bit in my blog, but it is hard for me to fathom also, because I remember reading for fun as being such a big part of my school memories. We used to have things like DEAR Time Reading (Drop Everything And Read) and Read-In days, which were both long periods of time totally devoted to reading just for fun. Now things like that don’t even exist because they have to push them aside for testing preparation. Instead of letting student’s reading abilities develop because they love to do it, they force reading upon them in an unnatural way, and their ability is decided upon by poorly-written standardized tests. Readicide is very real in today’s schools, we’re losing avid readers everyday that we force them to put away their novels and take practice reading tests.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely with the idea of making sure the topic is of interest with students. Its amazing how many books students read when they can choose a topic that interest them. There is always something thats interest students in every classroom. Finding this interest is such a vital part of teaching. One effective way to do this is to allow time for reading in the classroom and paying attention to what the students are reading. If a teacher can look at what is being read, then they can gauge the interest of the students. This reading is so important because it builds the skills needed to function in society. This is much more important than any standard or really any of the content material in any subject. Fostering the ability to read and the building of reading skills should be at the top of any teacher's priority list. Allowing time to read in class allows for students to read and then learn the content material.
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