Thinking about the task that lies ahead of us as educators, ending the readicide our nation's political leaders have created through legislation such a No Child Left Behind, is quite daunting. Gallagher's findings and the ideas he shares for combatting the issue are strong points we definitely need to keep in mind as we begin our journey. I found The 50/50 Approach (p. 117) particularly intriguing. Developing recreational readers should be a key practice and focus of all educators, but leisure reading has been relegated to the very back burner in most schools in exchange for more time focusing on test preparation. The story that Stephanie and Ryan shre about the GMC students reading too many leisure books during class time and the distraction that creates is an exciting problem to have, while my 7th graders can hardly stand the one hour of Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) time on Friday mornings during Academic Support. Students see this as a punishment and are constantly askng "why do we have to do this?" And I have to be honest, I know the answer to why this is important, but I have yet to fidn a way to explain its importance to my kids in a way that will make sense to them and get them as excited about the time as I am that they have that opportunity! This time fits in perfectly with most all of the "developing recreational readers" category. What students are reading for fun, enjoyment, to "build valuable knowledge capital" can be achieved through this time set aside for student-selected Silent Sustained Reading. It's not for a grade, but there are also no incentives for this reading time, and I could see that as a way to improve the DEAR time in my classroom.
One concern I have about this reading time is that many students are selecting magazines from the classroom bookshelf to read during this time on a weekly basis. Through this they are fostering that "thinner and broader" education. Instead of engaging in a cognitive challenging novel, they fly through page after page of newsworthy information or ground-breaking new information about our world. However, it is juts that--a lack of depth. This magazine reading during DEAR is a parallel to the "Internet reading producer shallower reading than book reading...there is more emphasis placed on reading headlines and blurbs" (112). In my classroom, I would immediately combat this with a "book flood" available to them. I have actually already begun creating my classroom library! The beginning of the end of readicide is going to have to start in each and every one of our classrooms through the strategies we implement, being reading role models, engaging in conversations with students about their reading, and having high-interest reading available at all reading levels to guide all students to deeper reading.
Beth, I feel like there is nothing "leisurely" about reading anymore, especially to middle and high schoolers. I can't remember the last time I sat down and read a book because it interested me. There are a lot of books I am excited about reading, but honestly I don't have time to read for myself. I've got lessons to plan, TWS to work on, action research to do, and hopefully some time left over to have some form of a social life. Now, rewind back to when I was in middle and high school. Between school, homework, and sports, there was not much time left for anything else in my day and if there was, I wasn't going to spend it sitting under a lamp reading a book. There were sports on TV, time to spend with the family, and video games to play. This is the harsh reality we must face as educators. We can't expect a 13-18 year old student to WANT to read. I don't feel like they have to sit down and read Gone With the Wind in their free time to become a better reader. If I did read in my free time it was the sports page, Sports Illustrated, or articles on the Internet. This is still the pattern of reading I am likely to take part in as soon as I'm done writing this response. Reading short, informative articles about things that interest me is what made me as literate as I am today. It wasn't because teachers made me sit down and read for an hour everyday. I spent that time flirting with the girl next to me or goofing off with my friends. We must learn how to ease kids into reading instead of drowning them with the classics. I've never read To Kill a Mockingbird, but I don't think I'm less educated than someone who has. In order to stop readicide, I think we must get kids reading things they want to read. I'm not saying emails, texts, and ims are the way to make kids better readers, but having them read articles online, reading magazines that have some value, and reading about what's going on in the world from the newspaper is a great start. I'm likely to start reading classics like To Kill a Mockingbird one day, but I'm 23 and I wouldn't read it if I had to, much less expect a 13 year old to do so during their 'leisure time.'
ReplyDeleteBeth, the schools I went to growing up had DEAR time every week as well. I had forgotten about this until I read your post, but I'm glad to see schools still have it. I can understand the frustration of the kids not wanting to read any books during this time, but instead opting for the easy magazines they can flip to till the dreaded hour is over. Maybe one thing the kids struggle with, and what makes them choose the magazines over a book, is reading a book can sometimes seem hard and time consuming. If you don't know what reading level the kids are at, and this was your real classroom, I'd find out. Then offer a range of books at all different levels. Find out what they're most interested in. If you can take their interests, then give them easy books to start with and build into longer, harder novels, this might help get the kids out of their magazine phase.
ReplyDeleteI actually think that reading magazines can be beneficial especially in the younger grades. There are very few middle school and lower high school students who are going to appreciate The Great Gatsby. Plus I feel that our main goal in these lower grades is just to be able to get them to read and to understand. This idea that they must interpret the deeper meaning of these great novels is unnecessary. If the students know how to read and understand how to reflect on reading they will pick up these great novels at a later date on their own. This whole forcing students to read and appreciate books they care nothing about is what is causing readacide.
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