Ok... I have to start by asking a few questions.
1. How many of you have ever heard the phrase "overteaching reading"?
2. How many of you have ever experienced the overteaching of reading?
I have to admit that I've never heard the term or explanation of "overteaching reading," but I have certainly experienced it many times over the years. As both a student in classes and as a student teacher I have seen this "overteaching" happen. I have had the same thought that Mem Fox's daughter Chloe uttered many times over the years---"I could have read four books by now!" (p. 59) Reading in class or for a class sometimes became ruined by teachers repeatedly stopping to recap, analyze, define words, etc. or assignments over the reading that require continuous question answering, passage marking, reflecting, etc.
In addition to the irony of this overteaching of reading, I find it ironic that Gallagher's somewhat humorous example of movie-watching (p. 61) has actually happened to me. I was in a college class watching a film incorporating many of the sociological concepts we had been learning in class and my professor did, in fact, stop the film multiple times for us to discuss these sociological themes and the director's tone and perspective.
The part of Gallagher's chapter 3 "Avoiding the Tsunami" that I was most intrigued by was the section describing how the overteaching of reading contributes to the destruction or lack of development of the reading flow. Since I am such an avid reader, I love the experience of being so engrossed in a book that I reach the end and have to reorient myself to where I am, what time it is, etc. That is a true testament to a great author and also to my ability to completely shut off and truly experience the story. Many teachers all killing students' abilities to find this passion for and enjoyment of reading by the incessant stop to analyze and/or reflect.
"The endless reading hoops placed in front of young readers to jump through are actually exacerbating the problem" (p. 61) made me consider disciplinary literacy once again. We are social studies content teachers need to keep this is mind for our reading asssignments. Primary documents are a great resource in social studies classrooms, and implementing the strategies we learned from the article in class earlier this semester can help us alleviate some of these hoops. Summarizing some wordy parts of primary documents and using lower-level vocabulary are two great options.
To be honest, I have never heard of the term "over teaching" reading either. But I have felt I have been over-taught. I agree, with the point that both you and Gallagher make about avoiding the tsuanmi. I have witnessed a lot of this in my placements, where the teachers top and question the students about their reading to make sure they are keeping up. While I understand why teachers feel they might need to this, I never considered how it could kill the reading experiences for our students. I agree, that we need to utilize the strategies that we have learned this semester with the reading assignments in our classrooms to avoid those "hoops" you mention. Reading should engage the students and allow them to work at their own pace and comprehension levels, and we can assess their understandings through other ways without interrupting their reading process.
ReplyDeleteI think we can all recall situations when we felt the tsunami. How can teachers help students manage the load of reading and also approach text analytically without chopping it up into too many meaningless pieces? I could agree with Gallagher about not having to teach everything through one book. There are too many great books to read!
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