Gallagher focuses a lot on the need for independent reading in their instructional classes. I completely agree with this! Students should be given the opportunities to read independently in order to become life-long readers. Without the opportunity for independent and a multiple range of readings students will not connect to reading in any way whatsoever.
The school that I just finished my first practicum at was very good at this through their RC program. I was given the privilege of working with two host teachers and was able to compare their two different teaching styles. One teacher taught 7th grade and kept reading logs on her students and their only requirement of their RC reading was to read 50 pages a week for her higher level classes and 30 pages for her lower level classes. The other teacher taught 8th grade and didn't keep up with reading logs at all, and her only requirement of their RC aspect of the class was that they met their goals that were agreed upon between her and the student. The seventh grade teachers also allowed her students 10 minutes every single day to read a book of their choice. The eighth grade teacher did not give them a set time every single day, but would give them more time (like 20-30 minutes) during class once or twice a week.
Although I hope to teach on a high school level and the implementation of a program such as RC is not something that will likely be used in this setting, I will use the idea of SSR in my classroom. I think that allowing students the opportunity to read for their own pleasure and through their own choice is crucial to developing true readers.
I also have thought about implementing the use of newspaper articles in my classroom, and really appreciated Gallagher's example of his article of the week. I wish that he had given more information about how he used this and why they were given the entire week for the assignment. I like the idea of giving them opportunities to chose articles themselves at times too though in something that they may be interested in. This may make them more intrigued in actually reading newspapers for an attempt to make them life-long advocates for this type of literature. Does anyone have any ideas about how else to implement other types of reading into your language arts classroom that will help them become the life-long readers that we hope that they will become?
I'm not an English teacher so I don't have any feedback on how to implement this and that but I do like what you said and it kind of goes along with what I put in my blog this week. I don't think reading the "classics" is a waste of time but I think we need to do a better job of incorporating several types reading in our classrooms, such as newspaper articles. You seem to have some good ideas already of how to move students in the direction of enjoying to read. I think the more choice they have as to what they read, the more they will enjoy it. I also think it is important that they learn to read to be successful in society. They need to know how to read a newspaper and understand it. They need to know how to read an instruction manual. Incorporating these things in the classroom would help them be more functional in society. Do you think in the elevator somewhere someone is going to ask you about Romeo and Juliet (unless you happen to be holding it)? Pretty doubtful, but they may ask you something about a current event and your thoughts on it.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Kristina. My background is not in English so I do not have any creative suggestions to make on implementation. I am a big reader though and wonder why we do not use what we already know about our kids.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that seems to be effective in my middle school placement was exposing kids to numerous novels and series that popular movies have been based on. Young adult series such as Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and Twilight are just a few that our kids are asking for at the library. There is even a waiting list for the Twilight books (haha). Many young females might show interest in reading Nicholas Sparks' latest novels, especially 'The Last Song' starring tween Miley Cyrus.
Maybe if we as educators made a commitment to pointing out the novels these blockbuster movies are based from we would see more books in our students' hands. We know that kids watch TV and movies, so why not use popular actors or story lines to promote independent reading.
I completely agree. I think the idea that reading is supposed to be an enjoyable activity has been lost on this generation. It certainly was for me. I saw reading as a chore. I think that if teachers allowed their kids to choose what they want to read within a framework we would have much more success creating lifelong readers. Forcing them to read shakespeare and ivanhoe I do not think accomplishes this goal but instead causes them to hate reading like I do.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you when you said that students should be given the opportunities to read independently in order to become life-long readers. I know that this was a very long time ago, but when I was growing up I believe the only thing that challenged me in elementary school to read was a program called Accelerated Reader. The program was designed to where the school offered a number of books in the library outside of classroom texts, and we as the students were allowed to go and read the books and take a test on whatever the story was about. Although it may sound as if taking a test was very boring there were several incentives offered for each test the student take. For example, if the student took one test they would receive 5 to 10 points. As the points increased the incentive increased. At 50 points, I do know that the student was able to go out to lunch of their choice with their favorite teacher. I say all of this to say that if reading was a little more interesting, I believe more students will continue to do it. I was one of those students who lost the passion of reading upon arriving to middle school due to not being challenged and no incentive being offered. Therfore I totally agree that without the opportunity for independent and a multiple range of readings students will not connect to reading in any way whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteThe schools that I have worked at over the past year have the AR system in place and during the school year it does seem to be effective. I like the fact that students are able to choose what they want to read. When I have a science classroom of my own one day I plan on keeping magazines and newspapers around for students to read. I know that finding interesting magazines on the topic of Literature is probably not as easy as for science.
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