The Delicate Balance in Teaching Reading

Finding the "sweet spot" in teaching reading to me seems to be the most delicate balance that a literature teacher can have.  As Gallagher points out over and over again within this chapter there is a balance that is necessary between underteaching and overteaching of text within the language arts classroom.  I find that often many of the books that we read about problems in the classroom or schools point out the problems but do not give solutions, but in this chapter Gallagher gives definite solutions.  

Gallagher starts out by discussing the importance of framing a text before reading it.  This is an awesome solution; however, I have found that often teachers will do this, but with no end result in mind.  They may frame a text through historical context (which may be important) or focusing on a particular aspect of a book, such as symbolism, but if that is not what is ultimately important, especially when it comes time for assessment, then why give them this framework? I think that students need a specific framework, but only one that has a specific end result in mind.  Gallagher touches on this, by commenting that he uses this with an end result in mind, but does not discuss how vital this is to this process.

I have also always found it very important to re-read text, and Gallagher also comments on this.  I like that he gives specific way to do this within a classroom though.  I think that it would be beneficial.  And he also talks about the need to do adopt a big chunk/little chunk philosophy in your classroom.  By this he means that you should allow your students to achieve reading flow with some aspects of it, but when you get to a more difficult passage or chapter then you need to stop and re-read here. This philosophy should really help with the overteaching issue.  This is a format that several of my college professors used, which is when I developed my love for reading.  We would be assigned text to read on our own, and then we would come in and discuss.  If we were at a place that was confusing or even complicated without us admitting to confusion, we would go over this aspect of the novel during class time.  I could see because of my own experiences with literature why this philosophy would work when applied to any classroom.

There has to be a balance when teaching literature...you do not want to KILL the reading for the students, but as Gallagher points out, you also do not want to leave them to difficult text to grapple with the difficulties on their own either.  There needs to be a balance, and I love that he offers real solutions within this chapter that seem really applicable to the language arts classroom.

Tsunami = Overteaching

I love Gallagher's analogy of the tsunami in this chapter.  The idea that teacher's are stifling learning by continuously overteaching and interrupting in the midst of great books.  By doing this, teachers are interrupting the flow of good reading.  No wonder student's do not develop a passion or love for reading if they never are allowed to engage with the texts that they are given.  I would get upset if someone stopped me in the midst of reading to tell me something about it (I also like his analogy of stopping someone in the middle of movies-but film critics do this).  Part of why I developed my love for reading was the way college classrooms were set up.  The ability to read books by myself uninterrupted and then come to the classroom to discuss them in an open forum appealed to me and developed my love for reading.  Unfortunately, in the secondary classroom setting this seems to be impossible for many reasons.  I agree with a lot of what Gallagher says here, but again, I wish he gave more examples of how to effectively avoid this.  Any suggestions?