Reading

[zbyszko]

There is an interesting article in the New York Times today on reading to kids and reading for fun. One of the bits "only 17 percent of all children surveyed reported having time to read a book of their choice at school daily" hit me. I had perfected the art of reading books of my choice during class early on. I can remember having to write "I will

Comments

[strgazr04]

I recently did a teaching internship at a local elementary school in the first and second grades before earning my state teaching license. I was shocked at the setup they had. Most notably, there were no science or social studies units being taught (not unless it was something like President's Day or something random, never to be talked about again and only brought up due to the holiday). As for reading, that was in abundance. However, I noticed the problem right away. Everything was assigned. Each child was tested and then given leveled books based on their performance. There was no ownership, no enjoyment. As a student, you were told when, where, and for how long you were to be reading. Everything was based on phonics and grammar which is the most dull and mundane way to teach anyone to read (especially since it contains no context or real world examples. Knowing a list of words containing 'TH' and 'PH' sounds won't really help you through a novel). It was reading all day long that it became begrudging by the students. What happened to the love of reading? When I was a kid, you couldn't get me out of the library or bookstore without a huge pile of books. I used to have to use my library card along with both my parents' cards or else I'd go over the limit for allowed books to be rented out per card. It's no wonder so many children struggle to read these days when this is how we are 'teaching' them. I was amazed that no one noticed how the students, left to their own devices, would choose those big National Geographic books about dinosaurs and animals to read instead of the boring leveled readers. When I suggested that you can use a science topic with literature to support reading, covering two subjects at once, the other teachers looked at me like I had three heads.

[zbyszko]

As much as I loved reading as a kid, assigned reading was not the same thing. I can still remember reading a Dickens book that was not an assignment and how much better it was than when I had to read one for a class.

I went to a Catholic grade school so we had lots of phonics and grammar but they also had a little library where we could check out what we wanted. And they did let us read above grade level. I did find the grammar and sentence structure stuff useful later when I was taking German as at least I knew what the parts of sentences were which was more than some of the public school kids did.

My sister and I had the same problem with library card limits as kids too. : )