contribute to Angela Perry
Imagine a classroom full of young people.
They could be nice, fluffy kindergartens or blur, confident adult high schools-or something between them. Can you see them?
Now, present this class absorbed by reading.
What does it look like to get involved in reading? How does it sound? What evidence does there exist that a real, engaged reading is carried out?
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In my visualization, I see a room full of freshmen – my classroom from the past. Five or six students are accommodated in the reading area, climbing on the sofa or extending to the floor to the floor. A dozen or so students are at their desks with their noses buried in books, their desktop computers, located with pencils, highlanders and sticky notes. A group of four girls sits with their legs crossed near the door, each with its own copy of a provocative novel for young adults, whispering about what happened and what can happen afterwards.
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They have chosen to read the book together and to push each other in order to meet their self -imposed schedule for discussion. From the sides of the room, near several electricity shopping sites, are students who sit alone, with headsets, listen to audio books. One lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. The other lies on his side, following in paper bearer of the book, often stops, rewinds and carefully reproduces audio, following the text with his index finger.
And here I am – I can see near the front of the room, sitting in one chair with my feet, supported in another, swallowing some current non -filming, looking at each student who dared to interrupt my concentration or concentration of a classmate. When was the last time you saw a classroom, as I described, not only in your head, but in reality?
In my consulting work in the last five years, I have seen classrooms that are really committed to reading only a handful of times. I remember them brightly because they are extremely rare.
One was a room full of first -graders, distributed to different stations, rotating every 15 or 20 minutes. One group was on a table with a paraproofsionist, another was on the floor with books and another on the floor with tablet devices. Finally, a group was at a table, doing some practical activity related to reading them. I listened while the adults talked to the children about reading them. These children could talk about the characters, the events, the whole Shebang. They were not just regenerating. They were invested.
Another was the classroom in high school. The teacher started class with all who sit in a circle on the floor. She raised an authentic question, none with the right answer for the book that everyone read together. The students eagerly answered her question and each other. They asked new questions. The discussion was energizing. After about ten minutes, the students rushed to their desks, ready to open their books and continue to read, inspired.
Much more common in my observations is the room in which reading is applied to the students. They sit at their desks, compatible for the most part, in anticipation of the next worksheet or the next question at the withdrawal level. Those who enjoy playing the game at school respond voice and respond quickly. They sometimes expose their neighbors to participate in the discussion or fill in the questions on the worksheet. Those who do not enjoy the game, put their heads or engage with anyone who is at the other end of their mobile phones.
Those who despise the game act. They may be ready, wander around the classroom, or call inappropriate comments. They may repeatedly want to go to the toilet or nurse or guidance for orientation. When Drudgery is too much for them, they will do something terrible enough to ensure that the teacher removes them from the room.
What happened to reading at school? The terms “close reading” and “complex text” have been used enough in the last few years to make me press the pressing when a teacher utters them. Did we ever want students no To read close? Of course not. Did we ever want the ultimate goal of a lesson or unit to be that students can read a simplified text? No. But these conditions – or possibly our implementation to them – killed engaged reading in our classes?
How should a reading culture look like, such as sound and achieve for readers?
My first thought is to return to Nancy Atwell and her mantra for reading/writing seminar: We have to give students time, property and answer. Do we give ELA teachers to give students to read in class? Do we assign reading and then expect it to get up elsewhere? Shouldn’t you read when and where can we best help, which is in our classrooms? Has the reader ever become a stronger reader with no role models, coaches and peers to read together? I doubt.
And what is the role of property? I have seen self -chosen reading practically disappears in the era of national standards. Teachers are embarking to cover an assigned text after a text appointed and spend hours adapting activities to take into account the weak reading skills and the outspoken resistance of their students. For me, this is not the right way. The right way is to spend more time reading your optional materials to enhance the skills (such as durability!), Which are needed to deal with the appointed (and often boring) materials.
Given the right conditions, students will handle extremely complex texts independently. Sometimes peers will help facilitate this; At other times, a caring teacher will do it. I clearly remember a student who told me that he had never read a whole book during our first week of school. He was fifteen. He worked with his father on a commercial fishing boat. What was the first book I put in his hands? The old man and the sea. And I stayed with him as he was walking through him. Guess what did it do later during the year? The call of wildlife. This is just a tiny example of what a teacher who really appreciates reading can do.
This particular student was overwhelmed by the Trifect of Time, Property and Reaction. I answered him as a reader, not as a teacher who checks specific goals to record his reading achievement. When a teacher and peers are also engaged, it is difficult not to participate in the community.
So let’s stop the endless worksheets. Let’s end the fake cooperation groups that skip text just to find answers to the Master’s annoying questions. Let’s make a place again in the curriculum for reading culture, where readers actually sit and read in the company of other readers, because it is important enough to do it together, in class, in a community. Where readers talk to each other about what they read because they want, not because they are forced. And where readers deal with the confidence of the classics and other difficult texts because they know that they can take advantage of authentic reading experiences to help them.
As Penil Rip noted: “In our quest to create readers throughout life, we seem to be lacking some basic truths about what a reader does.” We need to restore the time, property and reaction of their legal status in the instructions before creating a whole generation of non-readers.
