Thursday, November 10, 2011
Directed reading
I wasn't in class this week but after the readings I was thinking of how we, as teachers, direct kids reading. I would hazard a guess that many teachers don't think about how what they let or don't let their students read has much of an impact on them, in terms of leveled reading. I would disagree. I think that limiting a students reading takes away from the basic joy of reading which is the reason so many do it for enjoyment purposes. If you are so busy trying to teach children how to read could you be forgetting about teaching them how to love reading? So how do we instill a love of reading in our students? I think that giving them the opportunity to read what they want to is a big part of it. I was really shocked when we were talking about personal literacy experiences and someone was saying that they were not allowed to read anything other then what was approved for her level in the program. I think point were allotted to those books so, reading something you liked wasn't considered a worthwhile pursuit, as it had no points attached. I find this really depressing. But I am also aware that when I teach at a school I will have to teach the program they promote. So it is up to me to find ways to give students the opportunity to self select.
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I agree with you that one of the most difficult things to do as a teacher is to find ways to get students engaged, interested and excited about reading. I think that letting them choose books that they are interested in is a huge part of it. I think that what we do as teachers in terms of how we get students to think about the text they have read and to draw more from it can be more important than what they are actually reading. I also think that by providing students with real world texts, such as current magazines, newspapers or other current event stories can get students excited to read about things that impact their lives.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you. I am not saying that self selection isn't important, however, it is also important to teach students how to connect with what they are reading. Though what they choose may not be a topic they are interested in it is up to you as a teacher to show them how to make connections and how it can pertain to them. One of the ways to do this is to increase the depth of comprehension and analyzing you do for each text. I also think that coming from a critical pedagogy platform especially with older students is important.
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