My mission as an Alabama educator and a teacher of reading is to create students that enjoy reading. At the beginning of every school year, I ask my students to complete a survey about their likes and dislikes of reading. I am always disappointed in the many statements that I receive from my students. “I hate reading.” “I haven’t read a book all summer.” These statements continue to worry me and after reading Kelly Gallagher’s book, Readicide, I understand why.
Gallagher insists, and I agree, that teachers are serving up “The Kill-a-Reader Casserole”. We take a novel, dice it up into many pieces, put in sticky notes, insert worksheets, add more sticky notes, and in the end, what we have is a completely unrecognizable novel that has been served to the students in bite-sized pieces. We have inadvertently killed the love and enjoyment of reading that novel.
My mission is to reverse this process. I want to build generations of book lovers. I want to motivate students to read for fun but also to read for information. I want teachers to ensure that students have interesting books to read by creating book floods in the classroom. I want teachers to allow important time and space to read books, magazines, and authentic texts inside of school and to be able to blog and discuss about what they’ve enjoyed. Sharing and spreading knowledge via technology is very important and a key component in motivating students.
Every day I begin my classes with a music video about reading. The tune is catchy but the message is the most important. In our classroom, we value reading and we value the time spent reading for fun and enjoyment. Just as pianists never get better with practice, readers never get better without reading. If students are taught to enjoy books, then they will become better readers, deeper thinkers, and lifelong learners.
Gallagher insists, and I agree, that teachers are serving up “The Kill-a-Reader Casserole”. We take a novel, dice it up into many pieces, put in sticky notes, insert worksheets, add more sticky notes, and in the end, what we have is a completely unrecognizable novel that has been served to the students in bite-sized pieces. We have inadvertently killed the love and enjoyment of reading that novel.
My mission is to reverse this process. I want to build generations of book lovers. I want to motivate students to read for fun but also to read for information. I want teachers to ensure that students have interesting books to read by creating book floods in the classroom. I want teachers to allow important time and space to read books, magazines, and authentic texts inside of school and to be able to blog and discuss about what they’ve enjoyed. Sharing and spreading knowledge via technology is very important and a key component in motivating students.
Every day I begin my classes with a music video about reading. The tune is catchy but the message is the most important. In our classroom, we value reading and we value the time spent reading for fun and enjoyment. Just as pianists never get better with practice, readers never get better without reading. If students are taught to enjoy books, then they will become better readers, deeper thinkers, and lifelong learners.
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