contributed by Angela Peery
Imagine a classroom full of young people.
They could be cherished from kindergarten to chubby or boastful cheeks and confident high schools – or anything between the two. Can you see them?
Now imagine this class absorbed by reading.
What is the fact of being absorbed by reading? What does it look like? What evidence does not exist that true and committed reading takes place?
See also What is critical reading?
In my visualization, I see a piece of first year students – my class of yesteryear. Five or six students bask in the reading area, lying on the sofa or stretched on pillows on the ground. A dozen students are at their office with their nose buried in books, their office computers dotted with pencils, highlights and sticky notes. A group of four girls sits their legs crossed near the door, each with its own copy of a novel by a provocative young adult, whispering what happened and what could happen afterwards.
See also What I tell students when they say they don’t like to read
They chose to read the book together and push each other to respect their self-imposed discussion program. Along the sides of the room, nearly a few electrical outlets, there are students sitting alone, with headphones, listening to audio books. One is lying on the back, fixing the ceiling. The other is lying on its side, following a paper copy of the book, stopping often, rewinding and carefully replaying the audio, according to the text with its index.
And I am there – I can see myself near the front of the room, sitting on a chair with my feet stuck in another, devouring a current non -fiction, looking at any student who dares to interrupt my concentration or the concentration of a classmate. When is the last time you saw a classroom as I described, not only in your head, but in reality?
In my consultation work in the past five years, I have seen classrooms that are only really engaged in a handful of times. I remember it very well because they are extremely rare.
One was a room full of first -year students, spread over various stations, turning every 15 or 20 minutes. One group was at a table with a paraprofessional, another was on the ground with books, and yet another on the ground with tablets. Finally, a group was at a table making a kind of practical activity linked to their reading. I listened to adults to speak with children about their reading. These children could talk about the characters, the events, the whole shebang. They were not only regurgus. They were invested.
Another was a college class. The professor started the course with everyone sitting in a circle on the ground. She asked an authentic question, no one has a right, the book they all read together. The students impatiently answered his question and the other. They asked new questions. The discussion was energizing. After ten minutes, the students ran to their office, ready to open their books and continue to read, inspired.
The room where reading is much more frequent in my observations is inflicted on students. They are sitting at their office, most of them, most of them, while waiting for the next worksheet or the next question in terms of recall. Those who like to play the school game respond aloud and respond quickly. They sometimes push their neighbors to participate in the discussion or answer questions about the worksheet. Those who do not like the game have lowered their heads or engage with the one who is on the other side of their mobile phone.
Those who despise the game play. They could be standing, wandering in the classroom, or they could call inappropriate comments. They could repeatedly ask to go to the toilet, the nurse or the guidance counselor. When the chore is too much for them to bear, they will do something horrible enough to justify that the teacher removed them from the room.
What has become reading at school? The terms “narrow reading” and “complex text” have been used enough in recent years to make me cringe when a teacher pronounces them. Would we have ever wanted students not Read carefully? Of course not. Did we never have that the end objective of a lesson or unit be that students could read simplistic text? No. But these terms – or perhaps our application – have they killed a reading committed in our courses?
What should look like, resemble and achieve a committed reading culture for readers?
My first thought is to return to Nancie Atwell and her mantra for the reading / writing workshop: we must give students of time, property and response. Are we teachers giving students time to read in class? Do we attribute to reading and are we expecting to be done elsewhere? Shouldn’t reading be done when and where we can best help, which is in our classrooms? Has a reader become a stronger reader without models, coaches and peers to read? I doubt it.
And what is the role of property? I saw self-selected reading disappear into the age of national standards. The teachers rush to cover the assigned text after the text awarded and spend hours adapting activities to take into account the low reading skills and the resistance of their students. For me, this is not the right path. The right way is to take more time to read the choice of choice to increase skills (such as endurance!) Which are necessary to tackle the attributed (and often boring) materials.
Given the right conditions, students will tackle extremely complex texts independently. Sometimes peers will help facilitate this; At other times, a care teacher will do so. I remember very well a student who told me that he had never read a whole book during our first week of school. He was fifteen years old. 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 by his side as he crossed him. Guess what he addressed later in the year? The call of nature. This is just a small example of what a teacher who really values reading can do.
This particular student was supported by the trifecta of time, property and response. I replied as a colleague reader, and not as a teacher who checks the specific objectives on a recording of his reading realization. When his teacher and peers are also committed readers, it is difficult not to participate in the community.
So let’s stop the endless calculation sheets. Let’s finish the false cooperative groups that cover the text simply to find answers to the tedious questions of the teacher. Let us again make room in the study program for a committed reading culture, where readers sit and read in the company of other readers, because it is quite important to do it together, in class, in a community. Where readers talk about what they read because they want, not because they are forced to do it. And where readers attack the classics and other difficult texts with confidence, because they know that they can rely on authentic reading experiences to help them.
As Ripp noted has noted: “In our quest to create readers for life, we seem to miss very basic truths about what makes a reader.” We must restore the time, property and response to their legitimate status in instruction before creating an entire generation of non-readers.
