The last chapter provides a summary of Readicide. This book does a good job trying to improve reading problems in our schools. One of the ways to improve is te 50/50 approach, this is a way to improve reading involvement in the classroom. I have only one problem with the 50/50 approach. I believe that the teachers must focus on the academic reader only. Many educators will disagree with me but I think no matter what you do as a teacher you will not get may student to be recreational readers.
In closing, we can not make comparison to Finland or any other country. We need to focus on the factors that affect our own students. the American education system needs to come up with their own way to improve literacy and not try to model changes after any other countries.
you are right, you will not be able to do anything you deem impossible...a teacher who desires to create recreational readers will have to motivation necessary to invest in the students, and may find one of the 100+ students developing the love of recreational reading... it's all in the mindset of the teacher :-)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you somewhat. I think for me it didn't matter what the teacher did I simply wasn't going to like reading. It doesn't seem to fit my attention span shortcomings. However, for those borderline type people the enthusiasm shown by the teachers can influence students. Introducing fun reading and not shoving boring text down students throat can make a difference. In regards to other countries I think we do need to look to other countries for ideas in the same way we look at any organization that is doing better than us. We need to be open to new ideas.
ReplyDeleteI both agree and disagree with you. While it would be foolish for America to have a one-size-fits-all mentality and try to import educational approaches from other countries, it would be even more foolish not to see what they are doing well and try to imitate them in some ways. Sure we have different issues/factors to consider, but we obviously need to look somewhere for some answers that we obviously don't yet have the answers to.
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