on Cutting Childrens' Reading into Tiny Pieces for Them

[thefish30]

“But in school ONE of our requirements in the teaching of reading is to teach the skills of reading. One of the goals of the reading assigned inside and outside of school is to get the students to stop and think about what they are reading (ask questions, make inferences, make connections, understand the author’s purpose and possible bias). As

Comments

[juliet_winters]

I have similar feelings for assigned readings in high school. A lot of 19th-century literature makes no sense unless you understand the world they lived in...including the characters' feelings on religion and whether the author was part of any upstart political movements.

If it's an historical novel, written in a different historical time period (such as The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, or Last of the Mohicans) you would have to understand the truth of the period about which they were writing, the reality of the writer's own period, and how we have perceive it differently because of the time in which we are living. That's a lot to ask of an English survey course.

[eliskimo]

I have two books sitting on my shelf: An Incomplete Education and The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. Both books are essentially compendiums of all that "context" one should have picked up along the way between Kindergarten and Grade 12. I bought them when I was studying improv (improvisational theater) 12 years ago. They were part of our recommended reading. Being able to do improv hinges on being able to pick up cue from your fellow actors and a solidly shared set of references is essential.

However, the fact that these book even exist - that they met a need - is rather sad. It's so much more fun to pick up the context of "cultural literacy" simply by reading widely, and being encouraged to do so.

[goldenmoonrose]

Is school reading like life reading? No. Because it's not meant to be. Yes, I am a constructivist, and I do believe that the school should be preparing students for real life, should be mirroring real life, and should be building real skills by creating real experiences. (Hence why I HATE HATE HATE worksheets and the similar, of course, depending upon the worksheets.) This is why reading material must be both quality and highly significant to the children

[izhilzha]

I have two things to say: first, studying Latin and Greek vocab in junior high was utterly invaluable to me as a reader, and second, the moment I learned to slow down and occasionally pause my reading (though I'm told I still read abnormally fast) was the moment I went from "inhaling" literature to actually understanding it.

But I was homeschooled, so I also got to just read as much as I wanted at the pace I wanted, so I was lucky. :)

Reading instruction

[anonymous]

As a reading teacher, I just want to make sure you know that the tools of comprehension are not related to vocabulary worksheets. I VERY RARELY see a teacher use a vocabulary worksheet any more. There are so many amazing ways to teach vocabulary and comprehension that do not involve worksheets. Most teachers use a wide variety of real life methods to help kids increase understanding. We read similar stories, we think across genres, we act out stories, we relate to characters