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- Still Learning from Kindergarten to Say “Yes” or “No” - October 4, 2019
- Toni Morrison: Spilling over the Corners of Text - August 6, 2019
- Marie Kando Your Classroom - July 24, 2019
- MCAS Whitehead Test Prompt-What Were They Thinking? - May 28, 2019
- If They Are Choosing the Family Car, They Are Going to Want Choice in the Classroom - February 27, 2019
- Teachers Pay Teachers-The Fast Food of Education - February 22, 2019
- Yes, Breaking Up (with a text) is Hard to Do - October 8, 2017
- Copying the Nation’s Founding Documents by Hand - September 24, 2017
- A Comic Book Helped to Inspire the Civil Rights Movement - August 7, 2017
Readicide is defined as, “the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices often found in schools.” I fear I was a Readicide practitioner in my early years of teaching, but I am now trying to recover and adopt practices suggested in Kelly Gallagher’s book Readicide.
Gallagher points to a crisis in America’s schools that we experience in our classrooms at Wamogo. Our students do not read well; our test scores (recently released) are low. My English Department members hear all the time, “I hate to read” or “This book is too hard” or “I don’t have time.”
- Readicide advocates for student choice in reading.
Readicide (160 pages) was published by Stenhouse Publishers in 2009 and has been influential in many discussion on educational reform. Gallagher recognizes several factors have contributed to the reading crisis. One of these factors he discusses under the heading “There is a Dearth of Interesting Reading Materials in Our Schools.” In this section, Gallagher poses the following questions:|
-Shouldn’t schools be the places where students interact with interesting books?
-Shouldn’t the faculty have on-going, laser-like commitment to put good books in our students’ hands?
-Shouldn’t this be a front-burner issue at all times?
Gallagher advocates for interesting materials saying, “Let me be clear: if we have any chance at developing a reading habit in our students, they must be immersed in a K-12 ‘book flood’-a term coined by researcher Warwick Elley (1991). Students must have ready access to a wide range of reading materials. This goal should be the priority of every faculty….We must start all discussions about the state of reading on our campuses with a simple, direct question: do our students have ample access to high-interest reading materials?
As the English Department chair, I have purchased a number of titles in the secondary market through public library book sales and thrift stores (further explained in blog: http://usedbooksinclass.com/about/). In two years, English Department classroom libraries over 200 titles to our collection; some in small sets of three copies and other sets with as many as 60 copies. Members of the English Department will continue to teach “core texts”, but we offer independent reading books as well. We organized titles by theme and now let a student choose which book he or she would like to read. We have noted that our students are more enthused -and therefore more likely to finish – when they select a text. We now organize literature circles around student book choice….and we are offering more and more choice in a cost-effective way by using used books. We are changing how we teach and what we teach in order to stop the practice of “ We have noted that our students are more enthusiastic-and therefore more likely to finish – when they select a text. We now organize literature circles around student book choice….and we are offering more and more choice in a cost-effective way by using used books. We are changing how we teach and what we teach in order to stop the practice of “readicide“. We hope that others will too! — Disclaimer: This book was the possession of the reviewer. Neither The Educator’s Room nor the reviewer received any compensation for this review. The opinions contained in this review are those of the reviewer alone and were written free of any obligation or agreement with the publisher. If you have any questions regarding book reviews, see our full disclaimer or contact The Educator’s Room Book Review Editor.
I pulled my son out of his private school mid year in large part due to the mind numbing phonics, spelling, and vocab worksheets and SRA test prep questions he was getting all day and then all evening as homework. There was literally no time to read a book and I felt his reading would continue to lag without that time to actually read. Now he reads 3+ hours per day and loves it! He's fluent! We go to the library every Monday! We are loving life! I am so done with school!
Reading is the foundation for a good education. You might look at what else this author -Kelly Gallagher-suggests.