As a lifelong reader and a deep reader I've been kind of disturbed by how little even folks who say they enjoy reading actually read as far back as I can remember. However the concern I have for the kids in schools now dwarfs those concerns. There are so many reasons unfortunately but how reading has been taught in the past few decades is certainly one of them. Have you listened to the "Sold A Story" podcast? I highly recommend it.
Agree - not reading entire works means not becoming familiar with characters, circumstances, context - it means losing (and not creating) empathy. It impedes the opportunity for kids to see themselves in the story, in the characters.
Reading is SO important for empathy! Film, television, social media most especially don't develop empathy or imagination in the same way as reading. Unfortunately I think we can see how well served the population has been by abandoning most of the deep reading for pleasure. I have a lot of feelings about it unfortunately. My daughter reads and she reads well, far above her grade level. I'm not sure if they used cue based reading at her school because she was close to reading simple words when she started,
I've always reckoned the reading numbers constitute a scientific mysticism. Ghosts of statistics. Ask the meaning of life--that has an easy reading level. Ask the answer of the meaning of life--different story.
Also, nearly ten years ago I heard an administrator say with a straight face, as if it were a deep thought, that if the test only has short stories, we should only teach short stories.
Wild, truly wild. And that type of thinking is like saying every football play should be designed to get a touchdown. Or every baseball hitter should aim for a homerun. Ridiculous.
https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
Thank you for this!
You won't thank me after you finish it! Lol
As a lifelong reader and a deep reader I've been kind of disturbed by how little even folks who say they enjoy reading actually read as far back as I can remember. However the concern I have for the kids in schools now dwarfs those concerns. There are so many reasons unfortunately but how reading has been taught in the past few decades is certainly one of them. Have you listened to the "Sold A Story" podcast? I highly recommend it.
Agree - not reading entire works means not becoming familiar with characters, circumstances, context - it means losing (and not creating) empathy. It impedes the opportunity for kids to see themselves in the story, in the characters.
Reading is SO important for empathy! Film, television, social media most especially don't develop empathy or imagination in the same way as reading. Unfortunately I think we can see how well served the population has been by abandoning most of the deep reading for pleasure. I have a lot of feelings about it unfortunately. My daughter reads and she reads well, far above her grade level. I'm not sure if they used cue based reading at her school because she was close to reading simple words when she started,
I've always reckoned the reading numbers constitute a scientific mysticism. Ghosts of statistics. Ask the meaning of life--that has an easy reading level. Ask the answer of the meaning of life--different story.
Also, nearly ten years ago I heard an administrator say with a straight face, as if it were a deep thought, that if the test only has short stories, we should only teach short stories.
Wild, truly wild. And that type of thinking is like saying every football play should be designed to get a touchdown. Or every baseball hitter should aim for a homerun. Ridiculous.