Death to Reading

My heart broke the other day.

I was subbing as an aid, so I had the opportunity to observe other teachers as I moved from class to class.  One of these classes was an English class.  These students had just changed semesters, so they were more or less new to this teacher.  Personally, I was fascinated by him.  He gave a captivating introduction to a TED Talk video about digital books (which are WAY cooler than simple e-books or physical books! I highly recommend clicking the link to view this video).  Finally, he asked them to use a template they already had to write an 8-sentence paragraph about reading.  I believe the intent was for them to write their opinion about whether they were a "old-school" book person, "new school" book person, or even a "no-school" book person.

This is when my heart simply broke.  With the exception of two, or maybe even three, students, every student began their paragraph with "I hate reading.  Reading is boring."  Moreover, they wouldn't/couldn't even write an 8-sentence paragraph about this loathsome subject.

What have we taught our kids?  I know that it didn't start out this way.  In contrast, oftentimes in elementary school, I have to ask students to please put down their books, or many take advantage of free time to read.  I never get any grumbles when asking the student to read, and many get excited about new books or taking their "Accelerated Reader" tests for points after they've read a book of their own choice.  So what happened between then and now, to where not only are kids unwilling to read, but they're even unwilling to write about it?

I believe that somewhere along the way, the "fun" reading activities that were selected by reading-level and interest and supported by teacher guidance and assistance were swapped for textbooks and other required reading that students not only didn't care to read, but couldn't read.  Yet, they were required to, and that's that.  In fact, they were often given a "reading guide" that they had to fill in, and since students couldn't really understand it anyway and just wanted to get it over with, "reading" became "look for whatever matches it closest and fill in the blank", since all that was graded was the completion of the worksheet rather than any actual learning taking place.  Of course, the most efficient students could just copy off someone else's worksheet and never have to crack a book.  When it came time for the test, students could just cram all the information from the study guide into their brains and dump it onto the test.  And in all of this, what are we achieving?  I believe we've achieved three things: 1) Students have play "school" to get some sort of grade without actually learning anything, 2) We teach them that reading is a mind-numbing and loathsome activity, and 3) We teach them that this is about as exciting as the subject gets.

Very few high-schoolers even realize the power of reading is to learn, even though that seems to be what we're attempting to pound into their heads.  That's because they can't learn by reading anyway, and teachers keep shoving books their direction like it's supposed to change something.

Something has got to change.  This is a tough one, because textbooks will likely always be a resource in most classrooms.  However, why don't we use it as just that - a resource?  I firmly believe the most important resource in the classroom are the people within it, including the teacher, the students, and anyone else that might be joining the class.  Students should be taught to how find information within a text, but how we're doing it is simply ineffective.  For example, in one Earth Science class, the teacher's plans were for the student to spend the entire 90-minute period filling in a "reading guide" for the entire chapter.  The students hated it and the material they were studying, but, unfortunately, they reported this was a "normal" activity for their room.  On the other hand, another Earth Science teacher, using the same book and studying similar material, presented the information using an interesting power-point with lots of pictures, the bare-minimum information so students could easily guided take notes on their hand-out, and the teacher was the main source of information as he expanded upon the information provided in the powerpoint and made it relevant to the students.  Afterward, the students about about 10-15 minutes to fill in a second hand-out using the book.  However, rather than being a reading guide, it was a "compare and contrast" activity where students drew examples of each type of feature in under two different circumstances.  Rather than being forced to suck out the information word-by-word, students were engaged in finding the specific information necessary and applying it to determine the answers to their questions.  By the end of 15 minutes, most students were done with about 1/3 of the worksheet (including beautifully drawn pictures!), compared to a 90-minute "reading" activity in during which very few students finished.

Think about it - with the exception of reading a novel for fun, how often, especially in this age of the internet and other technology, do you actually sit down and read something cover-to-cover?  Especially as a teacher, even if you do read an entire book, I find I use the Table of Contents of most books to skip to what seems most relevant at that moment and read what is of interest and need to me, and then read the other parts later as I choose.  Moreover, I'm usually the one selecting the book I want to get the information from, taking into consideration the author's expertise, ease of reading, and whether it holds my interest.  When reading things "just for fun", I'm usually finding articles and other brief texts online that are of interest to me on a variety of subjects.  Aren't these the skills we should be teaching students?  And wouldn't these foster a much more positive attitude and willingness to READ?