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Reading Wars
Has any side won?
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This is the biggest issue we have homeschooling. In our state you are required to keep a list of books read in your students’ portfolio. My 9 year old hates ‘reading’ and so far this year has read a total of one book.
He has, however, read numerous repair and instruction manuals, chat boards, game walk throughs, etc. with great interest and without prodding. I like to think he is just being efficient with his use of time and mental energy and only spending on what will improve his current endeavors. It’s also not a battle I’m willing to fight.
I think there is sufficient processing, comprehension skills, vocabulary expansion, (name your benefit) happening to consider those items as ‘reading’. I’d love for him to pick up a book and read for the sake of reading but that’s not in his nature right now, and forcing the issue right now could set up barriers in the future if it does become a requirement.
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There’s a great book I read called, “Beyond Literary Analysis.” They postulate that “text” is anything with a beginning, middle, and end.” Period.
I’ve been teaching Reading and English for 20 years, and it blew my mind!
I’d start logging ALL the reading he does, regardless of whether or not it is technically a “book.” In fact, I’d love to start a conversation with your Department of Ed to see if they might rethink their requirement… ????
In the meantime, I think it’s great that you’re willing to meet your 9 year old where he is.
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I definitely needed to hear this, thank you so much!
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The phonics versus whole language debate continues, at least in some of the Australian schools. But here is an observation of mine that I think gets missed in the debate. I have seen that many people in schools do not distinguish between general or first wave approaches to the teaching of reading for all students, versus specific or second/third wave approaches to the teaching of reading for students who experience reading difficulties. It all gets lumped under literacy. This can lead some to incorrectly cite evidence for and against specific approaches or even programs without thinking through the purpose and intended population of that particular approach. For example, the explicit teaching of phonics to all students versus students who experience reading difficulties. The second observation (and there are many more) is that I believe we often fail to acknowledge the many factors that also impact students’ reading, which may or may not have anything to do with reading. We even see this in the research. For instance, some of the research evidence supporting certain approaches and programs “controls out” some of these factors in order to be more internally valid, but it is these factors are important in the real word. Perhaps we need to “control in” these factors to produce more ecologically valid approaches!
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Nice book recommendation! There is a free .pdf sample available from heinemann.com. The sample then refers to the book “writing with mentors,” which looks like a better guide for teachers.
Notes I took from the sample on the tools for written analysis from the first book:
Passion: The writing should show that the author takes the the “subject seriously.”
Ideas: The writing includes textual evidence and comparisons, allusions, or other literary devices. And it uses them in novel ways.
Structure: Multiple paragraphs are organized with purpose to “explore every angle” of what’s being claimed/thesis
Authority: Connections between historical relatedness and accuracy of subject knowledge are made for a particular audience, making the author appear more trustworthy.
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