Reaction to "Making a case..."

This article did an effective job of making me aware of the need for content area reading, or "reading to learn." I guess that previously I hadn't given the idea of reading to gain information too much thought. This was probably mostly true because the majority of our instruction last semester was geared toward teaching children to read period; not necessarily how to read informational text to gain understanding. One thing that the article did say concerning this was that recently informational text is made to help improve decoding and fluency skills at the same time as they learn about their surroundings. This is a brilliant idea. Since one of the main reasons that we read is for the purpose of learning, why wouldn't you make reading both informational and geared to improving actual "reading skills" simultaneously? I think that children would be very excited to learn in this way as long as the informational reading is developmentally appropriate for their age level. Children are naturally inquisitive, investigative and love to learn about the world around them. Instead of reading books simply for pleasure (which is important), a large percentage of what children read should be actually teaching them something. I agree with the article about the kid-friendly magazines from National Geographic and such. I love reading them myself!

Explicit reading instruction is absolutely important, but as the article stated, can be integrated into the other subjects. Students can learn to read while they are reading to learn, as the article also stated. Math and science are not to be left out of this either. Reading and writing can absolutely be improved in these content areas, just like all others. The article gave an example of how to accomplish this by asking children what the definition of a fraction is. Not only will the teacher be able to assess the student's content knowledge of fractions, the child also has to think on a higher DOK level than merely filling in answers on a worksheet. This is a great exercise for getting the students to expand on their mathematical thinking and to think deeper, rather than memorizing and repeating answers.

The article pointed out a truth that brings me a bit out of my comfort zone when it stated that a third factor in the changing of literacy is the technology craze in our society. I am coming up on my ten year high school reunion and even when I was in school, teachers used a chalk board or a white board. Now teachers are using a wide range of technology in the classrooms, and sometimes the children know how to work it better than the teachers! I am increasing in my technical knowledge, but I am not yet comfortable with all of it. Just give me my chalk board, and I will be good. However, I know that I am going to have to learn the technology. It is just the society in which we live. My friend recently had a baby girl and I realized that the very first phone little Gracie gets will be much "smarter" than the smart phone I have right now, and I have the latest edition. She will never even know a day in her life when people had land lines in their homes. It is just a technology generation.

I found it interesting that the article referred to "trade book, e-mail, electronic messaging, or Internet sites" as "literacies." I guess though, they are forms of literacy. I had just never considered them such. I was also shocked to read that basal readers are used in 85% of elementary classrooms. If this statistic is true, then no one should be shocked to find that children are not motivated to read. Dick and Jane are not very entertaining.

I agree that informal texts are a great way to motivate children to learn. Children are naturally curious and want to learn more about the world around them. Especially beneficial to children is finding topics that the children are interested in exploring more. Find out their interests, and give them an informational book. Also interesting, was that the article stated that little boys are especially interested in reading to learn. I have heard this before. I wonder why that is.

I was alarmed when I read that only 3.6 minutes per day are spent reading informational text! So, less than five minutes a day is spent on reading for the purpose of learning. This trend is not preparing students for the real world. Most of what I read is for the purpose of learning, and such is the case for most adults.

I did read one thing in the article that pointed to a positive aspect of NCLB...ahhh finally. I knew that it had to have done at least one good thing! That was that according to the reading, it increased the emphasis on content area reading, which is a plus. The MCT2 tests place a strong emphasis on reading, so teachers have in turn, spent more time with students practicing reading to gain information.

I enjoyed reading the article. It was packed with some beneficial information. I was left with two questions, which I would like to explore further. The first question was: How do we change the epidemic of reading deficiencies in our students? How are we going to motivate those students who just do not care about reading? I was asking myself these questions after reading that only a third of tenth graders are on the appropriate reading level.

The second question that I have regarding the article is: What do we do in a situation in which there is no technology available in our classrooms? With budget cuts at an all-time high, it seems very likely to me that we may not have technology available. How then will we teach our students the language of technology?