Chapter 5 Readicide

     While reading the final chapter of this book, I must say that Gallagher has brought up some interesting factors where education is concerned in other nations. I enjoyed the comparison to the Finland education system opposed to ours and how they have some of the top scores in the world in all subject areas. I guess I have to ask if Gallagher knows all of this information shouldn't our government know it as well?
     As someone who will be entering the classroom soon, I find myself getting more nervous about going into the classroom, not because of the students but  because of the politics surrounding education. What direction is our country moving in where education is concerned?  How will those changes effect me? What new requirements will be in place for educators that weren't before and will they be realistic expectations? If there is all of this "proven" evidence out there for what works and what doesn't why is no one trying to put some of these ideas into action. If we always have our "eye" on the competition why are we not taking some of their ideas and policies and integrating them with our own.
     Politicians are campaigning for votes by making promises of more money for education so we can keep our jobs. However I'm more concerned with losing my job because you expect me to guarantee that Jonathan and Michelle will pass the test even though they are two grade levels behind in reading and barely come to school. All because we insist on measuring student and teacher capabilities with a test.
    While I still don't necessarily agree with Gallagher when he says we should be creating lifelong readers, I do agree that the methods in education that we have now are killing students as thinkers period. It seems to me that now there is a huge disparity among the achievement levels of students. There was a time where if your weren't in gifted class that didn't mean you weren't smart, it meant you just didn't get into the gifted program. Those students still pulled down wonderful grades and were very productive and active in school. Since doing my filed placements it seems as though they are placing all students in gifted who perform even slightly above average and the regular classroom is becoming a drop off for underachieving students.
If this is the direction we are moving in, I agree that soon our school systems will fail.

Chapter 4 Readicide thoughts

In chapter 4 Gallagher has down something that I have seen often throughout my journey with this book. He is constantly overstating the problem without giving any real concrete solutions. At times Gallagher may provide an anecdote here and there such as with his Big chunk/little chunk idea and his Article of the week that he discussed in chapter 2. However most of the chapter is just repetitive of the rest of the book. He gives all these examples of what's wrong but never provides a clear path to what's right. With me entering the classroom soon I want as much help as I can get. I am well aware of the problems we face and with me being an English teacher chapter 4 is sure to be something I have to deal with in the near future, however after reading this chapter I don't feel anymore confident about the struggles I will face than I did before I read it. This is a constant feeling I've had throughout this book. I also feel a certain way about Gallagher's insistence that we as "teachers" must avoid these certain things so that the students can become "lifelong readers". Even as an English teacher and a lifelong reader myself even I know that is not necessary or conducive to success that all of my students become life long readers. I see it as a hobby  that I choose to spend my spare money on purchasing novels for me to read for sheer enjoyment but it hasn't exactly made me more successful than my counterparts who only read for necessity. I don't want to sound so negative about the book because he does a good job at identifying and proving the problems and realities that we are facing as educators, however I am in a place right now where I'm looking for solutions. I'm done identifying the problem.

Chapter 3 Readicide thoughts

In chapter 3 of Gallagher's readicide he discusses the tsunami that teachers provide when teaching a novel. I agree that sometimes there is too much dissecting and not enough reading. There has to be a an equal balance. As with any lesson you want students to be able to relate the work to real life so that they a have a connection to it. Therefore the analysis should be geared more towards real life connections and current topics/issues in society. There should also be time for the students to be able to just read the book so that they can obtain the flow you would be surprised  how much analysis students will do on their own without chopping up te novel if they were just given that space to read.
Another subject that he touched on was the point system for reading books provided by programs such as Accelerated Reader. I worked in a school that uses AR and yes it does use a point system to reward those who have te most points. All of the points that Gallagher made about the program was true however I ave also seen some positive aspects of it. I have seen it spark interest in reading. At our school students were at times allowed to pick out a book tat was not AR as long as they were reading. And even though students were getting books that  had high points instead of interest it still was a positive because the higher the points the more difficult the read.  Which forced students to immerse themselves in more difficult text instead of your picture books and trade books we had second graders reading fourth grade chapter books with minimal difficulty which increased their over all literacy which is what we want right?
I don't know if once they leave the program their reading levels will drop. I find it hard to believe that if the students are eager to come into the library everyweek and pick out the book of their choice that it will majically disappear because they don't get points for it anymore. I have personally seen Accelerated Reader spark a love for reading that makes the program worth its weight.

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him READ"

In chapter 2 of Readicide Gallagher discusses the importance of flooding the children with text so that they can become life-long readers who read for pleasure and build their prior knowledge. I agree with only half of this statement. While I definitely agree with providing students access to a wide range of texts I don't necessarily agree with the fact that they have to read for pleasure way into adulthood and I'm and English teacher. Although I have always been an avid reader and have a strong passion for it and a witness to its benefits, I also understand that my choice to continue reading for enjoyment into adulthood is a hobby and I can't expect my students to have the same hobbies and interests. Getting students to read to me is like the old saying "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink". All I can do is make sure that I expose them to various texts  by incorporating it into my lesson plan such as Gallagher did with the AoW I found that to be a very good idea that I would consider implementing. I already have a small library of my own and I plan to make books available in my classroom, however I have no control over the choices they make once they have graduated or left my classroom I can only hope that what I tried to instill in them over the course of the year about reading stays with them. It is my job to make sure they are literate enough to be productive in the real world, whether they go to college or enter the workforce right out of high school and if they end being lovers of reading then that's a bonus in my opinion.

To Read or Not To Read??

When talking about students lack of interest in reading one of the theories that keeps coming up is the idea that; "If you allow students to read things that they're interested in for leisure instead of knowledge it will spark continuous interest." That's good in theory and I understand exactly where professionals are going when they say this, because the reality is no 14 year old wants to go home and be forced to read 25 pages about the Civil War and answer the questions at the end. None. However, it's a harder fix than that. What do we do in cases where what the student WANTS to read and what the student CAN read are at two different ends of the spectrum? This past school year I worked in the fifth grade with an EIP(Early Intervention Program) classroom.
Most of the students began the school year reading on a fourth or third grade level with a select few who were reading below that. When taking my students to the library to pick out Accelerated Reader books for the week there was one who always chose a book way above his level of comprehension. He read on a first grade level. He was very interested in athletes and cars so those were the types of books he picked.  He struggled to read past the first the few pages and always gave up because he couldn't pronounce the words, and the words he did know he didn't understand what they meant. How can you tell an 11 year old boy that the books more suitable for his  level include the Berenstian Bears series and Dr. Seuss? I can't begin to name the countless students who desired to check out Harry Potter books but were turned down by their teacher because they only read on a third grade level and Harry Potter started at a sixth grade level.
The point is we need to figure out where the glitch is in the curriculum when teaching students how to read got placed on the back burner and change it. If students lack the necessary skills and strategies for reading  it wont matter if you give them history chapters or car magazines, reading will not be something they want to do in their spare time because of the negative feelings it evokes and will always take a backseat to other activities.