Readicide

Kelly Gallagher's  Readicide argues that  actual reading is less seen in school and is being replaced with testing. He makes it clear that today students are being tested way to much and it has an effect on how teachers teach and how students learn. If a school is being successful then all the students should have good test scores, but that is not always true. I liked the part when Gallagher talked about standards. In my education classes and in this class we talk a lot about standards. Gallagher does not oppose standards, yet he thinks that there are to many of them and that it would be impossible to cover all of them deeply. I like the example he showed because I am a Social Studies major and it is hard to teach students about everything that happened in the last 1000 years.

Students are not reading enough in school, and that reading time is being replaced by test preparation. I like the pool metaphor Gallagher uses, that a swimmer has been in the pool almost everyday before the completion. Same with reading, students should read everyday before taking the big test at the end. Unfortunately a lot of schools have removed novels from the curriculum and replaced it with much shorter text that can be read in a day.

Gallagher makes a strong case for SSR. He argues that it can make reading a good habit and a lot of good things come from reading. Students will start reading newspapers and different kinds of texts outside of books. This way students can actually know what is going on in the world and become better readers. Their vocabulary and comprehension levels will rise dramatically. In some cases SSR is the only time a student gets to read during the day. In my unit plan I have two class days that the students will have to read the novel. I think it is important for students to use class time to read , so that if they have any questions the teacher will be able to answer right away.