Readicide
- 1. Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It Book by: Kelly Gallagher, 2009, Stenhouse Publishers Discussion Facilitator: Dr. Lynn Warren Slides are excerpts from the book for discussion only.
- 2. Kelly Gallagher • 22 years as a classroom teacher • Teaches English in an urban high school, most recently New York inner city • Addresses “the systematic killing of the love of reading often exacerbated by the inane, mind- numbing practices found in schools” • Intentions are not the problem, practices are
- 3. Our Questions • Are we contributing to Readicide? If yes, how are we causing it? • How do we end Readicide?
- 4. Aliteracy Quotes from Readicide • Ray Bradbury “You do not have to burn books to destroy culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” • Reading At Risk study from 2004 found that 54% of adults were nonliterary text readers.
- 5. Test Preparation Issues and Reading • Drives shallow teaching and learning • Keeps struggling readers struggling and in “magic pill” reading programs • “Apartheid” schools—less than 14% of low income students are reading at grade level • Too many standards—teachers are in a hard place • School culture valuing developing test takers over developing readers From Readicide
- 6. The Kill-a-Reader Casserole (Overteaching with the Chop Chop Curriculum) • Take one large novel. Dice it into as many pieces as possible. • Douse with sticky notes. • Remove book from oven every five minutes and insert worksheets. • Add more sticky notes. • Baste until novel is unrecognizable, far beyond well done. • Serve in choppy bite-size chunks. (page 73, Readicide)
- 8. Role of Recreational Reading • What is it? Why is it important? What are we doing to promote free voluntary reading? How much of this kind of reading should students be doing? • NAEP study: Students who read out of school for fun almost everyday scored higher than students who read once or twice a week who scored higher than those who read only once or twice a month who scored higher than those who hardly ever read for fun outside of school. EdResearch.info Quote from Readicide
- 9. How do you find the “Sweet Spot” of Instruction? • Students need the proper level of instructional support without abandoning or drowning them. What is the right balance of help?
- 10. Reading Materials and Time to Read • Do students have lots of interesting reading material to choose from—”a book flood?” • How much time are students given to read in school? • How do reward reading programs affect readers?
- 11. Are we fixing the wrong things? • What do we do to prevent Readicide? In today’s data-happy era of accountability, testing and No Child Left Behind, here is the most astonishing statistic in the whole field of education: an increasing number of researchers are saying that nearly 1 out of 3 public high school students won’t graduate…For Latinos and African Americans, the rate approaches an alarming 50%. Virtually no community , small or large, rural or urban, has escaped the problem.” (Thornburgh 2006 in Time Magazine “Dropout Nation” quoted in Readicide)
- 12. What we can do to prevent Readicide