Thank you for continuing to be a voice of reason around this subject. As a former English teacher who was forced to implement some rather silly reading intervention strategies, my administration never could quite grasp the simple idea that giving children time and space to read—without the pressure of a test or a quiz looming over them at every turn—really is a better use of their time.
The best success I had was with a class of 9-12 grade students who were lumped together as "poor readers" and handed to me for a semester to do whatever I could with them, with the expectation that the school would not offer me any resources (nor, conveniently for us, any real oversight). These kids were "reluctant," so-called, because they had been conditioned to dislike reading by their environment and their experiences in the classroom from an early age.
To make a long story short, the students and I worked together to incrementally build healthy reading habits, including plenty of time to think, write, and talk about what they were reading. They primarily read what they chose to read, with some works selected by myself from news clippings, criticism, and short classic texts. By the end of the semester, most of these students would be entirely focused for a full 30 minutes of in-class reading time, and some would become upset with me when I told them that they needed to pause and get ready for their next class!
There is a saying in US public schools, “Don't value what we measure; measure what we value.” Unfortunately, with standardized testing being the most important aspect of all things in public schools, we communicate that is the only thing we value because we place so much importance on these measures. If we want kids to read more, and for leisure, we must realign our values away from testing and more toward literature. It’s easy. Reward reading great literature.
"When my own children were younger, I made them an offer. You can stay up for a later bed time, I told them, if you use that extra time to read in bed."
My kids are not old enough to read yet but I will definitely try this when they are.
I love this analysis of the state of education particularly with regard to reading. As a reading teacher who specializes in teaching phonics, I whole heartedly agree that following the data is much more important than making it a political debate. So many studies show conclusively, that phonics foundational and intervention programs lead to higher reading scores. There are other methods of learning to read but all of them involve opening books and actual practice with the skill. The more you do it the better you become, not just at reading, but thinking, analyzing, differentiating ideologies; let’s keep pushing to get our kids reading. Thanks for the reminder and the information.
I used to teach, and one of the things I noticed more and more was that many teachers didn't read. The nearest I saw was a teaching assistant in the staff room with a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey. I once sat in a meeting where a nursery teacher talked about the home visits she did for the new intake, and commented negatively on families with enormous TVs but no books. When I later asked her what she was currently reading, she looked at me askance and told me she didn't have time to read. When I was at teacher training college, many of my fellow students refused to read anything that wasn't going to be in a test, and I was asked why I was reading books that weren't on the reading list.
There was a constant “new way of doing things” in the latter years of my teaching career. One involved math which was my subject area. I argued to the once head of education for the state that the “ newest” thing wasn’t going to survive. It was a pure waste of time. The kids had to prove how they got their answers, not multiple choices, in their own handwriting. I kept saying this was ridiculous because a machine can’t read answers written in handwriting, especially children’s writing.They ended up doing away with it. Total waste of time.
If I asked a child what the answer to 24 + 32 was and they answered 100- 44, they aren’t wrong. That’s critical thinking. I loved it when the kids would do something like that.
Project 2025 is going to ruin education. I read the education part of it and have seen what schools are already implementing and it is frightening.
Many point to social media as being a major cause of accelerated illiteracy. What if the tables were turned and the tech platforms themselves created powerful incentives to read among the young?
Rather than banning access to smartphones – which, as any parent knows, will only promote more illicit usage – why not allow Gen Alpha a first device that is connected primarily to verbal content? (Recent research from Morning Consult suggests this 8-10 years old group currently spends up to 4 hours a day locked onto social media.)
Make the major focus on reading – the very activity that not only improves reasoning and concentration, but also encourages empathy, a response to many concerns around mental health and sociability.
Surely there’s an enterprising tech company skilled in storytelling that will see the opportunity to engage young users - maybe in association with the big publishers? For parents, these handsets solve the dilemma of the first phone while their children are drawn back into longer form reading - even if it is via a Q & A with a young David Copperfield or breakfast recipes from a hobbit.
The attitude used to be that high school was a drag, but culture is increasingly justifying an antagonistic view of education. "My dad made me" has become "My dad said I don't need to know this." Parents exempt students from state testing and the kids who do test care very little. Public education is being squeezed here in Alaska because parents and politicians are pointing to the scores that they themselves help undermine with divisive rhetoric and dismissive attitudes.
The attitude used to be that high school was a drag, but culture is increasingly justifying an antagonistic view of education. "My dad made me" has become "My dad said I don't need to know this." Parents exempt students from state testing and the kids who do test care very little. Public education is being squeezed here in Alaska because parents and politicians are pointing to the scores that they themselves help undermine with divisive rhetoric and dismissive attitudes.
The attitude used to be that high school was a drag, but culture is increasingly justifying an antagonistic view of education. "My dad made me" has become "My dad said I don't need to know this." Parents exempt students from state testing and the kids who do test care very little. Public education is being squeezed here in Alaska because parents and politicians are pointing to the scores that they themselves help undermine with divisive rhetoric and dismissive attitudes.
The attitude used to be that high school was a drag, but culture is increasingly justifying an antagonistic view of education. "My dad made me" has become "My dad said I don't need to know this." Parents exempt students from state testing and the kids who do test care very little. Public education is being squeezed here in Alaska because parents and politicians are pointing to the scores that they themselves help undermine with divisive rhetoric and dismissive attitudes.
We don't follow that philosophy in New Zealand. Our kids still read whole books and study them in depth. But some years ago we modernised our teaching methods, and consequently literacy and maths skills also went down dramatically. Now they are rushing to try to return to the old methods that worked so well, leaving a generation of kids, many of whom lack the skills and knowledge to perform basic tasks like writing business letters (email), reports or proposals, to name a few skills I consider basic minimum in business. Or the math to calculate a margin, or understand the basic principals of accounting that I consider to be life skills. Fortunately as a book lover, I passed that love onto my children and now my grandchildren. If I think back to my successful career, the foundation of it was literacy and maths.
Thank you for continuing to be a voice of reason around this subject. As a former English teacher who was forced to implement some rather silly reading intervention strategies, my administration never could quite grasp the simple idea that giving children time and space to read—without the pressure of a test or a quiz looming over them at every turn—really is a better use of their time.
The best success I had was with a class of 9-12 grade students who were lumped together as "poor readers" and handed to me for a semester to do whatever I could with them, with the expectation that the school would not offer me any resources (nor, conveniently for us, any real oversight). These kids were "reluctant," so-called, because they had been conditioned to dislike reading by their environment and their experiences in the classroom from an early age.
To make a long story short, the students and I worked together to incrementally build healthy reading habits, including plenty of time to think, write, and talk about what they were reading. They primarily read what they chose to read, with some works selected by myself from news clippings, criticism, and short classic texts. By the end of the semester, most of these students would be entirely focused for a full 30 minutes of in-class reading time, and some would become upset with me when I told them that they needed to pause and get ready for their next class!
It really is quite simple.
I love this!
There is a saying in US public schools, “Don't value what we measure; measure what we value.” Unfortunately, with standardized testing being the most important aspect of all things in public schools, we communicate that is the only thing we value because we place so much importance on these measures. If we want kids to read more, and for leisure, we must realign our values away from testing and more toward literature. It’s easy. Reward reading great literature.
"When my own children were younger, I made them an offer. You can stay up for a later bed time, I told them, if you use that extra time to read in bed."
My kids are not old enough to read yet but I will definitely try this when they are.
I love this analysis of the state of education particularly with regard to reading. As a reading teacher who specializes in teaching phonics, I whole heartedly agree that following the data is much more important than making it a political debate. So many studies show conclusively, that phonics foundational and intervention programs lead to higher reading scores. There are other methods of learning to read but all of them involve opening books and actual practice with the skill. The more you do it the better you become, not just at reading, but thinking, analyzing, differentiating ideologies; let’s keep pushing to get our kids reading. Thanks for the reminder and the information.
I used to teach, and one of the things I noticed more and more was that many teachers didn't read. The nearest I saw was a teaching assistant in the staff room with a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey. I once sat in a meeting where a nursery teacher talked about the home visits she did for the new intake, and commented negatively on families with enormous TVs but no books. When I later asked her what she was currently reading, she looked at me askance and told me she didn't have time to read. When I was at teacher training college, many of my fellow students refused to read anything that wasn't going to be in a test, and I was asked why I was reading books that weren't on the reading list.
Sadly the rot runs deep.
There was a constant “new way of doing things” in the latter years of my teaching career. One involved math which was my subject area. I argued to the once head of education for the state that the “ newest” thing wasn’t going to survive. It was a pure waste of time. The kids had to prove how they got their answers, not multiple choices, in their own handwriting. I kept saying this was ridiculous because a machine can’t read answers written in handwriting, especially children’s writing.They ended up doing away with it. Total waste of time.
If I asked a child what the answer to 24 + 32 was and they answered 100- 44, they aren’t wrong. That’s critical thinking. I loved it when the kids would do something like that.
Project 2025 is going to ruin education. I read the education part of it and have seen what schools are already implementing and it is frightening.
Many point to social media as being a major cause of accelerated illiteracy. What if the tables were turned and the tech platforms themselves created powerful incentives to read among the young?
Rather than banning access to smartphones – which, as any parent knows, will only promote more illicit usage – why not allow Gen Alpha a first device that is connected primarily to verbal content? (Recent research from Morning Consult suggests this 8-10 years old group currently spends up to 4 hours a day locked onto social media.)
Make the major focus on reading – the very activity that not only improves reasoning and concentration, but also encourages empathy, a response to many concerns around mental health and sociability.
Surely there’s an enterprising tech company skilled in storytelling that will see the opportunity to engage young users - maybe in association with the big publishers? For parents, these handsets solve the dilemma of the first phone while their children are drawn back into longer form reading - even if it is via a Q & A with a young David Copperfield or breakfast recipes from a hobbit.
The attitude used to be that high school was a drag, but culture is increasingly justifying an antagonistic view of education. "My dad made me" has become "My dad said I don't need to know this." Parents exempt students from state testing and the kids who do test care very little. Public education is being squeezed here in Alaska because parents and politicians are pointing to the scores that they themselves help undermine with divisive rhetoric and dismissive attitudes.
The attitude used to be that high school was a drag, but culture is increasingly justifying an antagonistic view of education. "My dad made me" has become "My dad said I don't need to know this." Parents exempt students from state testing and the kids who do test care very little. Public education is being squeezed here in Alaska because parents and politicians are pointing to the scores that they themselves help undermine with divisive rhetoric and dismissive attitudes.
The attitude used to be that high school was a drag, but culture is increasingly justifying an antagonistic view of education. "My dad made me" has become "My dad said I don't need to know this." Parents exempt students from state testing and the kids who do test care very little. Public education is being squeezed here in Alaska because parents and politicians are pointing to the scores that they themselves help undermine with divisive rhetoric and dismissive attitudes.
The attitude used to be that high school was a drag, but culture is increasingly justifying an antagonistic view of education. "My dad made me" has become "My dad said I don't need to know this." Parents exempt students from state testing and the kids who do test care very little. Public education is being squeezed here in Alaska because parents and politicians are pointing to the scores that they themselves help undermine with divisive rhetoric and dismissive attitudes.
We don't follow that philosophy in New Zealand. Our kids still read whole books and study them in depth. But some years ago we modernised our teaching methods, and consequently literacy and maths skills also went down dramatically. Now they are rushing to try to return to the old methods that worked so well, leaving a generation of kids, many of whom lack the skills and knowledge to perform basic tasks like writing business letters (email), reports or proposals, to name a few skills I consider basic minimum in business. Or the math to calculate a margin, or understand the basic principals of accounting that I consider to be life skills. Fortunately as a book lover, I passed that love onto my children and now my grandchildren. If I think back to my successful career, the foundation of it was literacy and maths.
and a Granny ... https://youtu.be/_DyhxwIocak?si=q1qefn8TI1So51Cs