Readicide

Readicide is defined as: the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools.

Pretty much everything Kelly Gallagher writes is teacher gold. This book especially, accompanied by Tovani's I Read It, But I Don't Get It are fantastic additions to the every day teacher's arsenal. Gallagher's main point in this book is that perhaps schools and the way reading is taught within them are 'killing' the love of reading within our youth.

Gallagher not only points out the reasons for this decline in reading, but also provides very useful curricular tools to better inspire our students to spend their time reading. I can really relate to what he says about how schools are ruining novels for their students. When teachers try to overanalyze a text before students are engaged in it or finished reading it, when they set unrealistic expectations for the reading time, and when they try to teach the novel by chopping up the book into sections and analyzing it along the way, teachers are taking the most basic reading enjoyment away from students. Even though we may have the best of intentions, if students are reacting negatively to what you are trying to teach them, chances are it's time to switch something up.

In my own internship classroom, we were reading a novel. My students are taking college credit and the ENGL 101 course is taught by a professor at the college. One day, a couple of my students were complaining that the professor hadn't given them enough time to read the novel, and if she ruined it for them that day, chances are they weren't going to read the rest of it at all. I asked them how they would have liked her to do things and they said simply: they would have liked it if she had some simple guided questions after each chapter. Had she made an agreement with students about how long they needed to read and complete the questions, chances are more of them would have been ready to go when it was finally time to analyze the story. They would have been prepared, ready to discuss, and it would have been a much smoother transition from reading to analyzing text.

I think some teachers forget that they don't have to do everything themselves. The cool thing about student-centered learning is that it's about the STUDENT. If you are unsure about how to teach something, or what will work best for your students, you don't have to guess. Ask and you shall receive! Plus, students will feel like you value their feelings, trust them to make decisions and your overall classroom environment will become a more pleasant place.