CHAPTER 4 READICIDE

THE INTERACTION OF READERS AND THE TEXT THEY ARE READING IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE.
WITHOUT A BASE TO ESTABLISH MEANING OR RELEVANCE WITH A STUDENT HAS LITTLE EMOTIONAL AND INTELLECTUAL STIMULATION. IT MEANS MORE THE MORE THE STUDENT INVOLVES HIMSELF IN THE PROCESS AND PROGRESSION OF THE BOOK. IF A STUDENT DOES NOT HAVE THIS BASE THEN THE TEACHER CAN INITIATE MUCH OF THE INTERACTION BEFORE READING, DURING AND AFTER THE READING.
A TEACHER CAN MODEL FOR THE STUDENT HOW TO THINK ABOUT THE TEXT, AND WHAT QUESTIONS THEY MAY WANT TO ASK THEMSELVES. SCHEMA ACTIVATION AND METACOGNITION ARE AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE COMPREHENSION PROCESS.

Chapter 1: Kurt Stiglbauer

One nugget I got from this chapter is that kids should be allowed to choose the readings that they do so that they will have a true interest in it. I assign my students to read a book each quarter in my class, but I give them a list of fourteen different books, each with a different type of assessment. That way they choose their interest in books, but also their learning style. Some take a multiple choice test, some make a board game or a poster. The creative batch has the option of making a third-grade version of the same book with pictures and only three sentences per page. I have a Dr. Suess assessment, four-page essay, true/false test, matching test, traveling version of the book, oral exam, and many other assessments for other kinds of students . . .

Chpater Four: Keely Hitchings

What is the over/under
Sweet spot
Effective teaching does not equal experience or highly qualified
Developing their recreational reading will help them find their reading flow
How should we mentor the handling of difficult texts?
Shared cultural literacy
Classics cannon- trying not to make them dirty words
If they seem awful it is due to the way they are taught/ could the same not be said for all the other books in the world…seems a little underwhelming
Frame the text
Draft reading
Big chunk/small chunk
Close reading

In this chapter of Readicide Gallagher discuss how educators, specifically English teachers, need to find a way to helps student access difficult texts without falling prey to over or under teaching. I connect to various parts of this book and chapter. I was lucky enough in school to be one of the 1 in 14 who had a “consistently rich, supportive, elementary school experience.” Unfortunately I know many people who were not; smart, thoughtful people who had to rediscover their love of reading because school had killed it. I strive to create a classroom environment that finds a balance between reading for school and reading for pleasure. If kids do not have any positive associations with reading they will never possess the flow or skills to read things for school.

I love the idea of a shared cultural literacy but I am not in agreement with his idea that a classic cannon is in any way important. I think the argument he uses for the cannon can be used to support the teaching of any novel. And I certainly don’t think every classic has an essential truth that is interesting or relevant to me. If I cannot get past the decoding of the novel the essential truth it may or may not represent is moot.

I really think this chapter offers some practical ways to reach that “sweet spot” with reading and reminds us that there is more than one way to skin a cat and we should be diligent in our self-reflection and metacognition so that we are not inadvertently committing readicide.

Chapter Four: Kelly Sandbrink

Much to my surprise, I enjoyed reading this portion of the text, and often found myself nodding along to Gallagher's statements. In my own experiences, most teachers were "overteaching" the texts we were required to read in school. The summer before my senior year of high school, one of the books I was required to read was Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms." I fell in love with the book; Hemingway's storytelling and his attention to details captured my attention like few novels up to that point had.

On the first day of school, my English teacher began discussing Hemingway, and introduced "The Old Man and the Sea" as our next assigned reading. As we explored the novel, my teacher killed any enjoyment I originally had in reading. X represented Y, which really represented Z, and it all added up to A. It all was jibberish to me, and I just wanted to read and enjoy the story. Because I tend to research things I don't fully understand, I started doing my own research on Hemingway. I found an interview a newspaper editor had had with Hemingway, in which he stated that he was only trying to tell a story he saw in his mind, and all the analyzing he heard people doing with "The Old Man and the Sea" was shit. That quote is verbatim now, of course, but it proved to me that we often misconstrue things, and lose the intended meaning, because we're so worried about looking for a deeper meaning. When I presented this to my English teacher, he told me that quote was "shit being spewed from a drunkard's mouth," and that it all meant something. At that point, a discussion ensued, and it wasn't pretty.

Regardless, I didn't pick up a book to read for enjoyment for years after that. What was the point? Over-analyzing has done nothing for me but beat a dead horse, whether I'm in a class, or re-teaching one of my students' English assignment. I think that we, as teachers, need to focus on the thinking skills, and the others will follow. We'll create a society of young people who can critically think for themselves, who can make connections to texts, and see the relationships.

Chapter 3 - Melissa Gilbert

This chapter raises a lot of relevant issues, but I think it only focuses on one type of reader: the type that has a natural ability and a desire to read. I am not naturally drawn to any type of language arts material. When I was in high school, I certainly needed a novel broken down if I was to fully comprehend what was going on. I think this strategy is also beneficial for students that have low comprehension skills. Students have to grow in their ability to read and comprehend a text before their "reading flow" can be developed. Having said that, I agree with the alternatives that the author provides in lieu of the break-down strategy. I think the material presented to students has to have a real-life relevance, be interesting to the students, and have a real purpose/benefit to the students. I believe the break-down strategy can be beneficial tool until the students have cultivated their comprehension skills and expanded their vocabulary.

Chapter 4: Michelle Goings

Ever since I was little, I have been a huge fan of reading, I can't seem to get enough of it but in high school I HATED to read the material that was assigned to us. It was material that no one would really explain and often written in a way that I didn't fully understand. If it wasn't for the teacher giving us direct hints on what they wanted our essays to look like, I don't know if I would have made it through! Kelly Gallagher discusses that we should be taught and therefore teach our students "in the sweet spot", but that is often unheard of in the school system. Teachers are required to teach so much in such a small amount of time that it is hard to disect all the material in order for the students to gain a full understanding of the material. As a student, I know I skimmed a lot of my reading assignments and just looked for the main points that I though I was going to be tested on without really comprehending what I was actually reading. I completely understand that ideally Gallagher would like us to find the sweet spot and teach reading in chunks so that it is more easily understood, but in today's class schedule and teaching to the tests and standards, where is the time to do that?

Chapter 3: Staci Weeks

This chapter in the book discussed how teachers are committing "readicide" by chopping up great novels and overanalyzing minute details. Several times in this chapter, Gallagher states that "the trivial is often highlighted at the expense of the meaningful" (Gallagher 76). The problem is that with students stopping, sometimes as often as every page, to jot down a big idea, new vocabulary, key character development, or perform some other literary analysis, they are not able to achieve what is referred to as reading flow. While all of these practices do help prepare students for standardized tests, they do not help build life-long readers. Students are becoming turned off to reading as a whole, because they are grouping it with massive amounts of post-it notes and highlighting. They don't get to just read these classic books for their inherit beauty, therefore, students are not able to fully appreciate these masterpieces.

It is interesting that this chapter was assigned to me, as a math teacher, since I don't know a single math teacher who has ever taken a novel, or any other piece of literature for that matter, and analyzed it for tone, theme, character relationships, plot sequence and so forth. However, I can relate to the idea that we are sometimes sacrficing the education of our students in order to achieve high test scores. In mathematics, for example, we are slowly chipping away at the time we spend on teaching students to think critically and replacing it with time spent teaching surface skills and strategies that prove more beneficial during high stakes testing. I guess the standardized test makers haven't yet come up with an efficient way to test critical thinking skills, therefore, it is being neglected in a lot of mathematics classrooms for the sake of time.

Overall, Gallagher made some good points, but I felt that the entire chapter was rather repetitive, as she continued to state the same opinions in different ways throughout the text.

Chapter Five: Jennifer Bull

Saving Face?

I am a reader. A fast reader. A voracious reader. In fact, I used to sneak books into the bathroom because that was the one place I felt that my mother would not hurry me away from my books. She tells stories of having to hide books from me before summer vacation so I would not read them all before our beach trip. Even now, there are stacks of books on my bedside table because I just need to know about things.

I thought everyone was like me - with a thirst for knowledge that could only be quenched by reading the words on a (or several hundred) page(s).

Honestly, how naive am I? I have assumed, pretty much most of my life, that everyone loved to read and that those who didn't were just lazy. It took getting into the classroom to discover that some people really aren't readers and that (worse! gasp!) some people hate reading. In Readicide, Kelly Gallagher explains why.

We are failing our students. We, the very adults entrusted with inspiring a lifelong passion for learning, are failing to teach exactly what we want productive students to do: be deep, insightful, eager readers who can make connections between subjects and can use that knowledge to creatively solve the world's problems. We say it's because the kids don't want to learn. We say it's because they have too much going on. We say it's because our kids are apathetic, they've given up, or they're just plain dumb. But really we've failed them. Why? We're saving face.

Let me take an aside here and say that the "we" I'm talking about is not just the teachers in the classrooms. I'm mostly talking about the policy-makers, the ones who decided that we should impose - and keep - No Child Left Behind and the mass of standardized testing it produced. However, we the teachers are implementing these policies because we have to in order to keep everything running smoothly, keep our School Improvement rating, keep our jobs. In reading Gallagher's book though, it all made me mad.

Why in the world would we keep educational practices that kill the very thing that make Americans, well, American? Why would we kill the qualities that made us forerunners in the global marketplace in the first place? Why aren't we more interested in serving our kids than keeping a program running that we're hoping will be the magic bullet? Because we're saving face.

Policy-makers are saving face by refusing to revamp - and stop implementing - NCLB and its drill-and-kill practices. The money tied to their decisions leaves states and districts in the lurch; if they don't buy into the program, they lose funding - or worse, creditability. The apples-to-oranges comparison that's happening as state testing is compared across the nation is unfair to our kids and our teachers. It strikes fear in the hearts of administrators and teachers and they are threatened with loss of jobs and pushes them more toward the drill-and-kill approach, which produces students who would rather drop out and end their daily suffering than continue in an educational system that's failing them.

Classroom teachers need to save face - and save students - by making students into life-long readers. Readers who understand the value of literacy. Readers who turn to books as sources of information but also as cultural markers and sources of artistic merit. We need to, as Gallagher says, "find our courage to recognize the difference between the political words and the authentic worlds in which we teach, to swim against those current educational practices that are killing young readers, to step up and do what is right for our students" (118). We need to make learning relevant and necessary for our students. We need to help them find the sweet spot and learn - if not to love - than to appreciate reading.

I, for one, will be purchasing some of Gallagher's recommendations for reluctant readers, just to have on hand for SSR or other reading opportunities. In re-vamping the dance curriculum next year, Ellen and I have discussed having an article of the week that makes the learning personal for students. I love the process that Gallagher uses to help students make sense of the articles in his class and will definitely be implementing that process. I will be finding more cultural themes in works that my Drama students study, in order to show them that these works have relevance in their lives now.

I will be saving face by changing what I do in order to save my students from Readicide. Will you?

Chapter 2: Erin Valentie

When I was in school, I was that student who constantly worried about making the grade. I read textbooks...boring! This was just something I had to do to get the grade. Even assigned readings that I thought might have been interesting became a pain because I always worried about whether I was analyzing it correctly for the big test or quiz. I never had time to read anything just for "fun". If I did have any time, the last thing I wanted to do was read...there had be a good movie or something on that would just let my mind rest, right? Gallagher mentioned that we don't have time to provide interesting reading because we are trying to prepare for tests! Of course we are! Are the tests going to go away? Doubtful. So how do we find time with the many standards we have to cover to fit in reading that is "fun" too? I do like some of his suggestions like the "Article of the Week." That may be an easy addition to the curriculum, but I don't want it to become another thing the students have to do. I do feel like it is part of our responsibility as educators to encourage our students to include the things happening in the world into their overall education.

I feel like Gallagher made some very valid points in this chapter. I agree that students need to be provided with a variety of books to read. I think Ridge View is making good attempts at providing students with more opportunities to read. SSR time is beneficial, but I have to be honest, I don't think I have done well with it in my classes. I make my student get quiet for it, but I know I have only a small handful of students who actually use the time to read, the rest are either texting, sleeping, or using the time to do the homework they should have done the night before. I feel like the purpose is to give students the opportunity to read, not to "force" them to read. The students who are reading probably have been reading since they were little, it is not something new they picked up once SSR started. Most of them don't even stop reading when SSR is over...which leads to a lot of aggravation when it is time to teach...but that is another blog for another time:).

I think Gallagher hit on something pretty important, in that the students background knowledge contributes a lot to how successful they are in testing. I do believe the more they read the better their vocabulary will become and the greater background knowledge they will gain. This will ultimately lead to higher test scores. I just don't think we can fix all of this at the high school level. Getting students to want to read needs to start at home and opportunities to enrich the lives of these students with reading needs to happen early on in education and should follow them all the way through high school. It needs to be an effort that comes from all aspects of the students lives.

Chapter Three Anna Keith

Kelly Gallagher in Chapter 3 of “How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It” Readicide focus on how important reading is as far as quality and quantity of time is concerned. However, there is a further, very important reason why students generally failed at learning to love to read. Educational researchers have found that there is a strong correlation between reading and academic success. In my opinion, a student who is a good reader is more likely to do well in school and pass exams than a student who is a weak reader. Gallagher talked about the need to give appropriate time to reading and being able to do what I have termed as “complete reading,” (i.e. the entire book not just an assigned chapter). It is my opinion, that this chapter really gives form to the overall topic entitled: Readicide.

Chapter 4- Stacey Plotner

Kelly Gallagher makes a lot of valid points about not "over-teaching" or "under-teaching" a novel and about fostering a life-long love of reading. I didn't find anything new, however, in his suggestions except for new names for old strategies. Students training to be teachers learn these basic expectations.

My student teachers are evaluated by their supervisors on "finding the sweet spot," although that is not the term the supervisors may use. They are expected to "frame" the reading (also known as providing background knowledge, the anticipatory set, etc.), setting the stage for the topics that will be discussed and tapping in to student's existing knowledge of a topic or issue. They are expected to understand the concept of providing the right amount of guidance, leading students from their current plane of understanding to a slightly higher one (aka scaffolding). They are expected to lead students through the process of analysis through such tools as "big chunk, little chunk" and 2nd and 3rd draft readings (aka close readings). Finally, Gallagher discusses sharing his final exam question with the class so that they have an understanding of their ultimate goal. Student teachers are taught to do even more than provide one question, but rather to plan their curriculum units around big understandings and essential questions, of which the students are apprised repeatedly throughout their learning experience. It is clear that Gallagher is a good teacher; he is doing what most good English teachers across the country are doing, he just has new names for old tricks.

He is correct that teachers can get sucked into guiding the students through the entire novel, never allowing them to read for themselves. It is vital to model the process, allow time for both group and individual practice, and most importantly, allow students to do it themselves. I also agree that students need to be allowed to make their own reading choices-to an extent. I remember my high school English teacher saying: "There is so much good literature out there, why waste time reading anything else?" Our students will read what we provide for them and there is a plethora of interesting reading material out there that is also considered "good literature." I think it is important to moniter their reading just as we moniter films: nothing above an R rating- for sure.

Further, Gallagher cites Scieska, who states that we should expand reading choices: non fiction, graphic novels, magazines, etc. Colleges and University Professors have been begging for students to be more proficient at reading non-fiction. Let's provide more biographies (perhaps of Michael Phelps as suggested in a previous blog:)), histories , and the like. A few of my seminar kids picked out my personal copies of Lord of the Flies (which had slipped into the SSR crate) because they had heard about it from kids in the CP class and they wanted to see what it was all about; they wanted to challenge themselves and "try on" a "CP" book. One of those kids enrolled in CP English next year, not because of that novel, but because she wants to challenge herself and she has gained confidence in her abilities.

No matter if you are an English teacher or an art teacher, we all must support, encourage, and teach reading (and writing- but maybe we'll tackle that next year:)) across the curriculum.

Chapter 2: Neil Blum

Readicide: How Schools are killing Reading and What You Can Do About It.

While in college, I remember having an English literature course and having to read the Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad. Although I enjoyed the experience provided by the short story, as well as a number of the professor’s remarks, all in all, I found his in-depth review to be a bit overwhelming, i.e., he didn’t hesitate to point out every possible and/or remote bit of symbolism. Finally, after the professor finished deflowering the beauty of the piece, petal by petal, I asked him if it would have been possible to just to enjoy the harmony of how the words and ideas flowed. Replying to my obvious lack of education, he insisted that it was essential to understand every possible nuance. Accepting his supreme authority and not wanting to be disrespectful, I let it go at that.

However, considering the revelation provided by Readicide, I guess I was lucky the experience didn’t take away or reduce my interest in reading. Accordingly, I am grateful that Mr. Kelly Gallagher is able to point out that my college professor was unknowingly attempting to kill my desire to read, although, Mr. Gallagher is doing the same thing in Readicide that it is no less than an insult to my (questionable) intelligence. But one might ask, how can I find fault with a book that received thirty-five reviews on Amazon, where thirty earned five stars and the remaining had four stars? Furthermore, one reviewer was so excited about the book, that he only stopped praising it after 158 lines or 1725 words. After reading this lengthy review, one must wonder why he stopped at 1725 words, after all, Mr. Gallagher for the most part repeated his point for 118 pages, and that doesn't include the 18 pages dedicated to an appendix, six to references, and eight pages for an index. Could it possibly be that Mr. Gallagher couldn't stop writing even then, and penned his own 158 line review using a pseudonym?

By using his acquired statistics, and a brief explanation of same, I truly believe Mr. Gallagher would have been more than capable of convincing me that a problem existed, and he had the appropriate solution by presenting his argument in about four typewritten pages, or even five at the most, and that would include the appropriate references, but thankfully negate the need for an index.

But then, what precious words and/or chapters would be lost from such a revered book? For a start, let us consider that many readers of this tome have been teaching for a number of years and really didn’t need to peruse Mr. Gallagher’s own list of 28 items that were discussed at faculty meetings, or revisit the 21 lines from Hamlet.

I could go on and make note of the oft repeated concepts and unnecessary illustrations, but do not wish to insult your intelligence or to blemish the excellent reputation of Mr. Gallagher. However, there is one item I can't let stand, i.e., although paragraph three on page 30 states that “…there is not a single bookstore where I teach.” Please find that there are at least fifteen different bookstores within a five mile radius of the Magnolia High School where Mr. Gallagher has his classes and that includes a Barnes and Noble. Furthermore, there is a public library less than two miles walking distance from the high school. And I almost forgot, the Main Anaheim Library is 3.75 miles driving distance from the school. With these convenient options for free literature, does a person really need to buy a book?

In closing (yes, I believe I know when to put the pen down) Mr. Gallagher's book, while making an excellent point, and suggesting both realistic and unrealistic ways to achieve the love of reading in our students, does so in a fashion that easily fills a book, but fatigues our brains as we try to wade through the repetition, and/or the unnecessary pillars of support of this worthwhile revelation.

Ch. 1 Keith West

MONDAY, MAY 16, 2011

Ch. 1 Keith West
(2nd Go around on this. It deleted my 1st one, so if two show up, that is why.)

I agree with Kelly Gallagher that we HIGHLY overtest and teachers spend too much of their time preparing for standardized testing. I agree that we, as teachers, should be concerned with teaching skills and how to be an effective readers and learners. Today's students are very proficient at learning names, dates, timelines, maps, etc. and many of them do very well on their content test, yet struggle mightily when asked to make connections through time or to compare/contrast ideas. However, I have never been asked by a parent, "What did my child learn? Did he/she learn to think more effectively?" I have only been asked, "What grade did my child get?" I have never been asked to show a list of students who learned how to think, only a list of potential failing students. Much of what we as teachers should be teaching as far as skills isn't tangible. It is difficult to put a grade on if a student became a better reader or thinker. If we do put a grade on it, it is even more difficult to back that grade up with evidence, good or bad.

As a former Division One athlete, I became a better player through focusing on the process of becoming better. Our students are not required to focus on the process, only the results. I'm hoping we, as educators, become more proficient at teaching our students that the (love of the) process of learning is every bit as important as the content of what is learned.

Ch. 1 Keith West

(2nd Go around on this. It deleted my 1st one, so if two show up, that is why.)

I agree with Kelly Gallagher that we HIGHLY overtest and teachers spend too much of their time preparing for standardized testing. I agree that we, as teachers, should be concerned with teaching skills and how to be an effective readers and learners. Today's students are very proficient at learning names, dates, timelines, maps, etc. and many of them do very well on their content test, yet struggle mightily when asked to make connections through time or to compare/contrast ideas. However, I have never been asked by a parent, "What did my child learn? Did he/she learn to think more effectively?" I have only been asked, "What grade did my child get?" I have never been asked to show a list of students who learned how to think, only a list of potential failing students. Much of what we as teachers should be teaching as far as skills isn't tangible. It is difficult to put a grade on if a student became a better reader or thinker. If we do put a grade on it, it is even more difficult to back that grade up with evidence, good or bad.

As a former Division One athlete, I became a better player through focusing on the process of becoming better. Our students are not required to focus on the process, only the results. I'm hoping we, as educators, become more proficient at teaching our students that the (love of the) process of learning is every bit as important as the content of what is learned.

Chapter 5: Brooke Bedenbaugh

I think that this book had a lot of valuable information to help end "Readicide". I also feel that we utilize alot of these suggestions for our students at RV. If we know what to do to fix the problem in our schools, we need to do it. Teachers need to use the 50/50 approach by having their students read recreationally and use their choices. As opposed to reading solely academic texts, there needs to be a balance. I know that we do have the SSR program (which he suggest) in place. I feel that most students and teachers take advantage of this time everyday to read a book of choice. I personally have caught myself in the "reading flow" and have not wanted to put my book down.

The US bases our learning by looking at standardized test scores. Teachers have curriculums in which they are to teach within a timeline. These lessons aren't necessary prepared to meet the needs of the students but it is where they are supposed to be at the time. If eliminating these tests and emphasizing the importance of reading and critical thinking skills could help the overall product of our educational system, we should do it.

Chapter 2- J. McLeod

I am one of the students commonly describes in Readicide. I loved to hear my mom read Good Night Moon when I was little, but my first active reading memory was a negative experience. All I can say was there was a book being thrown across the room. My Mom never gave me easy answers. She made me spell out all the words. The word I was having trouble with was island. It does not sound like it is spelled, and I could not get it. It was very frustrating and I grabbed the book out of my Mom’s hands and threw it across the room! That is where reading started for me. It has never gotten any better. I do not know may people who were enrolled in Honors English and Reading Comprehension in the same year.

Chapter 2 instantly grabbed my attention. It mentioned Michael Phelps and if anyone really knows me swimming is the way to my heart. I really started to pay attention when Gallagher noted Phelps swims six hours a day. He has had success because of his training. This brings me to a few points. I also trained six hours a day and I do not have any Olympic Gold metals. There are many people who put in the time and effort, but never share in the accomplishments. Training and practice is only a small part of the equation. Michael Phelps has a talent, a talent to swim. If I was as talented and worked as hard, I would be closer to his success. This also brings up another point! Phelps, as well as myself, swim/swam every morning from 4:50-7:30 and every evening 3:30-6:30. After swimming, we had our commute, eating, and homework. Time for outside activities was limited. The days were very full! For me, it was very hard to find any extra time to pick up a book and read for enjoyment. Homework was the focus. How does this relate to Readicide? We are not aware of all of the outside influences affecting our students. Are they a world class athlete training six hours a day, do they have a job to help support he family, do they have children of their own, or is someone in their family sick. As teachers we complain about the lack of homework, but how much time do some students really have? Many times the answer is none. We have to find an avenue to attract the students to find importance in the work. The second point is the talent. After a certain point in school, reading is not taught, it is expected. If you fall below the acceptable range, good luck developing the talent. This is especially the case in high school. You are supposed to know how to read already. There are few talent building classes for the students who fall below the range. Many schools require all of the students to read the same books. How is that possible?

Let’s spend more time talking about what the students are reading. Gallagher mentions choice in reading. Choice is a very interesting concept because we provide choice for our summer reading program. In the past, a student could choose any book they wanted and we would fit it into the summer reading program. After the first year of the Summer Reading Celebration, it was discovered the students that selected a book outside the parameters did not necessarily fit into the reading groups. Students now are limited to the list. It actually now looks to change the focus of summer reading. Summer reading appears to be for the celebration. It is important for students to read. It does increase SAT scores and vocabulary. Students would be far more fond of choosing a book if they could choose a book they are truly willing to read. Students need to choose a book that is personally relevant and helps give meaning. For instance, it would be a great idea for me to read the biography on Michael Phelps.

Chapter 5: Brian Glosh

There have been numerous studies that show that creativity is just as important as math and science. Its the difference between using the left or the right side of your brain, and both parts needs to taught. Although it may not make you a lot of money, being creative can allow you to stand out in a crowd that is receiving more Doctorate degrees than ever recorded. Everyone has the ability to get the highest degree, to research any topic, but the creative ones will make sure that they are spotlights in an otherwise mob of people. We really do need to look at our education system and understand why students are not getting smarter, yet we keep testing them more and more, forcing them to work harder and harder, but nothing is improving. Maybe its time to look at other systems of education that work, and try to model their behavior.

Chapter Four: Robin McCants

This chapter's focus is on finding a balance when it comes to reading instruction. It seems like such a simple concept, but isn't that the crux of the problem for all of us as it appertains to all that we do in the classroom? Who is more responsible for the understanding and products of learning in the classroom--the teacher or the student?

If the teacher is too involved, as is outlined in the tsunami illustrated in chapter 3, the teacher kills the students' enthusiasm and learning. If the teacher gives too little support or the framework for learning, the student will shut down and will not complete the given task: "Underteaching can be as damaging as overteaching" (87).

The statistics are alarming: the text tells us that the average child has only a "one-in-fourteen chance of having a consistently rich, supportive elementary school experience" (89). As the parent of three children on the other end of their educational experience, I can vouch for that. My own children have had teachers who wasted their time in and out of the classroom with tedious, useless busywork. Although I try not to do so in my classroom, I am certain that every lesson does not attain the balance this chapter seeks.

Some may think that the answer is to give students complete freedom of choice so that they will be more intrinsically motivated to read. This also is a mistake: "Works such as Hamlet, 1984, and The Grapes of Wrath are why you and I are in the classroom" (91). These works hold a "universality of truth...that helps the modern reader to garner a deeper comprehension of today's world" (93), a critical need for adolescents.

Finally, I really liked Gallagher's description of his (our) job: First, to "introduce my students to books that are a shade too hard for them" (94), and second, to help them work through these books "in a way that brings value to their reading experience" (94).

I also like the suggestions of framing, giving the final writing prompt at the beginning of the lesson, using big chunk/little chunk philosophy, and the 50/50 approach that has students spending half of the time reading required reading and half of the time making choices.

Chapter 3: Patricia Osborne

Gallagher makes an interesting point in over analyzing reading assignments. Some students need to have some guidance while reading a book, but it does not require a daily lesson on tearing apart each and every chapter. It has always been frustrating as a student to have an instructor take a novel that I found interesting, but stop me throughout my reading process to discuss one chapter at a time. Even as I read this book, which was given at the beginning of the year, I was able to freely read through the material without the pressure of needing to complete and analyze each chapter. I was allowed to read this during SSR and let myself become absorbed with the material. While I am not a big fan of individually separating the units, as I feel there is a great loss of content only reading individual chapters, I was allowed to freely read through the book and find the value of the text.

Altman Chapter Four

One of the biggest problems I run into when teaching reading is finding age appropriate materials that are on my students' level. Another problem is individualizing the material across a very wide range of abilities and reading levels.

Carol Kannisto:Chapter One

I totally agree that there is an over emphasis on teaching reading to prepare students for state-mandated testing. Students do have to read all sorts of subjects and books that are of little interest to them. Then we are forced to make them memorize all sorts of facts in order to pass the state tests. This obviously does not allow much time for evaluation, analization or comprehension. I think one of the biggest challenges for our seniors will be analizing information and actually thinking. Most of them want to memorize and regurgitate facts because that is what we have taught them over their school careers. This leaves them totally unprepared for a world where the ability to think and solve problems is a necessity for getting and keeping a job. Off-shoring and outsourcing have taken so many of the jobs that require simple memorization. This means that domestic jobs will require students who can analize and think "outside the box". We are not doing a very good job of preparing them for this.

Chapter Two: Gordon Maynes

“Readicide” by Kelly Gallagher is an easy read and provides some good insights into the area of reading and overall proficiency loss in today’s schools. This chapter posits that because of our students’ lack of exposure to a variety of reading experiences, they are losing capability not only to read but to think. They lack a background of information that might be reasonably expected of an informed, high school educated citizen. So true. A colleague was just pointing out to me that her CP chemistry students were unfamiliar with the word “invert” in the instructions for a lab – sure enough, when mine came to the same point, they had exactly the same reaction: “Dr. Maynes, what does ‘invert’ mean?”.

Highlights of the author’s points:

Students are not aware of global/national/local issues and current events.

Faculties are consumed with adminstrivia instead of substantive discussions
of practical literacy during beginning of the year “planning”.

Emphasis on test scores is smothering time for deep reading.

There are inadequate reading materials in schools and students are limited
in their access to them.

We have reduced or eliminated exposure to “difficult” texts, and do not
teach the reading of them even as we attempt to engage students in more
“light” reading.

SSR does, in fact, increase test scores.

Bringing it home, Ridge View is certainly trying to improve the availability of books, and to give students time for free reading through our SSR program. I wonder if we are going far enough. When your focus in a cash-strapped world is on avoiding the loss of materials, “If you ‘lose’ one, your Department has to pay for it.”, I think this has a chilling effect on our willingness to provide unfettered access to books. Gallagher’s teaching, if we choose to embrace it, is to put out a huge number of books, and encourage, instead of manage, borrowing. After all, if one goes missing, it should be a sign of success – some deprived kid wanted it to read. If it’s ‘missing’ by accident/carelessness within the school, it will come back eventually. Departments have much less funding flexibility than the school when it comes to paying for programs outside the State Standards, and individual teachers lack the infrastructure of a library to monitor borrowing and check-in of materials. I know, I know, we’re lucky to have found funds for the books we have, and we can ill afford to lose them. Could we find an outside, “industrial” sponsor to keep our collection evergreen and growing, and enhance further a very positive initiative?

An area in which I think the author sends mixed messages in this chapter is in talking about the loss of focus on reading of novels, plays and the like, which he says require a structured approach and a competent teacher of English to support, vs. his enthusiasm for recreational reading. These seem to be two different animals, which he treats in an intertwined way. But I happen to agree: if a student has enough experience so s/he is not baffled when exposed to “hard” material – and I would expand this to include technical textbooks as well as classic novels written in language far from the colloquial – he or she will be a more confident reader overall. Do we teach the reading of textbooks? I used to try, but as I had fewer and fewer copies to “waste”, I found myself unable to provide materials which can be marked up and consumed in the quest for process understanding, since this work was focusing on a meta-objective not specifically standards-based. So another potentially good idea from another potentially good bit of teacher PD (“Reading in the Content Area”) bites the dust of inadequate materials support.

“Readicide” by Kelly Gallagher raises many good points relating to our approaches to reading and to instructional priorities in general. Fortunately here at Ridge View we are already actively engaged in improving or remediating many of these situations. As we (hopefully) pull out of the recession and begin to have more discretionary funds, perhaps we can do more.

Chapter 3: Evelast Chigoba

I think the basic assumption made, that the students are willing (yearning) to read is not my observation in my classroom. I have a hard time trying to get them to read a few pages of text that is full all real-world applications (statistics). The SSR time is a very good opportunity to encourage leisurely reading. My students have not been faithfully doing this either. Instead, I have watched them go to sleep, do HW assignments or simply wanting to chat with other students at this time, in the time allocated for this. I have avoided having to take disciplinary actions on some of these students, hoping to keep away confrontations and let gentle persuations rule.

I am not sure how one can overteach (a book?) in a subject like mathematics, especially statistics. I have often thought that we need to assign mandatory reading as most students simple use class notes and try to do HW assignments without reading the text themselves (especially given our culture of non-accuracy grading in HW!)

We certainly do not overanalyze books in maths. If anything I think we need to spend more time analyzing some examples more. But again, as the author corrently points out, we are accountable to the EOCs and national exams that the students need to take at the end of course. It is going to be worse now that the legislature proposes to tie teacher salary to test scores! This will greatly undermine the philosophy advocating for creating lifelong learning.

chapter two/diane melton

the first positive about the book is it"s recent publication of 2009
this was evident from the first example on our cahapter about the students not knowing al Qaeda was not a person - this is the occurence that frustrates teachers
i teach health science but the kids are not aware of current events like "bedbug outbreaks" - this is news they could read on the computer - i agree with the author
seriously???
i have decided to put my students in the "pool" next year and require current event reading on the computer twice a week - maybe then they will expand their own pool
SSR is important but mandatory reading in our content area is equally important
i will be doing what Gallagher suggests "Article of the week" - we now have USA TODAY
SENT TO US ON COMPUTER in the classroom by our librarian - NO EXCUSES
now the Kaiser Health Care Issues Exam for fun and competition at our HOSA competition may be something we could try

Chapter 3 - Melissa Myers

"When students solely read books through the lens of test preparation, they miss out on the opportunity to read books through the lens of life preparation." (Gallagher, 72)

This idea occurred throughout Chapter 3 and intrigued me the most. I agree with this statement. I love to read when I was able to do it on my own and still do when I have the time. But now it seems as if I read more as a requirement than for pleasure, which unfortunately also occurred when I read the assigned chapter in this book. In this case we are the students who may not be forced to read this book to prepare for a test, but are reading it for a requirement. I understand that we are adults, but I wonder how many of us are actually going to use any of this information. They say teachers are the worse students, but really we just like to learn as they do. We need hands-on and must see how it relates to our life.

I feel that we would have learned more from the book if there were study groups. According to Gallagher, study groups are the way to go. It allows for long reading times and thus increases understanding and possibly love for reading. We did not of the activities that Gallagher suggests -- recognizing the value of the book, guided/budget tour, and augmenting. In these and some of her other suggestions students work together as a group to understand the reading. Departments may have been give different chapters and asked to write a blog, but is this really a study group? Are we really learning anything?

I think that readicide is occurring with us reading this book. I did not read this book for recreational purposes. I was told that I have 1 week to read and post as blog about what I read. I have to admit that I did learn ways that stop readicide, but at the same time I was thinking that we are doing this horrible act with the teachers. It may not be for test preparation, but we are required to post something that we read. I am not saying that it isn't a good book, but better preparation should have occurred so that I would enjoy the book more than I am now.

Chapter Three: Ricky Moye

Reflecting back on Chapter 3 “Avoiding the Tsunami”, it was an eye opener on how easy implementing state required standards into a young reader psyche can cause readicide. The goal is to help students to become lifelong readers and not to bombard them with guidelines on how to read. Also I could relate to the author with experiencing readers flow and the possibility that my student have yet to experience this while reading a book. Lastly, it was interesting about the three ingredients that can build a young reader: Must have an interesting book to read; they must have time to read the book inside of school; and they must have a place to read their books. All of these ingredients can be confined in the school and controlled by the teacher.

Chapter 2: Melissa Bryan

The author basically asserts in Chapter 2 of Readicide that students are being taught to the reading test. They are passing the standardized reading tests, but are graduating without a passion for reading. If they do not love reading, then they will not want to do it unless it is to “pass a test.” The author calls this “authentic reading.” This is the term that is used to describe what and why adults read…to gain knowledge and information as well as recreational reading. The students do not learn this skill because there is not enough material in the classroom that interests them. The three keys points discussed in Endangered Minds are 1) There is a dearth of interesting reading materials in our schools, 2) Many schools have removed novels and other longer challenging works to provide teachers and students with more test preparation time, 3) Students are not doing enough reading in school.

Students need daily access to reading materials that they are interested in reading. If they do not have easy, daily access to “practice” reading, then they will never get “great” at reading. These students need authentic reading to help them practice and become better readers. This access to authentic reading materials needs to begin in kindergarten and be consistent through the senior year of high school. Students who do not grow up in a word rich environment from the very beginning are at a severe disadvantage. This disadvantage just amplifies when these young students enter school. These students need reading nutrients to grow their reading ability. To understand anything that you read, you must have prior knowledge. To have prior knowledge, you have to have authentic reading material. Ultimately, when a student learns to read for the sake of reading, their test scores will increase naturally.

Many schools have removed novels and other longer challenging works to provide teachers and students with more test preparation time. Students can read, but cannot think about what they are reading critically. They are lacking the ability to analyze what they are reading, because they are not being challenged with higher level reading materials. Students need to be challenged to read at a higher level, and they need to be given time to critically think about what they are reading. Giving students the ability to develop this reading skill will enhance their problem solving abilities in all other parts of their lives.

Students are not doing enough reading in school. Sustained Silent Reading is essential for developing students with higher reading levels and who develop a love of reading that leads to reading for pleasure later in life.

Chapter Two: Brooke Biery

It is really scary how little our students know about the world around them and more specifically their own country. Children in other countries seem to know more about what is going on in the United States than our students do. I agree with the book and particularly this chapter because I think it is imperative for us to provide our students with authentic reading experiences, just as we provide the students authentic learning experiences. Today’s student needs a curriculum catered to them and right now educators around the country need to get creative with providing the best authentic learning experience for all of these students. By providing our students with authentic reading experiences we take a step in the right direction. A wide variety of authentic reading opportunities and experiences will provide them with a comprehensive knowledge of all subjects. Our students face challenges that are unlike the challenges we have faced in the past. They are going to have to compete globally and if we do not prepare them for that, we are doing a great injustice to them for the rest of their lives. We need to get these kids excited about learning and education in general. After all they will be the ones leading this country in the future and if we do not instill these very important life lessons we are failing as educators, schools, states, and therefore as a nation.

Chapter Three- Timothy F. Harkness

Good Day:
I now have an explanation for what happened to me and my desire to read at will for pleasure. I was caught in the tsunami of over-teaching and mandated assignments every time I was asked to read, after the 7th grade. Prior to entrance into the 8th grade I truly did enjoy reading and really looked forward to every summer so that I could participate in the annual summer reading clubs. I did experience “reading flow” and “having to come up for air”. But, unfortunately, I have not had that experience but twice since 7th grade. Now, I am not a reader. I read books when I am required. I only read now for pertinent information and not necessary for pleasure. I have arrived at this point in my life because the joy of reading, for reading sake, was systematically drilled out of me in Junior High, High School, and College. Every time I was asked to read there was a boat load of requirements and analyzing that accompanied the assignment. Thus, I began to read to complete the assignments and not to enjoy the book. I have not read but 3 books since I graduated college. We in education need to put the joy back into reading by allowing students time to read without the requiring of immediate & persistent assessment demands. Give them some freedom and space. I think we will get more out of our students if we just let them have more ownership in their reading experience rather than instructors having all of the control and say so. I know it would have made a major difference in my life’s reading experiences.

Chapter Four: Zaria O'Bryant

To begin with, I must say that I am not a certified reading instructor, but I do believe that we all teach reading. That being said, much of what the author proposes could be considered as either common sense or nonsense. For example, the differences he makes between “adult readers” and “immature readers” could more appropriately be thought of as the difference between “effective” readers and “ineffective” readers. He makes a great deal of assumptions about what “we” (adult readers) know versus what “they” (students) know. In my opinion, this is a gross error. I almost committed Readicide reading this chapter. Fortunately, I knew how to save myself. I went to the end of the chapter to preview what the author expected me to learn. I also read the foreword and introduction to determine what, if any, background the author had in the subject he proposes to be an expert in. I then scanned the chapter for keywords and phrases that I could apply to my current instructional setting. I tried to frame the “new” point of view in light of my existing paradigm. Finally, I made connections between my existing knowledge and experience about how individuals learn to read and comprehend new text. Although, I did not gain any new and valuable insights, I do agree with the author that we need to have balance in all things. This includes teaching and learning regardless of the subject.

Chapter Four: Sonny Williams

In chapter four of "Readicide", Kelly Gallagher discusses the importance of finding the "sweet spot" when teaching reading to students. It can be easily summed up by what I think is a pretty obivious statement: don't under or over teach your students, give them just the right amount of guidance. I believe this philosophy should apply to any lesson we teach, not just reading. Gallagher goes on to explain that "readicide" occurs from two common practices: giving the students a complex text to read in its entirety without guidance, under teaching, and stopping so frequently to teach the material that it becomes a chop-chop approach, over teaching. While I think the idea is a pretty much straight forward concept, I did appreciate the examples he gave for finding this “sweet spot”: What Good Readers Do Chart, pre reading activities, close activities etc.
I found it interesting, and somewhat refreshing, to see Gallagher make a case for the importance of reading the classics and break stride from the philosophy of Nancy Atwell who he references often throughout the text. Gallagher notes that there is value in the entire class reading the same title, that classics build a shared cultural literacy, and classics give students adequate practice in reading difficult texts, and when studied together “produces richer conversation and deeper thinking than occurs when the work is read individually or in small groups.” (Gallagher p 92) I think that in today’s educational circle, there is sometimes too much emphasis on moving away from the classics and using contemporary YA. However, as Atwell points out “schools too often engage them in a version of reading that is so limiting and demanding… that what they learn is to forgo pleasure reading and its satisfaction for four years ‘do Enghish’” (p 91) For me, finding the balance between classics, and contemporary free choice selections is another example of where we need to find the “sweet spot” for our instruction.
Finally, the part of the chapter that gave me that “a-ha” moment was in his discussion of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Gallagher states that “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde prepares my students to understand that everything has two sides, and when they are able to recognize this they become much better equipped to read politicians, to read advertisements, to read ballot initiatives” (p. 99) I think this would make an excellent unit on information literacy, and I would love to teach a collaborative unit with either an English or social studies teacher using this theme.

Chapter Five - Seth Gilmer

After reading the book Readicide it became apparent that the U.S. educational system needs to re-evaluate how we are doing business. Stuck in the “Paige Paradox” we have created a system that is destroying creative thinking and killing reading. The current way of business was summarized well on page 23 in chapter one when it stated, “Let’s see whether we have this straight: we immerse students in a curriculum that drives the love of reading out of them, prevents them from developing into deeper thinkers, ensures the achievement gap will remain, reduces their college readiness, and guarantees that the result will be that our schools will fail. We have lost our way. It is time to stop the madness.” Chapter five entitled “Ending Readicide” gave some practical advice on things that need to be done in the American educational system. Since the NCLB act became law in 2002 the system has created, “years of drilling and killing, worksheets, and teaching to shallow tests” (pg 112) that has taken away America’s edge. “Historically, there has been much more emphasis in developing creative thinkers in the United States, students who have been frequently encouraged to think outside the box. Our international edge has come from the cultivation of this creativity.” (pg 114) To end readicide we have to take a hard look at the current way of business which is shallow teaching to tests, and get back to instilling “creativity and innovative thinking among our citizens.” (pg 114) We have to emphasize reading and make it enjoyable. America needs to look at Finland’s approach which is, “eliminating standardized testing and emphasizing the importance of reading and critical thinking, by nurturing deeper thinking and creativity, and by leading their students away from the drill-and-kill instructional approach that is currently permeating American schools.” (pg 116) All of the suggestions in the chart on page 117 would be a great starting point for administrators and teachers, but as we understand in this business politics often trump the authentic.

Chapter 2-Lilla Marton

After reading I took a few minutes and asked my students questions in regards to the ideas presented in this chapter. They responded much like I expected. "I hate to read", "I got better things to do" and "The books here are wack".

This chapter attempts to convince us that providing interesting and relevant books will encourage our students to explore and recapture their love and need for reading. Although I agree with the idea of this book and this chapter, the sad truth I cannot ignore is that by high school, its too late.

Our students are handed down to us with pre set experiences towards literacy. If they come to us with a strict disgust towards reading, in one semester we cannot change that. If we seriously want to attack this problem then all teachers, all schools and all levels across the board need to pull together and put an emphasis on reading and comprehension. The problem is, we do not have time or materials to do so.

In this chapter Gallagher talks about the "Word Poverty" which is exactly the reason true readers are far and few in our schools. Providing students with the most interesting books will not encourage those, who in the 11th grade, cannot read beyond a 5th grade level. Our students have access to the library which contains books far beyond anything that I thought would be allowed in high school. We have SSR crates with a variety of entertaining and interesting books with topics all students can relate to. Yet, our students would rather play angry birds on their phones or tweet during SSR than read an interesting book. It is sad and unfortunate, but I believe that providing interesting material is far from the solution in changing the culture of our schools and our students reading abilities. Things need to change at school, in their homes and in the culture of our country as a whole.

Our reality is testing. It is what we work for, what keeps us employed and how our teaching "abilities" are evaluated. It is also a waste of time and money. In the chapter he speaks of the students scores in Wyoming being much higher simply because they knew what a "Farrier" was. These students were automatically termed "smarter". This is sad, but it is what happens every year when our students are tested to prove their "intelligence".

Reading and vocabulary are critical for any subject and any test. Interesting materials could potentially encourage students to read, but many students never will. They have access to information all day every day right in the palm of their hands yet they won't even read the news or world events on their cell phones. There is a much larger problem here and providing interesting books simply will not fix it.

Chapter 3: Lissa Layman

I thought that Gallagher’s notion that schools have killed children’s love of reading was very interesting. I loved reading growing up and still enjoy curling up with a good book. After I left elementary school, my five siblings that followed me participated in the Accelerated Reader program. Now, not one of them has the passion for reading that I do. Did AR contribute to their indifference and hatred? I’m sure there were other factors, but I can’t help but wonder if AR was a major one.
This chapter also caused me to reflect on my classroom, especially SSR time. I encourage my students to read, however I don’t think I try hard enough. Studies show that reading is extremely valuable and I can’t ignore the facts. Next year, I want to make sure that I am doing a better job at facilitating SSR. In the beginning of the year, I will probably force my students to read something. Once they get into it, hopefully they will get interested. I would like to do a better job at offering more options for them. I would like to take them to the library once a month and help them choose things to read based on their interests. Twenty minutes is a really long time to do nothing, so I hope that my students will see the value in reading.
Lastly, I have been thinking a lot lately about the way the current education system in the United States is right now. We shove a whole bunch of content into students brains, ask them to regurgitate it on a state-mandated test and then they promptly forget it because it is not relevant to their lives. As a nation, we need to find different ways to reach our students and assess their progress. Our students don’t care about their education because we haven’t made it meaningful. We are not only killed reading, we are killing education.

Chapter Five: Nichole Luckie

I found this chapter to be an echo of the same message I have been hearing since I entered the teaching profession: standardized testing is not working. It is intriguing to me that the standards have been lowered on many tests just to allow students to reach the level of "proficient" more easily. No one benefits from that, and we lose any credibility that testing might have had. The fact that so many people are graduating from college without being able to read proficiently is frightening.

It seems as though the United States is working backwards when compared to other nations. Japan and China once had more stifling standardized testing, but they are now beginning to work toward a more creative approach that allows for problem-solving and critical thinking. Those essential skills are being lost in American education because there is such a push to raise our test scores.

As stated by Yong Zhao, the author of "Are We Fixing the Wrong Thing?", the United States is actually still the leader in science and technology. That is because our citizens have been encouraged to be creative for so long. If we begin to lose that, we will lose ground in the world and become less innovative.

One thing that is fascinating to me is that reading in a deep, meaningful way seems to be associated with creativity. Although reading may not be considered by most to be a creative act, I can see how having a creative mind could make reading more enjoyable. When the reader is truly able to delve into the content of a book and think critically about what is going on in the book, he or she is going to pull much more from the experience. Surface-level reading is not enjoyable or memorable. Schools need to continue encouraging creativity so that students will want to read and be able to see the inherent value in reading.

Chapter Five: Katherine Perry

As educators we have repeatedly heard that standardized testing is not a true measure of learning. I was taught to question the value of standardized testing years ago in my education courses, yet today's students are tested more than ever. It leads me to question who is holding the reins of public education. The professionals in the field know standardized testing does not improve learning, but testing still occurs. This focus on testing is killing the joy of learning for many students. Chapter Five of "Readicide" discusses the loss of America's secret weapon - the creative, risk taking, student - to over testing and the thinning and drilling of instruction. Students want to learn through meaningful and relevant experiences, not through worksheets. This focus on creative learning and critical thinking is reinforced in a new report released by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities titled: "Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America's Future Through Creative Schools". Just like reading the arts have also taken a major hit because of the emphasis on teaching to the test. The arts and reading have been found to lower drop out rates and create the kind of critical thinking workforce required for today's jobs. We know the importance of in-depth, arts-rich learning, but somehow the standardized tests continue to run the show.

Chapter 1- R. Jennings

This chapter visits testing and the idea that streamlining what you use to develop your overall curriculum effects testing, and students motivation to read. Making students read is not a bad idea. I think the make part simply needs to start sooner in the child's life and at home in an environment that will foster support from the parents. Parental support of school activites is what is going to make the difference with the child. Each child is different in their motivation to read or simply strive to do well in school. As dynamic as society and the average classroom are today, kids will undoubtedly grow and change as they develop.

Teaching to test is almost required of today's teachers who want their kids to do well and be recognized for doing well. Doing well helps in terms of scholarships, acceptance to colleges and academic programs. Does this hurt a kid's motivation to read or simply enjoy reading? Very debatable. I think all kids are different and if you can agree with that then their motivations for reading and learning are very different also. In knowing that, to try and answer or prescribe a fix for all kids is crazy. People discover the world and new worlds through reading. If you can agree with that and also manage to get that across to them, I think that is the real lesson that will enable them lifelong appreciation of reading.

Chapter One: Pat Jackson

"The Elephant in the Room" reminds us that we as educators need to teach students in a way that they want to read and become lifelong readers. Too often we mandate what students are to read to achieve a purpose for us--not them. We all know this, but we continue to go down this road. Why??? Simply put, when students want to read they expand their minds forever.

On the issue of testing, I think tests should be designed in a way that students learn from the test and are required to think and write rather than multiple guess.

Chapter 4: Frank Harrison

Guiding students to experience reading flow is what we all strive for. Those of us who are readers want our students to not only read for information and out of necessity, but to experience the fulfillment reading can bring. Challenges such as overcrowded classrooms and lack of resources and support overwhelm many teachers, however.

Embedded in Gallagher's bullet points are some tried and true educational practices, namely modeling and scaffolding. His advice to frame the novel/text is particulary apt, although this is not news to the "well-qualified" teacher. Teaching requires a certain amount of artistry, which implies a vision and somewhat nuanced execution--although some of the best teaching can occur unexpectedly, even chaotically. Overall, however, we want students to be engaged, to know why they are engaged, and to want to be engaged.

Chapter Five John Donohue

Very interesting information to start out the chapter. Test scores are rising, but it is because we are lowering our standards. Due to the NCLB act, schools are finding ways to meet that standard, one way is to lower the standards. IS this what is best for the students. Are we really preparing them for college or to be successful in the corporate world? The chapter discusses that hte more we teach the test, the more we are failing our students. We are so obsessed we teaching the test we don't allow the students to be creative. The world is changing and we need to change with it. Teaching the test and forcing students to read does not aloow that. What we will end up with is group of students who hate to read.

Chapter Four -- Jennifer Lea

Chapter 4 discusses underteaching a book -- in other words, handing a book to a child, telling him to read it, and giving absolutely no guidance as to what is important about the book, etc. Gallagher focuses on the "sweet spot" of teaching, not over teaching and not underteaching.

His pre-reading strategies (historical context, vocabulary, overarching themes) are sound practices that many of us instinctively use. Certainly all of my students want to know why in the world they have to read a specific book.

Finding that sweet spot, though, is difficult because not every student has the same needs, even students leveled into the same class. There are always students who need more guidance, more instruction than others in the classroom.

The idea of re-reading small chunks of text in class together is a strategy that has value. This strategy makes the text more manageable and creates an opportunity for the teacher to model reading for a specific purpose.

Chapter One - Robbie Hardy

I believe the key to sustain life-long readers is to allow them to make their own choices in regards to what they want to read. As a student myself, I was turned off to reading by the outdated material that we were required to read. With my own children, I allow them to choose their own books they want to read before bed and I see the interest and excitement that comes with it. Reading should start at the home and be supported by the school and form a partnership that will challenge and continue to promote reading.

Chapter Two: Sean Hoppe

I think this chapter is about your relationships with your students and how you can get them to succeed with what you have.
Two points in Chapter 2 are that we are pressured to get our kids to do well in the AP exams and end of course tests. We are pressured to teach to those test but also pressured to teach to the standards. Well, what happens when the two don't go together.

SSR is a good tool for not just the students but for the adults to pursue during the day as well. Sometimes during the day this is the only time I get to read for fun myself. SSR can work but what happens when you get the kids who don't or have never opened a book for fun and now your forcing them to read?

Chapter Four: Steve Nuzum

The key recommendation in Chapter Four is to find the balance-- or "sweet spot"-- between under-teaching a piece of literature (essentially handing the book to a student and saying "Go read this") and over-teaching it (stopping every other paragraph to do a close reading or excessively analyzing metacognitive reading strategies). This is certainly a balance I have had to be vigilant about finding this year, especially with my lower-level readers.

At the moment we are reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, and while I think I provided a reasonable amount of historical and authorial background on the novel, the challenge has been how much to explain the text while we are reading. Because many (most) of my struggling readers have had problems not only with the dialect and idiomatic expressions within the novel's dialogue, but also with the extremely poetic (metaphorical and allusive) style of the narration, I have felt the need to read much of the novel in class. This has been good for the struggling readers, who need to hear the dialogue modeled by other experienced readers (including some of their classmates, who are quite good at reading expressively and in character). However, it has been a source of frustration for other readers, who do not want to have the book, in Gallagher's words, "chopped up". "We're never going to finish this," one student whined yesterday. While I can't justify not reading in class at this point-- usually through shared or "popcorn" readings in which I try to model effective reading strategies for the most difficult sections-- I have tried to assign more reading at home as we get further into the novel. Hopefully the scaffolding of the early chapters will allow my struggling readers to read more on their own.

The other take-away for this chapter, for me, is that my struggling readers DO need some basic metacognitive strategies to help them get through the reading. I plan to model more of these. On the other hand, I plan to ease off even more on stopping to analyze the text, now that students have a better handle on the novel's context and style.

Chapter 3 Carman

Chapter 3
Modern society is one of instant gratification, press a button and something happens, pause it, zap it, or wait for the movie. Reading is often regarded as cumbersome and boring by students. They are encouraged to read, but then required to break down the reading, find the symbolism or other literary meanings in the story. Once the analysis begins, the movie that played in the reader's head while reading, begins to distort or begins to look different. Sometimes that offers clarity and sometimes it makes for confusion. While studying literature and understanding what the author intended for us to understand we all need to remember the joy of reading and why we read in the first place. We need to remember that instant gratification is not always the best way, sometimes greater things come to those who wait and don't overanalyze.

Chapter One: Jessica K. Sweeney

Within the first chapter, Gallagher broadly asserts that courses tied to a state mandated test are failing students because teachers focus more on test preparation, rather than reading. As an instructor of a course with a state mandated test, I take offense to Gallagher’s claim. In preparing my students for their state mandated test, which constitutes a fifth of their overall grade in the course, students read a variety of primary and secondary resources. I admit that they do not read an entire book, but I have a difficult time in saying that my failure to assign a book to be read and analyzed, means that I am killing the love of reading.

I believe that as children grow up and are exposed to a variety of literary materials they will choose their own sources for reading. Whether their choice is to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, or nothing at all, the choice to read is an individual decision. For the time being, Gallagher’s desire to reform the educational system and to stop “readicide” is a complicated task. As educational historian, Michael B. Katz affirmed in his book, Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools (1971), “Bureaucracy negates reform.” Until public education is decentralized and left as a matter unto the individual states, Gallagher’s ideal of halting “readicide” to create an educational environment in which students and teachers have ample time to assign and analyze books is nearly impossible.

Chapter Four: R. Graves

I concure 100% with Donald Graves' (no relation) quote in chapter four that "The teacher teaches most by showing how he/she learns" (109). Teachers who lead by example -- do as I say as well as how I do -- have a better chance of influencing young readers to "live this experience." Sharing reading experiences demonstrates that we also "walk the talk." My students are always reading an outside book of their choice for "recreation" that we call a "Independent Reading Time" book; I approve their selections so they will not be reading something inappropriate or below their level...something preferably that will add to their cultural literaracy, but that is not mandated). I read as well -- and share my choices. Their standards for choices progress during the year as their reading competences increase. Additionally, other students' recommendations for "good reads" often foster an interest in more challenging texts. Higher expectations even in recreational reading delivers better readers and writers. Education, not a "cookie'cutter" profession, requires us to "meet the student where he/she is," socially and academically, with divergent instructional strategies and choices...in doing so with "recreational reads," hopefully, we will inspire curiousity and determination in developing life-long readers.

Chapter 4 A.Colgate

• I agree with E.B. White that you don't write down to children, but write up.

Chapter 3: Jan Clark

Chapter 3 talks about the overteaching and overanalysis of books. After reading this chapter, I felt like I was back in my high school English classes. Every book I had to read was ruined for me. By the time I completed all the writings, the projects, and the tests/quizzes, I hated reading. I remember a specific English teacher who didn't allow you to disagree with her interpretation of the reading. I got to the point where I lost confidence in my reading ability. I can't think of any book that I was assigned where the teacher tried to show the connection to the real world. It was "just read and be able to discuss." I did find it interesting that Chapter 3 discussed the negative impact of having students write reflections. Yet, here I am - writing a reflection!

Chapter One: Michael Bates

The primary focus of “The Elephant in the Room” is the tired litany of complaints about the reasons that students do not develop into lifetime readers. It argues as so many have before that we spend too much time attempting to prepare students for standardized, multiple choice tests and not enough time teaching students to read critically.

There seems to be one fact that the author continues to point to but he also continues to miss the point of its meaning. He repeatedly mentions the fact that students who already read well do well on the tests, and those who do not read well continue to struggle or get worse as we teach to the test. Should not the meaning then be clear that the problem is how do students who read well learn to read well. Is there some mystery that eludes me to the fact that good readers are most likely to become lifetime readers, and they are good readers because they have spent their lives to this point reading for fun?

From my experience both with my own children, and the students that I interview for the Scholars Academy, the most important factor that helped to turn them off of reading for fun was the mind numbing choices made for summer reading assignments. The books were inane and a drudgery. Only the appearance of Harry Potter, and later Twilight saved them from becoming non-readers. Far more important than standardized testing as an explanation of Readicide is the ridiculous works that we make them read. We have even created an entire industry that cranks out thousands of books that require no critical thinking skills to consume them; just a mind that can be inured to the drudgery.

If we want lifetime readers, why not give them a lifetime to decide what to read on their own? The author says that it took him twenty years after high school to become a reader of history again. Was that because he finally had some interest in history, some issue that troubled or excited him that brought him to pick up a serious work of history and begin to read. Only then to discover that other things also interested him and caused him to pick up other works to answer the questions that excited him. Is he somehow worse off because he waited twenty years to ignite that particular flame? During that twenty year period was he busy reading other subjects that interested him? The point seems to me to be that readers are readers and they read what interests them. What we should be focusing on is how do we get kids to want to read.

The answer is to get them to ask questions and then read to seek the answers to those questions. I have an adult (pre-NCLB, and pre-standardized testing mania) son who is an aerospace engineer. At no point in his schooling was there the slightest chance that he would be an avid reader. He was not a words person. He now contacts me to ask for recommendations for works of history to read. Why? Because now in his life he has questions to answer. There are things that he wants to understand that never concerned him before. He is now a lifetime reader because now he enjoys reading and because he is no longer a teenage, high school boy!

Chapter 4 Towle

Readicide is all about the contradiction. Everything that is recommended in one chapter is denigrated in another. There is a lot of reading logic in this. Each theory/philosophy can be right for one group and not another. The key, as always is to know your students. Overteach, underteach, it is all relative. This is not your father's reading assignment (get it-all relative!)?First, it is let them read what they want, then give them books in the canon. First it is teach it , then it is stay out of it. I have always felt that if students read and have "good" reading modeled , they will get it. The lower the skill level, the earlier the training, the more I read with them. The more I play up the, "I wonder what he meant by that" act when they are new to reading in depth. Eventually, they internalize. As the year goes on I leave them more alone, but if the questions and comments do not come in after reading, and I know they have read, then it is back to square one. I assume they will read the lightweight stuff on thier own. I will stick with them through the struggle. I want them to struggle with me , without Spark Notes, so when they get to a tough book that does not have SN, they will be awesome. By the end of the year they usually tell me they cannot even sit down to watch a movie without seeing symbolism and Christlike figures, etc. That is the place for an evil laugh, and my work is done.

Chapter Two: Heather Alexander

Chapter Two focuses on how the lack of challenging material available to students is detrimental to them. So much of the focus in schools is preparation for standardized testing. This focus has forced teachers to remove challenging reading and writing in order to provide content that will be tested on some sort of standardized test. This is my first year teaching based on my experience this year our main goal is to prepare students for the end of course test. The content standards are so vast for science that there is barely enough time to cover all of the material. This leaves very little time to integrate literacy into the classroom. SSR is a good thing. I do believe that if you allow students the time then they can make reading a daily habit.

Chapter 1: Jimmy Crosby

When you read this book, you could draw the conclusion that it is written from a "liberal" standpoint as it attributes this "readicide" dilemma to George W. Bush. I would say, however, that the blame does not lie with him. It lies with an educational system that has for decades attempted to quantify student learning and performance. At some point in our past, the powers that be thought that the most effective way to evaluate the overall effectiveness of teaching and learning was through quantitative statistics. Everything must have a numerical value. This, in reality, is simply an impossible task. "Readicide" points out the flaws of this approach by detailing how standardized tests extinguish the enthusiasm of lower acheiving students by handing them low test scores that fail to account for real and authentic learning. This real and authentic learning is more and more taking a back seat to the "teaching to the test" approach school systems are adopting because of the high stakes of school report cards. Until the actual criteria for school evaluations is changed, schools will not change their approach to "teaching." "Teaching" in this case is not actually teaching. We are teaching how to pass a multiple choice test. A Wofford professor I heard this pass weekend summed it up quite well: "We must not teach our students answer recognition, but rather answer generation." I thought this was rather profound. Life is not a multiple choice test, so why are we preparing students in that way?

Chapter 3: Avoiding the Tsunami: Carol Robinson

English teachers have a huge responsibility and challenge. They can no longer teach as they were taught. Former students were made to disect and view literature under a microscope. Gallagher recommends present day teachers to guide students through the first 1/2 of a book. Then teachers should let the students finish the journey independently. She suggests to follow the quick reading of each book with updated and relevant articles. A teacher's purpose is to provide credible and enjoyable literature that includes a dress rehearsal for the real life after high school.

Chapter Four Iris Carter

I now understand why I have always hated to read. In high school we were given difficult texts to read, dissect and comprehend on our own. Then we were given a final essay to write. Rarely, did I understand what I read!
Chapter 4 covers the two extremes of teaching literature. No direction, which I had been taught under and over dissection of material. The chapter wants us to find a happy place in the middle. I know that some of the suggestions for successful teaching (anticipation guides etc.) are already being used by some of our teacher.

Chapter three. Fatima Bucheli

I use reading in my class to encourage students to talk in Spanish. My students take this time to comment about the characters; it gives them an opportunity to use the adjectives that they learned from their Spanish I. For the advance classes such as Spanish IV and AP Language, students have the opportunity to express their feelings not only about the characters but also about the traditions and customs from the different regions of Central and South America.
In conclusion, in my class reading is an opportunity to learn about other cultures, to express opinions in Spanish. It gives students a break from grammar ans spelling rules.

Chapter four Deborah H. Robinson

Chapter four is about finding the perfect teaching techniques for your particular students. This is necessary to do for each class, and even single students within each class. The author, Kelly Gallagher, is against chopping up books to study as a group, taking away the reading flow and author-reader connection. I agree with him. I want my students to do what I call "real reading."
When we have a class novel, I have students read chapter 1, and when each student is finished (this will happen at various times), I give them a sheet with questions on it from the chapter. They look over the questions, and if they can answer each question then they can move on to reading chapter 2. If they cannot answer some or all of the questions, I sit down individually with that student and go over the questions, with the novel open, and show him or her where the answers can be found. Usually I just have to do 2 or 3 of them, and then they get the picture and can do the rest on their own. After about 5 chapters (depending on the book) we have a class discussion, with four or five questions on the smartboard guiding the discussion. This has worked well for many of my classes, from 9th grade through 12th grade. It does't chop up the book too much.
Another thing I do to help students have the experience of "real reading" is have students read a novel on their own every month. These can be chosen from the current list of 20 wining YA novels, or last year's 20 YA winners. (I have found if I let them choose any book, they choose ones they have already read, or something too young for them.) I give a book talk on each set of 20 novels. They have the month to read the novel on their own time, and do a report at the end of it. This report is as follows: 100 words plot, 200 words + 1 quote for theme, another 200 words + 1 quote for another theme, 100 words life and thought (if this were the only book left in 500 years, and people read it, what would they think our society was like?), and 100 words how it connected to me. If they have any questions during the month about the book I can help them because I have read all of them. (I'm on the state YA reading selection committee).
At the beginning of the second month, I meet with each student individually and find a book for them which is a classic book but that has a connection of some sort to the YA book they just read. For instance, the YA book Confessions of a Triple-Shot Betty is very similar in theme and events to the classic book Jamaica Inn (by Daphne DuMaurier). In fact, I bet the author of the YA book read the classic book in their youth! I have a list of classic books that go along with each YA book that I have developed. I can vary it according to reading level and gender because there are 5 or 6 classic novels that match each YA novel.
The third month they choose another YA novel, and the 4th month I help them choose a classic book that can be used as a companion novel. This system also works well with all my classes, from 9th through 12th. Many students tell me it is the first book --then books-- that they have read all through by themselves. It's a good way to ease them into classic literature, too.
By the second or third month, the students are talking with each other about "their" novels, and sharing favorite parts, and in short becoming a literary community (though they don't recognize that's what it is.)

Chapter 1-Borowiec

I sometimes forget that material covered in my class is my passion and not my students. Therefore, when I assign readings in my content area (geography), it may be exciting to me, but to get students excited to read the assign passage may result in me pulling teeth. I do agree that students should be given choice, espcially in readings. However, I wonder how can a teacher give students an opportunity to learn and explore new areas of interest without assigned readings.

Furthermore, I do appreciate the information regarding review and test structure. I very rarely do review because it is pointless. If a kid can pass a test through review, how effective then are your lessons throughout the unit? I have decided to look at things differently when I do approach review as well as test structure. I do want kids to achieve higher-level thinking and will use some of the helpful hints when creating questions (mc versus short answer)

Chapter Five: Johanna Strickland

This chapter raised a variety of issues in my mind as I read it. The first relates to research studies and statistical manipulation. The author refers to both the "Texas Miracle" and the study by the Center on Education Policy, and the statistical manipulation that took place to produce desirable results. It really makes me question ANY study and research results that are published. It is very difficult to trust the results, regardless of what they are, without doing extensive research into how the study was done and how it was reported. Even with this thorough "background check", I don't know that I would notice the inadequacies myself.

I found the comments about Zhao's "Are We Fixing the Wrong Things?", very interesting. He states that the United States is the most scientifically and technologically advanced nation, and that we are the leaders in all of the major innovations and patents. I wondered how this could be with our suffering educational system, until he mentioned our "secret weapon- the creative, risk-taking, can-do spirit of it's people." How frustrating it is, that we are destroying our secret weapon. I've seen this already in the elementary schools with my daughter. She is a voracious reader, who usually has 2 or 3 books of various genres going at a time. As an assignment, they write "reading letters" (book reports) to their teacher every other week about the book they have just read. She was frustrated by this requirement because she felt it limited her book choices. She felt that she had to choose short, easy reads that she could complete in the 2 week time period for the letters, rather than delve into longer, more challenging books that should couldn't finish in time for the next letter. In order to solve her dilemma, she decided to read her own recreational books (the more challenging for her) at home, on her own time, while also reading a shorter book in order to meet the class requirements. How frustrating that a classroom assignment actually stifled her desire to read lengthier, more challenging books.

The author's discussion of the Pianta et al. study mentions that our nation's education is "overly thin and broad." As a teacher, I can completely relate to this tendancy. I struggle with the need to cover all of the material and the desire to do more creative, integrative instruction, and not enough time to do both. I sometimes find myself just skimming over the material just to say that I covered it, rather than digging in deeper with my students in a way that would encourage problem solving and critical thinking. When I do attempt to do these types of assignments, I get very frustrated by the attitudes of my students, their lack of investment in the assignments, and the poor quality of work that results. The frustrations often discourages me from attempting these types of assignments at all.

In the list of features of Finnish education and culture I noticed that the first two place responsibility on the parents. Parents are given child-development material at birth. Immediately, responsibility is placed on the parents to teach and develop their children. The second one mentions that school doesn't start until age 7, thus leaving the parents responsible until that age to teach their own children the many basic skills necessary to succeed in school. They must learn how to read and write at home and begin to learn basic math skills. Parents can't just rely on 4 or 5 yr. old kindergarten to do that like parents in the United States. In the United States, too much pressure is placed on the teachers and too little is placed on the parents to produce problem solving, creative and productive citizens. More emphasis needs to be placed on the parent's role in developing the child. The parent needs to support and enhance the efforts of the teachers, not blame the school or the teacher for their child's failure.

As Regie Routman noted, "We have lost our courage." I tend to struggle with my courage to try more intensive literacy assignments and instruction with my students. I need to find the courage to keep trying, despite frustrations and setbacks, and hope that I can somehow prevent the loss of a generation of young readers.