Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It
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Read-i-cide n: The systematic killing of the like of reading, regularly exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices establish in schools. Reading is dying in our schools. Educators are familiar with many of the factors that have contributed to the decline—poverty, second-language issues, and the ever-expanding choices of electronic entertainment. In this provocative new book, Kelly Gallagher suggests, but, that it is time to admit a new and significant contributor to the death of reading: our schools. In Readicide, Kelly argues that American schools are actively (though unwittingly) furthering the decline of reading. Specifically, he contends that the standard instructional practices used in most schools are killing reading by: · valuing the development of test-takers over the development of lifelong readers; · mandating breadth over depth in instruction; · requiring students to read hard texts lacking proper instructional support; · insisting that students focus only on literary texts; · drowning fantastic books with sticky notes, double-entry journals, and marginalia; · ignoring the importance of developing recreational reading; and · losing sight of authentic instruction in the shadow of political pressures. Kelly doesn’t settle for only identifying the problems. Readicide provides teachers, literacy coaches, and administrators with point steps to back the downward spiral in reading—steps that will help prevent the loss of another generation of readers.
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Kelly Gallagher’s book is a excellent read and full of practical advice. His insight into the state of reading in our schools is on target. Fleeting and to the point — every serious educator should read.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Comparing it with additional epidemic-related words such as “supersize” and “gastric bypass”, leader Kelly Gallagher powerfully introduces readers to a less discussed epidemic that sweeps our country, “readicide”, the “systematic killing of the like of reading”. As a future school teacher, I was quickly intrigued by Gallagher’s cruelly honest account of how our school’s are playing a direct and strong role in development readicide.
Prior to reading this book, I had never really recognizable the effect schools are playing in heightening this epidemic. I was quick to blame poor reading skills and students’ disinterest in reading on poor parenting skills. Gallagher proved me incorrect and quickly reminded me of schools’ guilty role. Gallagher criticizes the far too many schools and educators that are making students who memorize, not students who engage in meaningful learning. Schools are cutting out periods of time for SSR and replacing them with extra blocks of test preparation. Pressures from state standards and acts such as No Child Left Behind encourage a haunting “mile wide and inch deep” philosophy.
In fact, just the additional day while observing a 30-year teaching veteran, I witnessed readicide presence at a local school. A student being being kept in from recess for misbehaving was refused the right to read a book he had checked out from the public library. As a replacement for, he was forced to place his head down and simply “reflect” about what he had done. It was at that very moment that my heart sank and I quickly admitted to myself that Gallagher’s thought of readicide is truly a national epidemic taking place in the very schools I hope to one day work in as a full-time teacher. Just as Gallagher points out, schools across the country, whether as a form of discipline (such as the example in my case) or the unending focus placed on making excellent “test-takers”, are limiting students’ authentic reading experiences and replacing sentiments of like towards reading with sentiments of resentment, boredom, and anxiety.
Thankfully, one thing Gallagher does incredibly well in this book is that he choose to take up more than the epidemic itself and also focuses on what we as teachers (and future teachers!) can do to alter or even stop readicide in its tracks. Whether encouraging teachers to reintegrate SSR into their daily routine, have students read articles from their local newspaper, or assign fun summer readings, Gallagher provides teachers from every grade level and background with endless opportunities to reflect on how authentic reading can be encouraged, a like of reading can be nurtured, and most importantly, readicide can be eliminated.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
From the very minute I opened “Readicide,” I was really hooked. This book gives words to everything I have been feeling about the way teaching reading, and teaching in all-purpose is going in this country. The “mile wide and inch deep” problem is all too evident in many schools i have been in, where raising test scores in order to keep much needed funding has stirred up to the number 1 position for schools, leaving the aspect of building life-long learners in a distant second. When she speaks of the “Paige Paradox,” it makes me marvel “WHY??” Why was this person allowed to do so much hurt to our fragile education system, and why is nothing being done, on a large level to combat it? I know she offers advice in here on how to make sure reading becomes vital-finding the “sweet spot” is such a fantastic thought, and the 3 ingredients that make a better seem to me to be a bit of a no-brainer! I like to read, and I feel this is because I was agreed so many opportunities to read, and learn to like it, when I was an elementary/middle school student. Our teachers read novels to us, and allowed us a small confront to curl up and read in. Of course, this was during a time when we had composition and art instruction multiple times a week! I can only hope to learn from this book, as a future educator, and not get too bogged down under the ever increasing pressure from above to get rid of reading for pleasure in favor of reading for test instruction. On page 13, she quotes Sternberg as adage “As a replacement for of pounding factoids into our students’ heads,…we should be emphasizing persons skills that would make our students ‘practiced citizens’: ‘creativity, common sense, wisdom, ethics, dedication, honesty, teamwork, hard work, knowing how to win and how to lose, a sense of honest play, and life long learning.”
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Readicide is an eye-opening book that examines how the reading practices in schools are leading to the death of reading. Gallagher frames this book around one vital question that all educators must question themselves: Are we preparing our students for a life beyond exams? This question leads me to marvel, if we teach reading in such a way that students place school never having the desire to pick up a book again, what have we really accomplished? With the development of the No Child Left Behind Act, schools are valuing test scores above all else, and students are leaning how to become memorizers, not thinkers. As Gallagher so elegantly laid out in Readicide, the fee we pay for high test scores is we kill a student’s like of reading.
Gallagher suggests that as teachers, our goal should be to make life-long readers that see themselves as a reader, even after graduation day. As a name who is going into the meadow of teaching, I find Gallagher’s message to be of fantastic importance to me. Through reading his book, I have come to see how school should not just be a place for students to learn excellent reading skills, but must also be a place for students to simply learn how to delight in reading.
In Readicide, Gallagher does a wonderful job of not only laying out his position, but also providing many examples of how to get students engaged in what they are reading, and to find value in it. He provides guidance, support, and honest suggestions about what it takes to go against our current system, and to stand up for our students. He suggests that there is a better way we could do things. In his words, if we’re going to teach to the test, that in itself is not flawed. It only becomes flawed when the test we teach to is a terrible test. So long as we are teaching to a quality test, students will be provided with a quality education, and that is what we should be fighting for.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
We have had 35 teachers reading this book as part of a book study. We are posing questions and giving our responses on a blog. It is a district wide activity and we have elementary and secondary teachers as well as some media center specialists. All of the teachers are enjoying the book and we have had several brilliant discussions about reading flow, AR, and hard. I highly recommend this book for professional development activities. I am hoping it will help our high school teachers be more ready for a literacy improvement push for next year.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5