Richardson, J. S., Morgan, R. F., & Fleener, C. 2012. Reading to learn in the content areas. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.
This is such a great topic! Because emotions are
connected to students who love reading and also for those who dislike reading,
how does a student’s feelings and attitude play an active role in education? How do educators foster the love of reading
to their students? From experience at
the high school level, I have noticed that children often do not have a desire
to read and have a negative connotation of reading for various reasons: they
think it is boring, they do not know to read well, and they do not think it is
important. Teachers should determine the
reasoning behind their negative feelings towards reading. Is the student unable to read or does the
student just not like to read? Because cognitive
deficits and negative feelings towards reading are completely different reasons
for an undesirability to read, educators should not assume a student will read
on his/her own to study/learn the content material. The Preparation Assistance
Reflection (PAR) technique is very useful because it allows the student to read
actively. I agree with the text that previewing textbooks before issuing them
to students is important for students to improve comprehension, build
anticipation, and to encourage metacognition. It is
the responsibility of teachers to help foster the habit of reading. Teachers
should also determine what the student’s motivation to learn is. Are they intrinsically
motivated or extrinsically motivated? They
should use this information to develop new strategies to use in the classroom
to encourage students to read. Gain Acceptance Towards Reading (GATOR) is a
very useful technique because it encourages a deeper level of comprehension by requiring
students to connect their emotions and feelings to the reading. Using the GATOR
technique, students generalize the content in the reading by applying to their lives.
I love this technique and use it often. This technique is beneficial for all
students of all age groups. Because students are required to read independently
in all content areas, it will be hard to give students reading inventories and
provide students with reading that they would enjoy. However, to foster the
love of reading, I believe teachers should encourage students to read, any
written material, and offer incentives to do so.
I really enjoyed reading your post! Your questions at the beginning of the post really made me think about the topic at hand. I agree with you that it is the teachers responsibility to foster the habit of reading, but I also feel parents have to be involved in this process. It is very hard to foster reading when the child never sees it at home or the parents do not believe that it is important.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you!:)
Delete