Reading has become something I love to do when I have free time. This wasn’t always the case for me especially when I was in high school. Every summer as long as I can remember, my school would give me a list of books I had to read during the break and would be assessed on when we came back to school. It was the part of summer I hated through all my years in school. I never felt as though I could connect to the books and I found them extremely boring. The worst part was when we got back to school I would have a multiple-choice test on the book, and more often than not I would fail these tests. The questions my teachers asked were so specific it didn’t assess my comprehension of the overall picture of the book. The only teacher in all four years of high school to assess in essay format was my senior year teacher, and unsurprising to me I got a 100 percent on this paper. I was able to show my teacher that I really did read the entire book and understood the main idea. This leads you in to what I learned from these experiences and how I am carrying the lessons I learned into my own teaching.
I wished I had been given the opportunity to pick my own books to read so that I had a prior interest in the book before opening to the first page. When you are given a choice in what to read, usually you enjoy the reading more. Reading is the most important thing to learn in school in order to survive in life. Every day you come in to contact with ample amounts of places you have to read. Whether it’s a street sign, nutrition label, email, clothing labels, and so many more things. If you don’t know how to read life must frustrate you constantly. I over the years have come to love reading. I thouroughly enjoy getting recommendations from friends on books and being able to discuss them later. I want this for my students. Reading can be magical if you have the correct mindset going in to it.
I tried very hard this year to pick novels that I had read and enjoyed before, or books that had been recommended to me from peers. I wanted my students to get lost in the words. It was amazing to see some students jump ahead of what was assigned because they could not put the book down. You know you are reading a wonderful book when you would rather read than watch television. I think reading is better for the brain than anything else because you get to play a mind movie when following the lines on the page. I much prefer when the cover is bare and there are no pictures to hinder my ideas of what characters look like or how settings look. It is also difficult to get books that will interest all learners at the same level. Here is where I hope to grow in my teaching that I will be able to give students the opportunity to make their own reading choices and still fall in to the standards I am teaching, and the reading levels my students are on or close to reaching.
My theory of reading is that every person loves reading you just have to be exposed to the right text to reach your potential. My goal as an educator is to get my students to the level of reading that they are doing it for fun. It is difficult with my demographics at my schools to stress to the parents how important reading every night at home is to their child’s achievement. Reading is not only used during my reading and language arts block but you have to read to understand much of science and social studies as well. My students’ largest struggle is academic vocabulary in science and social studies due to the lack of exposure during conversations or book selections. I believe this is what educators have noticed and why common core has changed to emphasizing informational text more than narrative text. I read informational text more than narrative text now through social media, email, web surfing, and magazines. I love to read and I want to instill this in my students.
My personal theory of reading is that all readers are avid readers when they are exposed to the reading in the correct way. Every person has different taste but finding what suits you is the most important. Reading should not be pushed on anyone without having specific tactics behind it. Reading for comprehension is immensely more important than remembering the specific details. I love to read and I want to instill this love in my students.
No comments:
Post a Comment