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Program-driven reading hurts students, must end
by Ramnath Subramanian
Each year, I receive a few dozen e-mails from parents deeply concerned that reading has become anathema to their children. One mother wrote: "My daughter is in middle school, reads at a high-school level, and enjoys challenging literature. However, for some reason, she is failing in her reading class."
Another mother wrote: "It saddens me that my son is completely turned off to reading. Because state-mandated tests are the focus of education at his campus, his teachers have turned away from imagination and creativity in their classrooms. In reading class, he is either mindlessly turning the pages of some book in order to earn reading points, or he is working with dittos and learning test-taking strategies."
A line from a poem by Elizabeth Bishop came to mind: "This is a world of books gone flat."
Measuring students' academic pro gress in reading by the number of pages they have read, or by the number of reading points they have accumulated in a week or a month, is the oldest game in town. Add to this the insane amount of time spent teaching children how to take Texas' version of the reading test, and one has created an impeccable recipe for tedium in the classroom.
I have always looked upon reading as a leisurely activity, akin to a stroll in the park, marked by myriad moments of respite to enjoy the scenery. The slow and nuanced reading of a good book can yield many gems, but children have to be trained in this enterprise. They need field guides to go with
them on these excursions. Instead, students are left to their own devices, and are told to read, read and read more.
The books they select don't seem to matter; any story will do as long as it comes with the requisite reading level and points. Without guidance and inspiration from teachers, and urged on by the need to accumulate points, students gravitate toward "easy" books with formulaic plots, lackluster characters and anemic language. Some of the books are so unremarkable that students sometimes revisit them unwittingly without registering a single deja vu experience.
Reading ought to be taught as a passion, and children should enter the realm of books, unencumbered, and ready for adventure. Instead, a lazy and ineffective methodology turns reading into a monotony. It should come as no surprise that many students consider books to be their bete noire.
In many instances, the reading points are factored into grades, which in turn are factored into the eligibility to attend dances or go on field trips.
If such program-driven requirements had existed during my school days, I am sure I would have missed the bus on all field trips, for once I sank my teeth into a good book, I was never in a hurry to finish it.
I call upon school officials all across Texas to unequivocally reject this reading program and others of its ilk. These packaged, high-price-tag instruments have done great harm to our students, and have significantly impeded the advancement of literacy.
And while they are at it, they might as well throw away the entire, putative accountability system, and its mountain-pile of meretricious rankings.
Ramnath Subramanian, a sixth-grade science teacher at Eastwood Knolls School in El Paso, writes often for the El Paso Times on educational topics. E-mail address: ramnath10@aol.com
— Ramnath Subramanian
El Paso 'Times
2008-10-30
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