While each reading had very different overall goals and points to make, I found that a universal theme could be applied to all three: Reading should not just take place in a specific "reading instruction time." All subjects and aspects of a young reader's life need to be completely saturated with reading if one expects a child to have high intrinsic motivation to read and be successful at reading. High order meaning construction is much more important than low order skills. This is one of those facts that I think everyone "knows" but not many people actually know to acknowledge. When we hear that understanding meaning is much more important than understanding a skill we wholeheartedly agree, but this leaves the question of why so many classrooms today employ drill worksheets and minute skill goals over general enjoyment of reading. In families like the Jones's who emphasize reading in nearly every aspect of their life, a student comes to school prepared to learn to read because he or she recognizes how integral the ability and love to read is.
The best way that I felt was taught to describe teaching to read was the high emphasis on discussion. Teachers who are most successful at getting children motivated to read, and therefore have higher rates of literacy, are the ones who are constantly engaging their students in communication about literature. This can be small "book sharing" groups or making sure that the ratio of reading in the class room to "other stuff" is 50/50. An educator who is passionate about reading and translates this to his or her students is one who will see the biggest growth in reading development. These readings prompted me to ponder these questions:
1) In what ways did my teachers encourage reading in
every subject they taught?
2) What methods would I find most effective to developing interest in every genre of book? (checklist, reading bin, etc)
3) When I encounter families unlike the Jones's, who do not stress the importance of reading, how can I motivate my children and their parents to realize its importance?
It was shocking how little reading and writing takes place in the classrooms and how it is not used in a cross-curricular manner. The article about the Jones family highlighted the importance of using reading and writing in different manners. The article also highlighted how easy it is to incorporate reading and writing into everyday activities. This was encouraging to me as a future educator because it demonstrated multifaceted uses for reading and writing that are easy to incorporate and effective in equipping students with the skills needed to be a successful reader and writer.
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