This quote that I found in the appendix of In the Middle and it made me think about the students in my class at Normandy. I am supposed to teach my unit on short stories and today I found out that most of the students I will be teaching do not have the best reading skills. In fact, I learned that most of them refuse to read. According to my teacher, the students will not read for homework and in class they prefer to listen to the recording of the story rather than reading aloud. I feel like this is going to be very challenging for me when I teach the short stories unit because there are quite a few stories we need to get through that are mandatory for the school curriculum. How am I going to get through all of the material and teach the standards that I need to teach if we spend so much class time reading, or listening rather, to the stories? 8
Atwell comments on page 214, "Some students won't trust that there is such a thing as a good book; their experiences of literature are so limited they don't yet know what they like to read. And I know that for some, inexperience with books will mean a delay in fluency; their reading will be slow and awkward." I am afraid that this is what has happened to most of the students I will be teaching. I think that because they are not used to reading and haven't been expected to do it outside of class, they are afraid to try. I am hesitant to have them read aloud in class because I don't want anyone to feel embarrassed. If it is OK with my teacher, I think I will try to have them read something very small for homework and then possibly give them an informal assessment the next day to see who actually read.
That is a tough situation, Amanda. I think you're on the right path to find out who is willing. Perhaps reading aloud would benefit some students, but I understand how others can be intimidated by reading aloud. I have 7th graders, so when we read aloud, my co-operating teachers constantly reassures them that stumbling over words is natural and normal. It is probably so different in a high school, where students are more conscious of what others will think. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI am in the same situation as you are. I am teaching my unit to some lower-level 11th graders who seem to have very little, sometimes no, interest in the things that are being done in class. I was going to teach my unit on a short novel, but then was told that I am not allowed to assign homework- and that includes reading. It is okay for this semester because I just decided to teach poetry instead so that all of the ten days will not just be spent reading in class. However, my concern, like yours, is what I will do next semester. My cooperating teacher told me to choose three or four novels from the list to teach next semester. That seems like a lot when all of that has to be read either aloud or silently in class. And the problem I have with reading aloud as a class is that some students will be chapters ahead because they are so bored listening to the slower readers. And like you pointed out, so many poor readers dread reading out loud in front of their class. How is that to be avoided? Clearly you can't just let the students read silently for the whole book because no one will ever be at the same point, making assessment and discussion impossible.
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