Readicide Intro/Ch.1

So far, I have liked the book. It is reinforcing what I already knew; that students are becoming increasingly inadequate at reading. I find it hard to believe that this country and our schools are still sticking with measuring reading based on a mulitple-choice exam. I can't blame the teachers because if their students do poorly on the test then that means they can find themselves out of a job. It truly is a decision to make: raise reading scores and kill a love for reading OR teach kids to read and enjoy it and don't worry about the multiple-choice test scores. Some students simply are not good test takers.
I was fortunate enough to not have to deal with any end of course tests or reading exams. Since I was in private school, we were encouraged to read what we wanted to, across many genres. Teachers encouraged students to try new authors and when we did have to read a book as a class, it was based on discussion and essay style answering. Very few quizzes we took had any multiple choice questions on it.
I really liked the part where Gallagher said that teaching toward the test is a good thing, if done correctly. When I begin teaching, I really like the idea of giving the students the final question/goal of understanding for the reading. A teacher probably will not be able to cover all of the standards asked of them, but I believe some standards are more important than others and more time should be spent on them. I do plan to incorporate more reading into my science classrooms, and maybe that will help them out on reading scores, but more importantly in reading comprehension.

Inquiry Project

I really don't want to go at this solo, but I haven't talked to anyone else in class. I really want to look at building from simple texts to more advanced ones. Science articles are very difficult to comprehend and the vocab is something very few people have to deal with in everyday situations. I believe if I can start by having students read internet articles (such as ones from CNN) or read studies done by other high school students it can help start a foundation that the students can build upon. I want to have students split up into small groups and read these shorter, easier articles. They would then discuss them with one another. The students could then piece the articles together by hearing each other discuss what they brought out of the reading. I can then give the students a slightly more difficult article and have them do the same thing. Ofcourse, I would have read the articles also and would be able to discuss the articles with them. Eventually, the students will work up to the point where they are able to read and better understand some scientific articles. I am in no way fully committed to this inquiry, but it is something I'd like to look into.

Content Reading in Biology

Beside math, content reading is done less in sciences than any other subject in school. Unless a student is told to do so, that student is very unlikely to pick up a scientific journal and read an article. To the adolescent reader, reading within a subject area is not viewed as important or rarely thought of. Every student knows that in english class, they will be asked to read some books and probably be asked to read some in history, also.
I think one reason content literacy is so poor in math and science is because so few teachers take to the time to teach students the proper way to read articles. Science has its own language, just like every other subject. Reading scientific journals are a difficult thing for the adolescent reader to digest. I remember my freshman year in college being asked to read short journal articles and feeling like everything in the articles was way over my head. I think its important to start students out just asking them to figure out the main points of the article and not to worry so much about the details (such as statistics in the articles). Getting students to understand why this research was done, what was found, and how it can be used should be the most important things to start with.
Teachers can't expect students to be excellent readers of science literature right off the bat, but can slowly build students up. One good way to help students look at articles as being important could be to pick an article and repeat the research done. This can give the students a better perspective on the article as they can then see what it all means. I know when I read the articles, I have to break them up into sections and read a section and then look back on it and reflect to make sure I understand what is going on, then proceed. If I just try to read right through it like reading a book I won't understand why the steps led to the result. Taking the time with students to show them helpful techniques in reading will go a long way.