What an experience I’ve had with reading! I remember being in second grade and whenever
the reading specialists would come to our class I was always one of the
students being pulled out to get help with reading. I was one of “those” students. Honestly, I didn’t know how to read until
part way through second grade. I would
cry at home to my mom because I was so bad at reading. I hated reading aloud to the class because I was
so slow and stumbled over words. I even
remember when I used to read by looking at the first few letters of a word and
guess the rest so that I could move onto the text word and do the same. I was quite embarrassed by the whole reading
thing. You could say I had a rough start
in my reading career.
However, because of good parents
and teachers I learned how to read. In
fact I actually started liking to read.
On a 20 hour car drive to Canada I remember reading most of the time and
finishing a book (amazing for me)! When
I got to high school I felt like an average reader. It definitely wasn’t my strong suit but I
could read aloud and not be nervous or embarrassed. Now, one of my most favorite things to do in
my “free time” is read. My favorite
types of books to read are historical novels.
I look forward to the day when I won’t have textbooks waiting to be read
but novels and pleasure books.
As a teacher I will make sure my
students feel confident in their reading.
I won’t ever call on students to read that don’t feel ok with reading
aloud. Also instead of always giving
students textbooks to read I will also include the reading of trade books in my
classroom. For example, this last summer
in one of my classes I had to read a math trade book. This was the first time in my entire
schooling that I had been asked to read a math book that was a math
textbook. I read the book “The Numbers
Behind NUMB3RS” by Keith Devlin and Gary Lorden. It was so interesting and engaging for
me. I loved how I was still learning
about math but it wasn’t a typical way of learning about math. I want to provide students will opportunities
like this in my teaching.
Ah tradebooks... They really do make quite a bit of difference in how people understand math. For me, I've seen a lot of the good metaphors that I use to explain or think about math come out of them. One that was actually really awesome was Popular Mathematics. It goes from basic arithmetic, all the way up through Calculus.
ReplyDeleteClarissa, I would not have guessed that you were one who struggled with learning how to read as a young kid. I was not the best reader in K-3rd grade. My elementary school recorded us reading and I have the cassette tape of myself reading a story. . . My sister who was in kindergarten read better than I did, because the recordings were done in the same year; I was in first grade. It's cute to listen to, but it's interesting how children develop skills at a different age. I love how reading is something you like to do today in your free time. This love for reading will influence your future students. Especially if you suggest interesting texts related to math, I'm sure they will see if what you say is true about how math is not just found in a textbook. ;)
ReplyDeleteI love that you have had experience with math trade books! I really look forward to reading your text set.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that, in the countries that have the highest literacy scores in the world, they typically start literacy instruction later than in the US. I really think the idea that "you should read by the time you are 6" is just a social construction, because there are other very successful societies that start reading instruction later than ours.
I also think that our educational system was designed to be like a "factory" system where every kid is like a product that is passed on from teacher to teacher and they are all expected to be at the SAME place at the SAME time as they take the SAME test. Just because you weren't at the SAME place as your peers, you felt bad about yourself, but really all kids develop differently. I wish our schools would remember that more.
Here is a quote by a really influential guy who helped to shape America's current educational system:
Schools are places… “in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products... manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry.”
-Elwood Cubberley, Stanford's Dean of Education