Balanced Diet of Reading
Providing students with a variety
of sources to read seems to be the only ethical approach to teaching, compared
to limiting students to one textbook. I
believe we can all recall thumbing through old textbooks only extracting key terms
and other significant bits of information that we needed in order to pass tests
or complete assignments. But if we only
expose students to single textbooks, how are we enriching their learning
experience? What are we teaching
them?
The book raises a good
question. With state exams and
expectations to cover a vast amount of content, how are teachers to find time
to assign multiple readings and still prepare students for standardized
tests? This is a question I have been
constantly asking myself. Especially
with social studies and history encompassing vast amounts of information, I
often wonder exactly what content I will be asked to cover. Whatever the required content may be, I understand
I will have to find many different types of reading that will not only
challenge students, but also entertain them while covering a deeper understanding
of the content. I am not quite sure
where the notion “reading is not fun” came from, but I went through school
feeling that way, and it is unfortunate.
However, I will also be the first to admit when I have loved reading
something too. What I need to do is find
reading selections that will prevent this mindset from occurring in my future
students that also entices them to learn more themselves.
Like the book suggests, I will need
to develop a classroom library and it will have non-fiction and fiction pieces
that will help students understand big picture concepts. I believe, with a better and more comprehensive
understanding of major historical concepts, students will make connections to related
smaller facts that may be on standardized tests. Similarly to putting a puzzle together, one
would want to know the final picture and figure out how all the pieces fit
together to make the complete image.
Without understanding the big picture, the main idea, and the major
historical concepts, students are merely looking at individual pieces of the
puzzle without understanding HOW it all fits together.
With my courses in preparation to
become a teacher, I have studied the benefits and the importance of literacy as
a vehicle for enhanced education. I can
only hope that I will provide many different reading sources that engage
students in the reading process. Pieces that
not only include content, but also have good narrative structure, people we
care about, places we can imagine, and complicated or relatable circumstances
like the book suggests any interesting or likable read has. I am confident I will be able to find such
works because I have already been exposed to many already, but I also know that
I have a daunting task of developing a concise classroom library to be sure I can
cover many areas of content to compliment or replace the general
textbooks.
Hey Brian! I like what you wrote in your 3rd paragraph last sentence. It is very important for students to understand how historic events are connected instead of just looking at different aspects of history with no connection. I agree also on the fact that we, as future educators, need to use a variety of reading material in the classroom. I liked that you mentioned your need and want of developing a classroom library. That is important as students will value the extra material to look at and take them further into a topic that interests them. Textbooks should be an aide but they shouldn't be the main study material.
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