Blog 3

My husband found a list years ago called something like "The Top 100 English Novels." He decided to read as many of the books on the list as he could find, and he's been able to get his hands on over 90 of them. He can talk about the stories, many of the authors, and even other books by those authors. My husband was never required to read the books on that list for a course, and he was never graded on his understanding of the stories, the lives of the authors, nor the other books written by the same authors. But, he loved the experience! He's also the man who read books for his college courses more than once most of the time.

I have been given books a lot in the last several years. My dad gave me Wait Till Next Year, and schools I've worked at have given me a book almost every summer to read. After we got married, I brought my summer reading books home to my husband, who I knew would appreciate them more than I would. Given an entire summer to read a single book, I have not managed to make it happen since high school. It took me a long time to finally read Wait Till Next Year, and I liked it. After that, I remembered a book from high school that I liked. I bought it and read it again. Now, that's saying something about a book! (Or maybe it's saying something about the person who reads the book...!) Maiden Voyage has resonated with me in different ways both times I've read it.

My husband has experienced the "reading flow" more times than he can count, and I have found myself surprised by how time has flown when I read only a handful of times in my life. When I compare myself to my husband, I realize how far away from "loving" reading I really am. Is it the reading flow that makes a person love a book? Or is it overanalysis or grades that make one hate a book?

Gallagher wants to split the time between reading for coursework and reading for pleasure, but I wonder if it's too late to get kids to enjoy reading by the time they get to middle or high school. Is it possible that they have already decided what relationship they will have with books by that time? If not, then maybe we would do well to spend more than 50% of the time letting them choose their own books to read without being graded on their work.

Blog 2

Not until page 57 did Gallagher finally identify his audience (English teachers), and it is not me (a math teacher). Until then, I kept getting offended by his agenda that seemed to champion some values and not others. I support our English and reading teachers in their efforts to flood children with books that are interesting and fun alongside the books that are academic. I also support them in asking students to read longer, more challenging books. Finally, I am glad when I see students carrying a book along with their textbooks because they are going to do sustained silent reading in a class.

However...

I want my students to do math during the summer, and I want my non-math colleagues to do real-world math throughout the day. Math skills are lost in the summer just like Gallagher says that reading skills are lost. Math is important in disciplines that are not specifically called math just like reading is important across the curriculum. I find myself feeling the need to defend my subject and its importance when I read Gallagher. He comes across to me as either arrogant, ignorant, or short-sighted, but maybe that's because he's talking to someone else, certainly not me. I don't dismiss Gallagher simply on the grounds that he's not talking to me, but I will keep that in mind in the remaining three chapters of the book.

I think it's fair to say that I'm much more interested in disciplinary literacy than I am in general reading. I want kids to be able to read and to know who's who in politics and government (Why doesn't Gallagher ask who is supposed to teach his students about al Qaeda?), but I also want to empower kids who could be good at math with the time and resources to develop those skills.

In my first school placement, I observed students in a computer lab on three different days. I saw 7th graders working through lessons keyed to their math standards on a program called "Ascend." The 8th graders were working on their standards using Ascend in the lab the next day. From a math teacher's perspective, I thought Ascend was of reasonable quality and user friendly. Another day, I was in the lab when a language arts class was working on their reading skills in a program called "Reading Plus." If any language arts or reading teachers read this blog, I would love to hear what you think of Reading Plus. I was shocked to see students working on reading speed in Reading Plus, especially when I realized that I could not keep up with some of them! I haven't yet read anything from Gallagher about reading speed, but I'll read with interest about its value if he has anything to say about it.