So my elementary school years were rich when it came to reading. The Goosebumps Books were hugely popular, and by the end of fifth grade, I had developed quite a collection. I also fell in love with the early works of Louis Sacher because we thought the character situations were so utterly ridiculous.
But then there was middle school. I've come to view middle school some ferocious beast that seeks to suck the passion out of learning and ignores personal development. That sounds awful, I know. Kids enter middle school in a really strange mental state because of the puberty mess, and they begin to develop what we like to call "an attitude." Eleven- and twelve-year-olds are capable of some really sophisticated thought processes, but I remember middle school handling me as an unsophisticated child who's incapable of developing her own unique thoughts. In elementary school, personal expression was rewarded. In middle school, results were rewarded.
So for a time, my love of reading was shunted and it was because of a school program that, ironically, sought to encourage reading. Essentially, there were particular books in our school library were on a reading list, and they were marked with points. Book points were determined by "reading level," which was always some elusive scale to me. Maybe it had something to do with the length of the book, or the difficulty of the wording... needless to say, the higher the reading level, the more points a book had. Students were expected to read these books, but! in order to acquire the points, you had to take a multiple-choice test based on the book. It gets better. If you missed points on the the little quiz, you only acquired a portion of those points.
It was an idiotic system. Kids would check out books that had upwards of ten points, not because they were genuinely interested in the story. I got fed up with it all. Books I liked were either "below my reading level" or were not even marked on the reading list. It was rather discouraging; just what I needed when I was already in a state of constant self-doubt.
Has any one else experienced something similar?
This still happens in schools... Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic rewards. Does it produce lifelong readers, I doubt it. How can we help students become lifelong readers and writers?
ReplyDeleteTo produce lifelong readers, I think that kids should be encouraged to read what they're interested in. If all they like to read is video game magazines or comic books, fine. If they like video games, why not encourage them to write a review for a new game that they just played, which requires them to organize their review into paragraphs describing elements such as game play, animation, story line, voice actors, etc? Comic books and graphic novels still deal with character development, setting, conflict, moral dilemmas, etc. Have kids write book reports on those. Ask them to analyze a character, and what motivates them to act the way they do. These are the kids that will grow up to read science fiction, fantasy, epic adventures. My point is, perhaps its best to get them engaged in what they are already interested in. Let them know that what they are passionate about has its own intrinsic value, and allow them to explore that value.
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