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Re: teaming up for reading challenged students
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From: Susan Daugherty <susaninaruba_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2011 12:20:50 -0800 (PST)
You are right, Christina, teaming up is essential. The team should con si st of the librarian, parents, teacher, and any specialists who work with th e kid. Easier said than done though, but it is the ideal. Sometim es i t works well. With the stresses on teachers to get everyone in class t o pass the tests at a certain level or possibly lose their jobs or not get a raise (what I fear is coming down the pike); the stresses on librarians to both teach the skills the teachers want taught (to get those test scores), teach computer skills, and, oh yes, do everything else they used to do; the stresses on specialists with their larger and needier caseloads; and the s tresses on the parents to work harder for less money and sometimes to be un employed or underemployed and forced to work more than one job, oftentimes reading just doesn't seem as important as it is. Or at least as import an t as it is to me and you all, I assume.
I think someone has mentioned that often the parents aren't totally keen on reading themselves. Maybe kids sense it when parents don't truly LOVE r eading even if their parents go through the motions and seem to be doing wh at they should. This same criticism actually fits for many teachers an d even librarians. I am amazed at the number of librarians and teachers of every level I've talked with who don't read for pleasure, or read very lit tle. Since everyone on this listserv is probably addicted to reading ( I do it when I should be doing other things!), we don't really understand thi s attitude. Maybe we should relax and realize that reading isn't for a bs olutely everyone. It makes me sad, but it seems to be a fact.
Another factor is huge and has been mentioned by Meghan, but it bears repea ting. Kids are stubborn and do their own thing. I was always surp rise d by the large number of young kids (1st and 2nd graders, even kindergartne rs) who came from highly literate, well educated families and doubtless had piles of books at home who did not want to check out the wonderful books w e had in the school library. I believe they were feeling the pressure fr om somewhere (parents, teachers, me?) to read, read, read, and they could a ssert themselves by either not checking out anything or taking some obscure book from a section of the library that didn't even interest them. Wh at is the librarian really supposed to do in this situation? Say no, you m ust take a book I approve? That's coercion, and I submit that it doesn 't really work. I backed off from pushing things on those kids. Whe n I expressed concern to teachers, the answer was invariably, "Oh, don't worry, that family has tons of stuff to read at hom e." True, but I doubt if it was as carefully chosen as my collection.
I could never say no to a little first grader who insisted he check out Har ry Potter, even though I knew he wasn't going to read it and I doubted if a nyone at home would read it to him. He just wanted to be in the in cro wd ! It's natural!
The success stories sustain you as a librarian. The little girls who g et into a series and can't get enough and move into more challenging books ov er time. The little boys who read all the graphic novels and then move o n to all kinds of nonfiction. Etc., etc.
I agree that more effort should be put into silent reading sessions and rea ding aloud at the upper elementary, middle school, and high school levels. My daughter was read to in college by her favorite English teacher, a g ifted man with dramatic flair. (I had been reading to her from babyhoo d, and she lapped it up. I'll bet there were other students in his class t hat were not as appreciative.) We might have to wait quite a while for t his current accountability fad to prove pointless, but I believe that it wi ll do eventually, and probably some of the traditional love of reading idea s will be seem new again and be resurrected.
Susan Daugherty Retired school librarian
--- On Sat, 2/5/11, Christina Drakos wrote
:
From: Christina Drakos Subject:
teaming up for reading challenged students To: pearsoncrz_at_earthlink.net, "Meghan McCarthy" , ccbc-net@ccbc.education.wisc.edu Date: Saturday, February 5, 2011, 10:59 AM
teaming up for reading challenged students I think everyone l oses o ut when we carve boundaries too deep between classroom teachers, reading specialists, librarians and parents. They' re all playing crucial roles in the development of a reader with reading chal le nges (whether it's called a disability, dyslexia, or something else).
ALL of them should be knowledgeable enough to be sensitive to the soci al and emotional needs of these students, to provide a range of literature to s uit that child's current reading potential, and to be informed of best pra ct ices and effective interventions (although the reading specialist and class ro om teacher would put these into practice more than the librarian).
I'm not sure which situation would be worse - the reading specialist w ho works at the specific skill level (let's say decoding) and provides appropriate reading text for that, but doesn't offer books that meets al l the other needs of a real, live, breathing, multi-faceted reader (incl ud ing audiobooks); OR a librarian that is unaware of a child's reading chall en ges and continues to send a student home with books the child simply canno t access (but might be consistently choosing in order to impress friends ).
I'm all for much more communication and collaboration between classroo m teachers, reading specialists and librarians, and think there's room f or improvement in that area!
Christina
From: Claudia Pearson Reply-To: Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:31:40 -0600 To: Meghan McCarthy , at
Subject: Re:
Trying to define "reluctant readers"
IMO, it is not the role of the librarian to help a reader who has a re ad ing disability. That is the job of the parents and reading specialists who are trained to help these potential readers develop coping strategies.
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Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2011 12:20:50 -0800 (PST)
You are right, Christina, teaming up is essential. The team should con si st of the librarian, parents, teacher, and any specialists who work with th e kid. Easier said than done though, but it is the ideal. Sometim es i t works well. With the stresses on teachers to get everyone in class t o pass the tests at a certain level or possibly lose their jobs or not get a raise (what I fear is coming down the pike); the stresses on librarians to both teach the skills the teachers want taught (to get those test scores), teach computer skills, and, oh yes, do everything else they used to do; the stresses on specialists with their larger and needier caseloads; and the s tresses on the parents to work harder for less money and sometimes to be un employed or underemployed and forced to work more than one job, oftentimes reading just doesn't seem as important as it is. Or at least as import an t as it is to me and you all, I assume.
I think someone has mentioned that often the parents aren't totally keen on reading themselves. Maybe kids sense it when parents don't truly LOVE r eading even if their parents go through the motions and seem to be doing wh at they should. This same criticism actually fits for many teachers an d even librarians. I am amazed at the number of librarians and teachers of every level I've talked with who don't read for pleasure, or read very lit tle. Since everyone on this listserv is probably addicted to reading ( I do it when I should be doing other things!), we don't really understand thi s attitude. Maybe we should relax and realize that reading isn't for a bs olutely everyone. It makes me sad, but it seems to be a fact.
Another factor is huge and has been mentioned by Meghan, but it bears repea ting. Kids are stubborn and do their own thing. I was always surp rise d by the large number of young kids (1st and 2nd graders, even kindergartne rs) who came from highly literate, well educated families and doubtless had piles of books at home who did not want to check out the wonderful books w e had in the school library. I believe they were feeling the pressure fr om somewhere (parents, teachers, me?) to read, read, read, and they could a ssert themselves by either not checking out anything or taking some obscure book from a section of the library that didn't even interest them. Wh at is the librarian really supposed to do in this situation? Say no, you m ust take a book I approve? That's coercion, and I submit that it doesn 't really work. I backed off from pushing things on those kids. Whe n I expressed concern to teachers, the answer was invariably, "Oh, don't worry, that family has tons of stuff to read at hom e." True, but I doubt if it was as carefully chosen as my collection.
I could never say no to a little first grader who insisted he check out Har ry Potter, even though I knew he wasn't going to read it and I doubted if a nyone at home would read it to him. He just wanted to be in the in cro wd ! It's natural!
The success stories sustain you as a librarian. The little girls who g et into a series and can't get enough and move into more challenging books ov er time. The little boys who read all the graphic novels and then move o n to all kinds of nonfiction. Etc., etc.
I agree that more effort should be put into silent reading sessions and rea ding aloud at the upper elementary, middle school, and high school levels. My daughter was read to in college by her favorite English teacher, a g ifted man with dramatic flair. (I had been reading to her from babyhoo d, and she lapped it up. I'll bet there were other students in his class t hat were not as appreciative.) We might have to wait quite a while for t his current accountability fad to prove pointless, but I believe that it wi ll do eventually, and probably some of the traditional love of reading idea s will be seem new again and be resurrected.
Susan Daugherty Retired school librarian
--- On Sat, 2/5/11, Christina Drakos wrote
:
From: Christina Drakos Subject:
teaming up for reading challenged students To: pearsoncrz_at_earthlink.net, "Meghan McCarthy" , ccbc-net@ccbc.education.wisc.edu Date: Saturday, February 5, 2011, 10:59 AM
teaming up for reading challenged students I think everyone l oses o ut when we carve boundaries too deep between classroom teachers, reading specialists, librarians and parents. They' re all playing crucial roles in the development of a reader with reading chal le nges (whether it's called a disability, dyslexia, or something else).
ALL of them should be knowledgeable enough to be sensitive to the soci al and emotional needs of these students, to provide a range of literature to s uit that child's current reading potential, and to be informed of best pra ct ices and effective interventions (although the reading specialist and class ro om teacher would put these into practice more than the librarian).
I'm not sure which situation would be worse - the reading specialist w ho works at the specific skill level (let's say decoding) and provides appropriate reading text for that, but doesn't offer books that meets al l the other needs of a real, live, breathing, multi-faceted reader (incl ud ing audiobooks); OR a librarian that is unaware of a child's reading chall en ges and continues to send a student home with books the child simply canno t access (but might be consistently choosing in order to impress friends ).
I'm all for much more communication and collaboration between classroo m teachers, reading specialists and librarians, and think there's room f or improvement in that area!
Christina
From: Claudia Pearson Reply-To: Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:31:40 -0600 To: Meghan McCarthy , at
Subject: Re:
Trying to define "reluctant readers"
IMO, it is not the role of the librarian to help a reader who has a re ad ing disability. That is the job of the parents and reading specialists who are trained to help these potential readers develop coping strategies.
______________________________________________________________________
Before you print this or other documents, please consider the impact o n the environment. This email message is intended only for the use of the ind ividual or entity named. The reader is hereby notified that any disseminat ion, distribution, copying or other use of this message without the express approval of the sender is strictly prohibited.
______________________________________________________________________
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