Why Students are Not Reading and Ways to Get them to Read...

Why Students are Not Reading and Ways to Get them to Read More We shouldnt teach great books. We should teach a love of reading. B. F. Skinner What is a reader? and What makes a good reader? Out of 100 eighth graders surveyed at a middle school in Pennsylvania, 73% of them said that you have to read a lot and practice reading. When the same one hundred eighth graders were asked how they feel about reading, 55% said they love it, 26% were indifferent to it, and 19% said that they disliked it. As a teacher researcher, I decided to take a look at some reasons why my students were not reading and ways to get them to read more. I have split my readers into three groups; fluent readers, indifferent readers and reluctant†¦show more content†¦They often said that they could not find good books. When I asked one student what a good book was she responded, Good books are really hard to find. Thats why I dont read. The books that we read in school are always boring and we are forced to read them. I really only read them because I have to, but I dont like them. With this attitude toward reading it will be more difficult to get the indifferent readers to become lovers of reading. Taking the example of the boring books that teachers often teach, we do often get comfortable with teaching books that we know well or books that are our favorites. We must look beyond this as a criteria for our teaching and understand that our children may not have developed the same love for literature yet and most likely are on a different reading level than us, so we cant expect them to love or understand Shakespeare right off the bat. Chris Crowe summed this topic up by saying, ...unless we nourish our students with the milk of reading, they will choke on the meat of literature. (138) By introducing your students to Young Adult Literature (YAL) while they are in elementary and middle school, you are opening their minds and preparing them to become lovers of the classics. After all, you cant jump right in the water if you dont know how to swim. Many teachers arent familiar with these novels because they have been trained to read the classics. It is essential that teachers get to know YAL authors. ByShow MoreRelatedReading Is Never Been Easy909 Words   |  4 PagesReading has never been easy Reading is quite an important subject, and it is involved in my life every single day, but, throughout my education, I have realized that reading is definitely a subject that I do not enjoy. As a young child, I never really liked to readÍ ¾ therefore, I focused my attention on other things, and lately it has really affected me in a negative way. The more advanced my classes have been, the more my reading skills have really been affecting me. 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