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Importance of literacy in schools
Importance of literacy in schools
Importance of literacy in schools
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Reading is essential in America’s educational system, but why have students been avoiding it? Many students today thinks that reading is rather shallow and boring because they are forced to read what their school wants them to read. Being forced to read books not in their field of interest can make them lose interest in reading overall. This is a problem because students will not read the whole book, but rather they will just pull out information needed for an assignment. Deirdre Mahoney stated, “They’re educated and plenty adept at moving through the system. But i’m not convinced any of this means they are capable of truly committing to a book, an essay, or any document requiring sustained focus and labor-intensive thinking and doing” (397). …show more content…
While reading is necessary in everyday life, people think it’s unnecessary to sit down and read a whole novel. Lack of creativity and imagination also hurts the joy of reading. They could not form the images in their head to make the text more interesting. Being able to create images while reading helps the reader connect the text to their personal lives, which could boost their interest and motivation to read. Also, with the rise of technology and social media trends, it’s hard not to put down our book and stare at our phone or the TV screen where the images is already produced for us to see. While the idea of reading is boring, it’s not being able to understand what they are reading is why students has lost interests. Lack of reading comprehension can hurt a student’s ability to learn to their full potential because they don’t have the inspiration to generate and express their ideas thoroughly. To solve this problem, we need to help students read at their grade level through vocabulary acquisition and reading
In the essay titled “How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading” written by John Holt and published in Reading for writers in 2013, Mr. Holt discusses why most children aren’t interested in reading. Mr. Holt spent fourteen years as an elementary school teacher. He believed classroom activities destroy a student’s learning ability. Mr. Holt never let his students say what they thought about a book. He wanted his students to look up every word they didn’t know. People can learn difficult words without looking them up in the dictionary.
With such high numbers of adolescents falling below basic in reading, illiteracy is a battle that must be fought head on. The largest dilemma with the struggle is the number of variations that cause adolescents to become reluctant, unmotivated or struggling readers. Fortunately, a large number of strategies exist to encourage and strengthen readers of all ages, proving that adolescence is not a time to give up on faltering students. Rather, it is a time to evaluate and intervene in an effort to turn a reluctant reader into an avid one (or near enough). Ultimately, educators must learn to properly assess a student’s strengths and weaknesses (Curtis, 2009) and pair them with the proper intervention techniques. If one method does not work, countless others exist to take its place.
Reading is on the decline and our reading skills are declining right along with the amount of reading we do. This is happening right across the board through both genders, all age groups and education levels, people are busy and they just do not have time to read books that they are not required to read for school or work. There are serious consequences to this neglect of reading that will continue to worsen if ignored. We need to take notice of what is happening to our culture and stop this situation from continuing, we must act to correct these issues that we are faced with. These things are discussed in the essay “Staying Awake’’ by Ursula K. Le Guin who uses the NEA essays “To Read or Not to Read’’ and “Reading at Risk’’ to support her argument that there is a decline in the amount of time that we are spending on reading and our ability to understand what it is that we are reading.
Solomon, Andrew. “Reading at Risk: Lack of Interest in Literature is a Crisis.” Commentary – Columbia Daily Tribune. 8 Aug. 2004. 19 Sept. 2004. <http://www.showmenews.com/2004/Aug/20040808Comm007.asp>.
Each year as I grow old, I tend to discover and learn new things about myself as a person as well as a reader, writer and a student as a whole. My educational journey so far has been pretty interesting and full of surprises. Back in Bangladesh where I studied until high school, my interest for learning, reading or writing was so very different compared to how it has become over the years. I could relate those learning days to Richard Rodriquez’s essay “The lonely Good Company of Books”. In the essay the author says, “Friends? Reading was, at best, only a chore.”(Rodriguez, page 294). During those days I sure did feel like reading was a chore for me and how I was unable to focus and I could never understand what all those jumbled up words ever meant. It was quite a struggle for me in class when the teachers used to assign us reading homework. I felt like reading a book was more difficult or painful than trying to move a mountain. Just like how moving a mountain is impossible, trying to find an interest in reading was
Reading has been going through a steady according to the article “Why Literature Matters”. Dana Gioia believes that the decline of reading in America will have a negative effect on society. He believes that there are many people that contributes to the decline of reading but mainly in the young adults ages 18-24. Dana also believes that with the steady decline of reading we can see a major change in our nation including, being less informed,active, and having the ability to have an independent mind. Dana Gioia states that “The most worrisome finding in the 2002 study [Survey of Public Participation in the Arts],however, is the declining percentage of Americans, especially young adults, reading literature.”
Andrew Solomon has some valid arguments in his article, and he tries to persuade the readers through logos, pathos, and ethos. Solomon wants the readers to understand the importance of reading, and how its decline can be harmful to the nation. To reinforce his arguments, Solomon shares a variety of examples, for instance, he mentions that reading helps improve memory and concentration, and the decline of reading is causing mental “atrophy.” He also calls upon the readers to take some sort of action to raise reading rates and help the society. This can grant the readers a form of power and control over the crisis that will lead to an em...
...orld. If students are deprived of reading books that contain different ideas than their own, they will become close-minded. What is the point of knowing how to read if students are not going to be permitted to do so? As Mark Twain once said, “The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
Overtime, the ELL population of students has been overlooked and have not been given the amount of help they have needed to be able to become successful in the United States. Literacy is not the only thing ELLs have to deal with, but also assimilating to the American culture and just trying to survive economically. According to the NEA (2008), “two-thirds come from low-income families and three out of four ELLs are Spanish-speaking” (para. 3). Many immigrant families come to America to have a better life, but many end up struggling even more because of the lack of financial support and their language barrier. By sending their children to American schools and having them in English Learning programs, parents hope their children will have a better
However, when teachers ignore the students' feelings about what they are reading or interested in, their intrinsic motivation will get wasted and lost. Students will start to get lazy and in some cases, they would cheat for the sake of good grades. This was addressed in the article "How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading". 4) Teachers should not give a lot of assignments and vocab quizzes every time students read something so then students would not hate reading
This years group of students have by far been the “neediest” that our school has had. The reason I say neediest is because there are a large number of students who are reading significantly below reading level and some who are barley learning to read. Since I am in a secondary school, the primary educational resources and knowledge on how to teach kids to read is missing. Being a second year teacher with barely any experience in teaching how to read, I am one of the teachers that does not know how to teach these students how to read. By furthering my education, I am making it a goal to learn how to teach reading in a secondary setting.
Who enjoys summer reading? I know I don't but it's not just because i am not fond of reading or I just want to do nothing the whole summer, it's because it causes stress and some books are boring. I feel schools should lower the amount of books children must read during the summer or they could make students read a couple books but not have a report on them.
When I was younger, I didn’t like reading much at all. I always questioned my teachers what was the purpose of reading; I never got an answer from either teacher until I was in the seventh grade. Starting junior high school was different from elementary. In seventh grade, we were in our reading class for two hours a day. I asked the teachers why didn’t we have the privilege to stay in our other classes for two hours; I never received an answer from my teachers.
Joseph Addison, the famous poet, once said, “Reading is to the brain what exercise is to the body” (brainyquote). Yet, most people in high school ignore the importance of reading, and the many benefits it has to offer. Over the summer, a majority of high school students turn their backs on any form of reading until the school year. However, this habit results in a loss of comprehension over the summer, among other detriments. Therefore, students should be required to read at least one book during the summer because it helps to maintain comprehension skills, reduce stress, and improve sleep.
While I believe every child is a reader, I do not believe every child will be enthralled with reading all the time. All students have the capability to read and enjoy reading, but just like any other hobby, interest will vary from student to student. The students in my classroom will be encouraged in their reading, be provided with choice, taught how books can take you into another world but, my students will not be forced to read. This paper will illustrate my philosophy of reading through the theories I relate to, the way I want to implement reading and writing curriculum, and the methods I will use motivate my students to read and help them become literate.