I love reading novels in my spare time. My spare time includes winter, spring, and summer breaks. I can't seem to find time for recreational reading at any other point in the school year. There always seems to be something more pressing to do. When I do read, I want to read for entertainment purposes only. If a book doesn't peak my interest in the first 50 -100 pages, I usually put it down never to return to it again.
I used to read newspapers daily, but I stopped because the news seemed to get more and more depressing. Now I pick and choose the articles I want to read from the Internet.
I have a hard time concentrating on some technical and educational books or journals. I find myself doing more skimming than anything. I often have to read many of the passages over and over again.
I have been out of the classroom for two years. Prior to that I was a mathematics teacher. I have never taught Reading or Language Arts. There was a time when I thought it was possible for a student to be a poor reader and still excel in mathematics. I no longer think this is true. Students in todays math classes are required to do a lot more than basic computation. It is necessary for students to be proficient with reading and writing in order to express thier mathematical thinking processes when answering open ended questions. When I return to teaching math next year I do realize that teaching reading must become everyone's job, and not just that of the ELA teachers.
Lance
Before his first haircut.
4 comments:
You're right about needing to be a good reader as a math student. Most of the texts in math have changed. We now integrate social studies and reading lessons in math. They take world tours and do a lot of reading in their math textbook. They need to be able to answer complex word problems, and the students who are poor readers do poorly in math. I tutor a lot of children at a learning center and I teach reading and math. I'm constantly teaching them strategies for answering word problems and open-ended questions. You made a good point.
You're right about needing to be a good reader as a math student. Most of the texts in math have changed. We now integrate social studies and reading lessons in math. They take world tours and do a lot of reading in their math textbook. They need to be able to answer complex word problems, and the students who are poor readers do poorly in math. I tutor a lot of children at a learning center and I teach reading and math. I'm constantly teaching them strategies for answering word problems and open-ended questions. You made a good point.
I agree with it being difficult to find time to read throughout the school year. I even find it difficult to read on our school breaks! Summer is really my only time to read on my own. Too much to do during the year with work school and grad school. There's just not enough time in a day!
You're right about how all teachers have to include strategies that their students can use to enhance literacy. When students come into my class [semesterly] and I ask their opinions about reading, some students comment, "I hate reading. I like social studies better." I try to explain that every class has some amount of reading involved--- you just may need different skills for those particular classes: novels vs cooking directions vs lab/experiment steps vs match computations vs newspaper current events vs website information and on and on.
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