I agree with the author, that we need to put a larger focus upon teaching high school students, and all students the necessary skills of reading. In this day and age so many students have smartphones, and social media pages that they are unable to focus for a sustained period of time. This I can imagine would especially be apparant if they are assigned complex text to read for homework. There are too many distractions for them to be able to accomlipsh this, for most students anyway. We seem to live in a world of instant gratification and results, thus if we do not explain and show what slow, proper reading looks like, how can we expect students to do it? As we discussed in class, it may be more beneficial for teachers to model and discuss what good reading looks like, and then have students read and have a meaningful class discussions about this text. This way they know that the students will better take something away from the assigned reading.
In addition, the author didn't say to ignore technology, but not to rely on it, which is how I feel. There are certainly many benefits to using technology, especially tools like the smartboard, but we cannot abandon traditional ways of learning that have worked well in the past. As the article stated instead of always relying on search engines, the students could learn about examining encyclopedias and checking books out on the library as a means of reseraching. These are not skills that should disappear just because of the internet. If they need more information, then certainly they could check out a search engine, a good balance of both I think is great. The students should know both ways of reseraching, so that they can know multiple ways to find information.
I think by teaching and modeling the what good reading looks like ( reading at an appropriate pace, re-reading as necessary, asking questions etc) along with a healthy balance of technology mixed in ( use of smartboards, blogs, etc) will assist the students in being more well-rounded as they move out of high school and either into college or the workforce.
I like the point you make about incorporating technology into our lessons as a tool and not to rely entirely on it. The internet and technology provide tons of great resources for us to use, but if they aren't helping students learn to read complex texts (as the article indicated), we need to refocus our teaching.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right when you say that we need to be teaching our students what good reading looks like. So many of them don't see/hear good reading in their homes. We need to help them learn how to do it themselves and provide time to practice. This is actually something that I think needs to start long before high school.