Recommendations From Reading Research (D&Z Ch. 12)

       Chapter 12, for me, was a great conclusion to this book, as it reiterated the importance of reading in every content area.  This chapter provides strategies from reading research that illustrate how students read and how students are taught to read.  In particular, I am most interested in the section where Daniels and Zemelman talk about students should read as literate adults.  Literate adult readers choose a variety of texts, both for informational purposes and for pleasure.  This led to the concept of intrinsic motivation, and how that is key to finding purpose in the reading.  Daniels and Zemelman state, “intrinsic motivations…lead to greater learning in high school subject areas” (p.296).  However, it saddens me to say that, “the role of intrinsic motivation in reading has been borne out” (Daniels and Zemelman 296).  As students progress through their education, they lose the motivation and self-interesting of reading, which is detrimental in trying to build literate adult readers.  However, I can sort of relate to this because I feel like I was more in control of my reading diet in the earlier stages of my schooling, and as I got to high school, I was one of those students that Daniels and Zemelman described as reading to find answers to questions at the end of the book. I think one of my main focuses as a future high school ELA teacher is to make reading something students look forward to.

            In this chapter, I also really enjoyed the section that talked about allowing students to discuss what they are reading. I believe this is often overlooked in a high school classroom, at least in my experience, it was.  This makes me think back to everything we have learned about education, and a big aspect of learning anything is socializing.  Thinking back to the very first assignment we did in SED 407, detailing something we were literate in and how we learned, we came to the consensus that we couldn’t have become literate in something without the guidance of someone else. We actively have to discuss and work things out to understand them.  I am all for cooperative group learning, such as think pair shares or Socratic seminars.  As I conclude my final blog post on Subjects Matter, I will say that there are some things that education is getting right and then there are areas that need some tune ups, and as the next generation of educators, we can all play an important role in enhancing the state of education, and I look forward to this challenge. By the way, don’t forget to incorporate reading in all of your classrooms.