I believe that the message of Readicide so far is the drastic problems are resulting from the high stakes testing that we see in schools today. Students and teachers are so encouraged to focus on the test that actual learning is becoming overlooked. As long as multiple choice test are the central method for assessing reading comprehension, students will not have the motivation to really read. Instead, they will simply learn (and be taught) to skim the readings for the answers to the multiple choice questions. I am truly disappointed that students are being placed under such pressure to pass these end of course test, graduation, and other high stakes tests. It is clearly not as beneficial to offer these test as such a definite and abrupt assessment of their "knowledge".
I was a Junior in High School the first time I had to take a "Graduation" test. Even though my class was the pilot class for this program, I was still very nervous at the idea of a single test that could cancel out all of my work. I believe that having these tests are a serious problem for students as well as teachers.
As an application of what I have read so far, I hope to truly integrate meaningful content reading into my classroom. I understand that it will be a struggle to integrate strategies to improve reading comprehension while keeping up with the Math standards as much as possible. I hope to bring in reading comprehension strategies that will encourage my students to read beyond the "multiple choice" level and to really enjoy what they are reading.
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You might also think of the authentic ways that you read in math. So, how do mathematicians read? I remember working with a math educator on a committee. She always read all our material so analytically - very close - and would labor over each meaning bite. NOT a big-picture person. Really honing in on the details and making really sure she understood each part. Maybe through word problems, you could help students understand this kind of close reading in math.
ReplyDeleteIt IS a shame, isn't it, that the focus seems to be so much on "passing the test" and so little on "learning for the love of learning." It's too bad that things need to be quantified so much with those multiple choice tests you mentioned, and I agree wholeheartedly that these tests promote skimming as opposed to a close reading.
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