In short, many children (distracted by tv, phones, video games) are literally starving the lobes of the prefrontal cortex of their brains.

Continued...

"When we deny students the opportunity to read long, complex work, we are starving a part of their brains, and we start producing kids like the students in m y class who can read but who cannot get below the surface of what they read."

When novels are removed what is not understood is that kids are not just reading stories. That the standards are being taught through complex novels and the benefits to students are two-fold: a. they not only learn the standards but also develop the deepest regions of their brains. b. They stretch their brains to read longer, more challenging works.

a. SSR is a valuable investment in test preparation.

1. in 38/41 studies students given free voluntary reading time did as well as or better in reading comp. tests than students given traditional skill-based reading instruction.

2. The longer FVR is practiced, the more consistent the results.

3. Reading as a leisure activity is the best predictor of comprehension, vocabulary, and reading speed. Kids who d the most recreational reading become the best readers.

4. Reading is too complex to learn one rule at a time.

b. SSR is necessary to allow students an opportunity to build their prior knowledge and background. With regards to vocabulary acquisition...

1. Each time an unfamiliar word is seen in print, a small increase in word knowledge typically occurs.

2. Students who read a novel with many unique words actually learned the meaning of those words from context clues only.

3. FVR results in better reading comprehension, writing style, vocabulary, spelling, and grammatical development.

STRUGGLING READERS WHO DO NOT READ EXTENSIVELY WILL NEVER CATCH-UP. (Also a key concept in LETRS training).

c. SSR provides many students with their only opportunity to develop a recreational reading habit.

1. When academic reading is the only kind of reading put on our students' plates, readicide occurs.

2. Where SSR has failed, in most cases it is because of one or more of these contributing factors.

   1. Students were placed in SSR without interesting books to read. Telling a student that reading is a worthwhile activity is one thing, having numerous interesting books for the student to choose from is another.

   2. Students were required (or allowed) to do academic reading or homework during SSR.

   3. Teachers did not understand the value of SSR. Often they were not reading with their students or were using this time to grade essays, catch up on paperwork, or answer emails.

The Chop Chop Curriculum

1. Long, drawn out, over-mapped curriculum with goals, habits of thinking, etc. creates a tsunami that drowns readers. A few goals or habits of thinking is better. One novel should not be used to pound dozens of different standards into the heads of our students. "All Things in All Books Syndrome"

2. The goals alone are undoubtedly worthy, but trying t teach them all while working through a novel leads to readicide.

3. The irony: One of the great novels of American literature (To Kill a Mockingbird) ends up becoming used to ultimately turn students off to reading.

4. WE MUST CREATE READING SITUATIONS IN WHICH STUDENTS DISCOVER READING FLOW NEEDED TO ACHIEVE WHILE READING BOTH ACADEMIC AND RECREATIONAL WORKS, ASSIGNED AND SELF-SELECTED.

See McQuillan's Study: pp. 74 - 76. Discussion of Accelerated Reader.

1. Teach students to recognize the Value That Comes from Reading Academic Texts.

   1. Teens, anyone, are wiling to work hard when they recognize that their efforts will bring them something valuable. Spend time teaching students the value that can come from serious reading...e.g. Hamlet: spend time helping students see value by sharing famous advice scene between Polonius and his son Laertes. Father's advise for living a productive life. Have students translate into modern English.

2. When exposed to wisdom in Hamlet (or any work) and recognize what happens to those in today's world who fail to heed that wisdom, they begin to understand that there is real value in reading the play...it's not just a story, it's an imaginative rehearsal for living a productive adult life.

3. Start with the Guided Tour; End with the Budget Tour...

   1. Begin a book with guided tour. Roll up sleeves and actively do everything you can to ease students into academic reading. Frame the text. Provide a specific purpose for each chapter. Design close reading that enable kids to delve deeper. Model to students how we would read the text...give them a hands-on guided tour of the front half of the book. Half-way through, shift to the Budget Tour. Require students to take the journey on their own. Do not hold the hands the entire way through a novel. If the first half is taught properly, the second half should require much less assistance.

4. Augment Books Instead of Flogging Them.

   1. Augment every novel with real-world text that shows them the book they are reading offers valuable insight into living productive lives.

   2. e.g.: articles that relate by Theme to 1984. Pages 79 - 80.

5. Create Topic Floods. A packet for each student consisting of numerous new stories, editorials, and letters to the editor...balanced politically. Leads to debate followed by persuasive essays.

6. Adopt a 50/50 approach: 1/2 academic readings and half recreational. This reading imbalance that happens in most schools needs immediate attention.

7. One-Pager. Self-selected reading creates accountability problem for teacher. If teacher infuses the recreational reading experience with too much accountability - chapter questions, worksheets, double-entry journals - then the experience ceases to be recreational. One-pagers are an attempt at solving this conundrum. Each student reads one self-selected recreational books per month. Upon completing each book, students are asked to fill out a one-pager - a process taking no more than 20 minutes. These are reflections...jumping off points for having book conferences. Provide just enough accountability to encourage reading but not too much to ruin the reading experience. Hold students accountable without killing them.

1. a 122 page curriculum guide.

2. in books that are too difficult for them and ask them to navigate on their own.

It IS somewhere between these two extremes.

Move away from "doing English." Learn how to select:

1. which books they need to let settle inside themselves.

2. which are page-turners, about which there isn't a whole lot to say.

3. which do they want to think about more deeply and consider as works of art by writing about them.

Gallagher admits that much of this is impossible because of State and District mandates on required reading. Argues that there is real value in every American 9th grader reading Romeo and Juliet as we all acquire a shared cultural literacy, a sharing that is foundational if we, as a culture are going to be able to communicate with one another. Rigor is not avoided in reading classics, in fact, classics provide practice for reading demanding text. Rigor, actually, is guaranteed.

The Sweet Spot: Reading challenging work, like Hamlet, does not have to be an awful reader-killing experience...when taught in the Sweet Spot is can motivate students to take additional English classes, not to avoid them. 'Doing English' is not the issue; how students do English is the issues. The appropriate question: How do we get students reading classics to reach the sweet spot?

Any classic has something of value...you (or students) may not "like" it, but you can find value in the imaginative rehearsal for adulthood. Our job is to put the reader in a place where s/he can discover that classic's greatness.

1. Recognize the importance of framing.

2. See example of text incomprehensible to non-baseball fans on page 95.

3. Likewise, what we do before students begin reading is paramount. Many difficult texts look like gibberish to students.

4. e.g.: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. cannot simply assign Chapter 1 and tell kids to get started. Text needs to be framed...for example.

   1. Preview of the final exam essay question so as to provide a specific reading purpose.

   2. Vocabulary preview to help with archaic language.

   3. Discussion of the historical context of the story. Explain how writing in the Victorian Age contributes to the meaning of the work.

   4. Background on the author and what he was trying to accomplish with this work.

   5. An anticipation guide to help students begin recognizing the universal truths found in the novel.

   6. Discussion on why we are reading this book and the value it offers to the modern reader.

5. This kind of framing is not necessary when reading recreationally.

6. Remember the Value Found in Second-Draft and Third-Draft Reading. Students begin trying to understand something like Romeo and Juliet in survival mode - just striving for literal understanding. The beauty is not discovered until a second or third read guided by a teacher.

7. Look at duality in first paragraph in Jekyll and Hyde. Students know from the start their essay question: Discuss Stevenson's idea of duality in DJ&MH and share how this duality is still found in today's world. The value is in the application to us now...not merely in they story.

   1. Students mine value from the story, whether they like it or don't is immaterial. But this new, sharper lens with which they look at the literature is rarely developed without the guidance of a teacher.

8. Adopt a "Big Chunk / Little Chunk" Philosophy. Students do a lot of first-draft reading of large chunks of text on their own, after initial framing by teacher. Next comes 2nd and 3rd draft close readings of excerpts in the classroom, requiring teacher expertise. Demonstrate how you, the teacher and best reader in the room, read this difficult text...pause to think out loud. Show them how you tackle the initial confusion of a new book. To help students find FLOW in academic reading, always provide a purpose for their reading before they read a large chunk. Focus on only one or two elements while they read. See example on pp. 100-101. Students come back to class, share their thinking, then shift to close reading...prepare a small chunk from last night's chapter they reread closely to hone analytical skills...not chopping up the entire chapter, revisit one small piece taken from a large chapter they have already read.

9. "How to do a Close Reading" - Patricia Kain, 1998.

   1. Read with a pencil in hand, and annotate the text. Underline/ highlight key words and phrases, anything surprising or significant, making notes in margins.

   2. Look for patterns in the things you've noticed about the text - repetitions, contradictions, similarities.

   3. Ask questions about the patterns you've noticed - especially "how" and "why".

10. When students hit stride, chunks students are required to read can be lengthened.

11. Find the Metacognitive Sweet Spot. Research has made it clear that students need ongoing support in order to handle the more difficult kinds of reading and writing they must do in the upper grades. Support must come from very active teaching.

12. See "What Good and Struggling Readers Do" on page 103.

13. Students are not strategic when confronted with difficult text. This must be taught. Most students will get confused and keep on reading, minimizing their chances of reaching deeper levels of comprehension.

14. We know how to choose the tools to help us read...monitor comprehension as we read, back up, reread. See list of strategies that good readers do on pp. 104 - 105.

"The teacher teaches most by showing how he/she learns." Donald Graves, 1985

Imperative to show students what good readers do.

1. recognize the importance of framing.

2. understand the value of second-draft (and third-draft) reading

3. adopt a big chunk / little chunk philosophy.

4. start with the guided tour, but ease students into the budget tour to find the sweet spot of instruction.

1. Parents of newborns receive government-paid packs of child-development materials that include books. Some libraries are attached to shopping malls. Book buses travel to remote towns so that everyone has access to books.

2. Children do not start school until age 7.

3. Finnish students rarely do more than a half-hour of homework a night.

4. There are no classes for the gifted. Much more emphasis is paid to those students who are behind grade level in reading.

5. Finnish teachers have more freedom to design lessons to meet the needs of their students. One principal says, "In most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are entrepreneurs."

6. In Finland, there is very little standardized testing. Students demonstrate thinking through written and oral responses.

7. Finland is more culturally and linguistically homogeneous than the United States, giving them an advantage over us. In the USA, 8% (as of 2008) were learning English as a second language.

8. How did the Finns build the best readers in the world? By eliminating standardized testing and emphasizing the importance of reading and critical thinking, by nurturing deeper thinking and creativity, and by leading their students away from the drill-and-kill instructional approach that is currently permeating American schools.

9. See the "Ending Readicide: The 50/50 Approach" table on page 117.