On Testing
Posted by tekkieteacher on December 12, 2007
As we are in the midst of SOL remediation and testing, I found Alfie Kohn’s post, Do Kids Read Less for Fun? Blame Standardized Tests from The Pulse, particularly poignant. One quote, in particular, stood out:
“We haven’t been doing any reading since we started preparing the kids for the reading test.”
December 17th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
We should all read this article - including our coordinators at the Hill. When do children even have the time to read for pleasure? I also loved the comment where teachers are asking kids to “read minutes” and not asking about the exciting plot/characters. Children do just look to how many more minutes do I have to read!! Also thoughtful (and completely true - as I am a mother of two middle school kids) is the paragraph:
“Sadder still, children are forced to work what amounts to a second shift after school is over, as more and more homework is loaded on younger and younger children. It’s not just that the time eaten up by those assignments leaves less time for pleasure reading. It’s that many of those assignments adversely affect their attitude about the written word.”
What more can be said - the author wrote what so many of us are thinking.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I couldn’t agree more, Lisa. I loved to read as a kid, and still love it as an adult. I’m afraid that we’ve made it too much like “work” for our students.