I remember that I used to love reading when I was younger. My elementary teachers would do a popcorn style reading and students would take turns reading and calling on each other. Even though I was shy, I always wanted to be called on to read a sentence or a paragraph. When I reached middle school, the amount of testing increased, and I noticed my eagerness to read decreased in the process. While I would still open up books and read them, I did not feel interested in the pages in front of me. If I read it was not for personal enjoyment, but rather to finish an assignment. All of the testing (whether it was on a paper or a computer) had taken the fun of reading for me. It was not until I my sophomore year of high school that reading reignited a spark in me. Mrs. Colbert, my English teacher, reserved the first 15 minutes of every class period for Sustained Silent Reading (SSR). In the beginning, I was not a fan of starting class with SSR, but over time I found myself wishing we had even more time devoted solely to reading. I started reading for pleasure outside of school like I had when I was in elementary school. This trend continued in high school and into college. Ultimately, it was the reason that I chose to become an English teacher. Similar to how Mrs. Colbert had reignited my passion for reading, I wanted to help students find joy in reading .
In Readicide, Gallagher focuses primarily on what is killing reading in classrooms and what teachers can do to avoid this epidemic better known as readicide. According to Gallagher, readicide is "the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools" (2). Although this definition sounds extreme, it perfectly explains the ongoing problem in schools around the country. As mentioned above in my personal reading experience, testing is taking out the fun of reading. Nowadays, most teachers teach to the test and value being a good test- taker over being a good reader. I understand that teachers and schools feel pressured to have their students perform well on state exams, but at what cost? Is it worth sacrificing students' love of reading to keep receiving funding and continue this endless cycle? I think that students need a break from testing. They already have enough problems to worry about in school and at home. There is a purpose for testing, but it needs to be reduced. Otherwise, students are being trained to be robots that memorize facts instead of humans that appreciate and value learning.
Despite readicide being a huge problem, there are some potential solutions. First of all, SSR is actually more important than teachers or administrators can even fathom. From experience, I know how much it helped me regain my love for reading. The more often that I did it, the less of a routine it became. Eventually, it was just something that I did even outside of school. Giving students time to read not only forces them to read, but also provides them with an opportunity to clear their minds from the long school day. Secondly, asking students to annotate keeps them engaged in the text that they are reading. It requires students to pause and actually think about what they have read before moving on. The importance of annotating is also highlighted in Tovani's I Read It, But I Don't Get It. This reading strategy helps students find a purpose and reminds them of areas of the text that are struggling with and areas that they understand. Lastly, promoting summer reading can be beneficial. Most students do not read over the summer and as a result they forget good reading strategies at the beginning of the school year and have to teach themselves to read again. Readicide will not be solved overnight, but taking an initiative and using these potential solutions is a great start to helping students reclaim their enthusiasm for reading.
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