View Content #23619

From https://mrpeto.wordpress.com

Mike Peto writes humorously about “the game” that students who hate reading play with teachers who seek to hold them accountable for reading assignments: “A student who has learned to play the game in all of their other classes has been trained to approach reading as a task to undermine. Teachers respond by finding ways to ensure reading compliance such as quizzes, reading guides, writing assignments and random (humiliating) in-class comprehension questions. Our students are immersed in a punitive reading culture that rouses their counterwill; is it any wonder that they huddle before class discussing the reading with the one kid who actually did it, that they send text messages to students in other sections about ‘surprise quizzes,’ that they copy answers to reading guides in the hallways during morning break and that they despise the astute teachers who manage to ‘play the game well’?”

Read his full blog post about free voluntary reading, how he facilitates it, why, and the impact of this approach on students’ attitudes toward reading: https://mrpeto.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/struggling-to-hold-students-accountable-for-reading/