The Dilemma of Students Who Do Not/Will Not Read
You Can’t Compensate for Not Reading
I posted this comment for this article that talks about the significance of reading.
In working with court-involved young women ages 11 through 17, we find that all students that are identified as truant have significant reading and/or writing deficits. It’s a vicious cycle that they are trapped in–they go to school, don’t “get” what they are being taught, fall behind, can’t or won’t ask for help (that will be inadequate to solve the larger problem–their reading and/or writing deficit), so they stop going to school, they get in trouble (for not going to school and other things), they are ordered to go to school, and the whole cycle starts over again until they are “kicked out of school”. Since we are a residential school, we have purposed to develop a culture of reading and writing outside of the school day, whether it’s dialogue journals with counselors, reading for “pleasure” (30 minutes a night, every night), as well as staff and students sharing books and making recommendations about “good reads.” We find sometimes, students surprise themselves by awakening a reading and writing habit that they didn’t know they had.