In his 1967 article “Making Children Hate Reading” John Holt makes points about having children in school memorize words they do not know. He also tells how teachers have the children use dictionaries to learn new words, and check spelling of words. He has good points about how most adults have a huge vocabulary, and did not have to look up words to learn them. Holt’s main purpose is to inform the reader that forcing kids to read actually hurts them. At the end he gives suggestions to the parents on how to encourage their kids in school.
Holt believes we learn words through talking, and using the words in different settings. Some teachers think students learn words by looking them up in the dictionary. He states “books are among the most dangerous things in school” (53), because a child is asked to read out loud and they do not know a word, kids make fun of them.
Telling his students to start reading a book, and if they do not like it to stop reading it and pick a new book, works for Holt and his students. He thinks reading should be exciting, he even tells his kids that it is ok to skip parts of books they do not like. He tells a story about a girl that was reading an advanced book for her age, and he asked if she liked it, she explained that the parts she does not like or understand she skips over it until she comes to another good part. He also discusses writing methods such as having students write non stop for ten to fifteen minutes. Holt describes the first time he told his students to write non stop as a success. His students were amazed when they found out spelling did not count, and they wrote more than ever because they were not worrying about spelling. His students actually began to enjoy writing.
Holt suggests that parents go to the language departments at schools, and try to get changes in the English program. He also suggests parents keep encouraging their children to read and write, but not to pressure them.
i kind of agree with holt. reading has always been a problem for me and still is. (though i dont llet it stop me from reading). um i think teaching needs some changes. the way we live too. we need to adnavce ourselves and our minds. life isnt about advancing technology its more about us. yeah. interesting
peace
this is my music for change: http://www.purevolume.com/rosie
I wish more of my teachers would have thought more about learning processes as Holt did.I've never really struggled with reading, but i do despise reading for school. The best books I have ever read for school were the ones I chose to read,even though it may have been on a list supplied by a teacher (i mean, after all they have to have some way to keep track of reading material for the class....it cant all be free reading. hehe then parents would complain as would the administration....speaking of administration,i wonder if Holt ever faced criticism from his colleagues or supervisors in regards to his teaching strategies)
Anything is not as enjoyable when it is forced upon you. education is not any different.
i love to read, i dont think i liked reading when i was younger though
I agree with Holt to an extent. School trains many kids to look upon reading as a bore and a chore, and I also see Holt's point about reading in front of class makes sense to me, but to outlaw it completely? I don't think that would work either. I grew up in an elementary school where we didn't often read out loud. But, in high school, we read out loud a lot...mostly to ensure that kids were actually going to read the material somehow. I was APPALLED to find that so many of my classmates couldn't seem to pronounce some very simple words! I think that reading out loud earlier on would've helped to correct this problem. Maybe not, but who knows. If you came to a word you didn't know, you could at least correct it early on instead of never knowing how to pronounce it. When do you think kids will laugh more, when a third grader doesn't pronounce a word right, or when a high school senior screws it up?
I don't like the idea that he lets kids skip over parts that they do not like. If they miss important parts of the book, then they will be confused at the end.
As for letting them read books they like, I'm all for that. I am homeschooled, and in my english class I'm given a list of books for each genre that I choose. There's probably about 12 to 15 different choices. I get to choose the book I find most interesting after reading a summary online. I think it's very affective because both books that I have read for my first semster I loved and I finished them quickly. I enjoy reading, as long as it's a book I like, not a book such as "The Scarlet Letter" that is part of the 11th grade english critera at the local public school.
I remember back when I was in school, I LOVED reading. My teachers had to yell at me to get me to put down a good book. The books I was reading were way above my reading level, well aside from the Dr. Seuss addiction. This all changed when a little program called AR (accelerated reader) program came about. It forced children to read books, and get graded on how well they understood them. The only books you could read were the ones on the list(not many). I slowly started to HATE reading. Therefore I have to agree with the above and what Holt is saying about forcing kids to read actually hurts them.
I believe children should be encouraged to read out loud. Although some students find it very stressful when it comes to reading out loud infront of a class. When I was younger I would sit and read out loud to the class pet fish. I would read just fine to them. When I read out loud to the class, I would become stressed and stumble over words. Alot of these kids that read out loud even in high schools, alot of them trip over these words becuase of the stress of reading out loud(or actaul disablitiy that has not been diagnosed). I was a very fast reader in class(and a stressful reader), often my eyes would get ahead of my mouth, and cause great confusion in my words. If children are going to be forced to read out loud, teachers should start kids off reading to each other in smaller groups, and then slowly progress to bigger groups. I believe this would help kids read better, and limit the stress from it. Out lawing out loud reading should not be done.
I agree with jlang up there: who's going to laugh more, third graderrs who also have trouble with the same words, or high schoolers who mastered the word long ago?
I do agree with Holt in one aspect: different people learn in different ways. Other than that, I'm prone to say he's full of baloney.
True, we DO learn by immersion, by using words daily and sort of "picking up" their meanings. However, if this is his stance, it doesn't follow that he should nonchalantly allow his students to skip parts of books that are "too hard." Those are the parts that will streeeeeeetch the brain and vocabulary!
When we only learn by immersion, we may miss a huge amount of information: for instance, if we never bother to do a smattering of Greek or Latin study, we can forget ever drawing connections between a word and it's root, and therefore, other words that are related to it. We can also probably forget about alternate meanings... though high schoolers seem to make up enough "double meanings" of their own...
I also find it disturbing that people out there teach children that it is unacceptable for anyone to expect them to do something they don't want to do. I can't really start thinking about the consequences without getting into the "slippery slope" falacy, but I suspect atttitudes like this contribute to difficulty some parents have with their children.
When I worked with inner-city kids in ABQ, we often did Bible reading with them, and many of them had trouble with words. We used a third-grade translation, which I thought was fine for the younger children, but very detrimental to the older ones. When we insisted on dumbing the language down for them, instead of equipping them to read an adult version, we cursed them by leaving them in the same mental state in which we found them.
It could be argued that never pushing a child to look things up, memorize, and follow spelling rules, even for a short time in their life, could qualify as neglect.
"Why can't the English teach their chidlren how to speak?" Henry Higgins, George Bernard Shaw
While it might appeal to many of us that schools that stress "traditional academic learning" might be in "the wrong," the fact remains that "progressive learning" is doing nothing but harming our students.
Ayn Rand has written a brilliant exposition of this topic in her essay, "The Comprachicos." (Check it out, if you haven't already.)
I would most definitely agree with Holt's stance insofar as pressure breeds rebelliousness. I can speak from my own personal experience that, in elementary school, I would read of my own volition, but as soon as a teacher would force me to read, reading then came to engender force and negativity. Also, perhaps if the teachers would, say, ASK the students what they would prefer to read, it may be more beneficial than forcing useless literature onto them as they will not pay attention anyway. At least they would be enthralled and participatory during discussion or even in personal thought development.
sounds like a good idea to me. i personally love reading and read all the time. doesnt matter if i like the book or mot. i find something to like about it. normally put a book in front of me and i'll read it. most of my friends hate reading and yet they dont seem to know exactly why. i think it is because of school and if this idea was implemented more it would be better for everyone. -Jazziy
If there was one thing I could change about my childhood (eww)it would indefinately be the way I perceived reading. About theZLady's comment about AR, it actually means "accelerated regurgitator".
I was no man of fiction either. With a unique autism, it was hard for me to read any human or setting. Teachers, parents, etc. need to listen to the students for what they want, or you can push the students'attention spans (if anything like mine)out of reading. Interest pays divedends.
when I had to read something for school, I hated it, but I often read of my free will
"when you hold a pen, you are at war" Attributed to Voltaire