[CALIBK12] response to Bogardus comments

[Darla Brown]

Excuse me, Gentlemen: What happened to the truce?

________________________________________
From: calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu [calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Krashen [skrashen at yahoo.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 11:19 AM
To: Calibk12 at Listproc. Edu
Subject: [CALIBK12] response to Bogardus comments

Immediate reactions to David Bogardus:

"I have been listening to Stephen Krashen for years tell us that reading incentive programs have little effect on student reading scores."

SK: No, I did not say this in my writings, my talks, and I have repeated my view in several recent posts.. Sometimes incentive programs increase reading comprehension and amount read, sometimes they don't.  My papers point out that no study has specifically looked at the impact of the tests and prizes.  Do they matter? We don’t know.  Are the gains due only to the time put aside for reading and the additional books? No study has compared books + time + tests + prizes with only time + prizes.

Also there have been no long-term studies of AR and there are reasons to be concerned about this.

"Students read better when they have unfettered access to books and they can read what they want …HOW this happens has been not well defined, and when attempts are made, it seems the role of the librarian is rather insignificant. Often it seems, we are being told to get out of the way and just fill orders as if we worked at a Literacy Home Town Buffet .. We can not just open the doors and hope they will come and check out all of our wonderful titles."

SK: This is not a quote from me.  I never said this. I have, over and over, emphasized the impact of the librarian and teacher, the impact of literature programs, read-alouds, etc.  There is strong research to support this, which I talk about all the time.

In fact, there is new research on this, from the most recent Phi Delta Kappan, from Celano and Neuman, after careful observation of what children do in public libraries. See also the recent   (September, 2008) School Library Journals cartoon-style article (Shameless, by La Duska Adriance and Ellen Linder) on encouraging reading, a case history: The method – a librarian helping a child find the right book.  The librarian knew children's literature, knew the child, and was dedicated and patient.






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