[CALIBK12] A significant omission: access to books for all students

[Thomas Kaun]

The report really sounds more like a full-employment strategy for reading
specialists and professors of reading specialists.
I know we all have our professions to promote but I do believe Stephen is
right that the simplest solutions to our reading "problem" are the best and
have still not been tried.
This also ties into the recent thread about developing the "love of reading"
in our students. I am one of those who is more intrigued by non-fiction
(verity--weird!) than fiction reading. So what! In some ways it's like I
carp about English teachers at the high school level who teach as though all
kids were going to be English majors--they aren't. Get over it. They are
going to read, however, and so do need strategies to cope with all sorts of
reading materials, print and digital.
BTW, I'm finally finishing War and Peace and I have realized that in order
to read this book, like with Moby Dick (the big whaling book), you need to
have the kind of mind which processes both "efferently" (I vaguely remember
the term from a physiology course I once took) and aesthetically.
It's an amazing novel aesthetically but every world and European history
teacher needs to have read it as well for its insight into history, military
strategy, etc.
Now this is fun!
Tom Kaun

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 11:57 AM, Stephen Krashen <skrashen at yahoo.com>wrote:

> A Significant Omission in the IRA Policy Paper: Access to Books for All
> Students
> Stephen Krashen
>
>
> The International Reading Association policy paper, "Keeping Our Promise to
> All Students," talks about everything except books and reading. It includes
> recommendations for standards, assessment, instructional time, professional
> development, and of course the by now mandatory recommendation that we
> prepare students for the 21st century. The only mention of books is in
> passing:
>
> "Further supports for teachers to successfully increase student achievement
> include providing resources such as paraprofessionals, books, computers, and
> other literacy instructional tools" (p. 4).
>
> Books, in other words, are simply one of several "instructional tools."
>
> In view of the consistent finding that children of poverty have little
> access to reading material at home, in their communities and in school,
> shouldn't the International Reading Association strongly recommend that all
> children have access to reading materials, that school and public libraries
> be strengthened in high poverty areas? After all, what's the point of
> standards, assessment, instructional time, and professional development if
> students have little or nothing to read?
>
> Without a strong and clear recommendation for adequate access to books, the
> policy paper does not keep its promise to all students.
>
>
> The IRA policy paper is available at:
> http://www.reading.org/publications/reading_today/samples/RTY-0812-policy.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Thomas T. Kaun
Teacher Librarian
Bessie Chin Library @ Redwood High School
395 Doherty Drive, Larkspur, CA 94939
tomkaun at gmail.com | Library Web site: http://rhslibrary.org | Professional
development blog: http://tomlmt2.blogspot.com/ | Library news blog:
http://libraryleaves.blogspot.com

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day,
something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else
would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of
unanimity.
 - Christopher Morley
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