Readicide Blog Hop - Chapter 5

Welcome back to the final week of our Readicide book study.  If this blog hop has not already convinced you to go out and buy Kelly Gallagher's book, do so now!  It is totally worth your time.  It is such a quick read, and offers tons of realistic, sound advice for ways we (yes, even us teachers) are contributing to readicide in America, and ways we can prevent it from continuing.  Here are my top takeaways from the book...just short and sweet.

1. Introduce more creativity into your classroom.  

One of our greatest competetive edges over other countries is American's drive to be creative.   This innovative creativity has lead us to amazing technological and scientific advances.  However, the overemphasis on standardized test prep is not only killing generations of readers, but also killing our creativity.  Imagine what will happen if we continue to stifle our students' critical and analytical thinking skills?  We can't continue to contribute to the madness!  Don't let readicide happen in your classroom.  Offer multiple opportunities for creativity.  Remove the skill and drill formats and introduce more problem solving practice.  Create opportunities for book talks.  Allow brain breaks, discuss current events, hold debates, create cooperative learning opportunities...get creative people!  Scour Pinterest for ideas on how you can build a creative classroom for your 2015-2016 school year.

2.  Create a 50/50 approach.

Be sure to create a literary balance in your classroom by devoting equal time to both recreational and academic reading.  And when you do, be sure to follow Gallagher's guide to ending readicide in developing readers.  Take a look at the charts below. 

Well, that's a wrap my friends!  What are some ways you are going to prevent readicide from occuring in your classroom?   Please leave your comments below.  Thanks so much for hanging out with us these past 5 weeks! Be sure to hop on over to Kim's blog to see how she is summing up this excellent book.

Happy READING, my friends,