Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Learning To Read or Reading To Learn

Today my son took his 3rd grade standardized test and I am sitting here feeling a little anxiety about it.  I will not find out until October how he did and I will have to sit here and wonder just how well did he do given the circumstances.  Which is, I did not teach to a test, I taught a child.

Learning to read and reading to learn are 2 slightly different methods of teaching.  In my OPINION I feel that the public school system "teaches to read"  What is teaching to read?  To me it is when you teach the child based on levels.  First they start at first level, by halfway through the first grade teachers are happy if the children are reading at 1.5 level and by the end of year they would like to see their pupils reading at level 2. And so on and so forth, until they graduate.  These Standardized test like to measure the pupils to ensure that they are progressing according to schedule and that is all they are meant to test for "Are the pupils on schedule?"

Reading to learn is different, this methodology is more concerned with "what " your child is learning, not "at what level"  I will use my family for instances.  When my son reads we do not concern ourselves with levels.  Right now we are reading in social studies/science about Ancient Greece.  Today he might read a level 2 book, tomorrow a level 7 book and the next day a level 5 book.  We really do not concern ourselves with levels, we are more interested in how engaged the child is to the concepts they are learning.  Early level books are useful because they reinforce known concepts, it is  moving information from short term memory to long term memory.  Medium books are used to build on previously known facts and difficult books help to introduce new concepts that will later be built upon.  This can also be known as "Spiral Learning".  But this method of learning is not nice and neat and easy to test, it really can not be standardized easily.
Picture-We were studying prehistoric man and my son was making structures, tools and art work based on what he learned during his creative play.


I really honestly do not know at what level my child is reading at.  I know that I see Ancient Greece in his dramatic play, I see his pictures and stories he writes, I have had many deep conversations and have heard lots of vocabulary and I know that he LOVES to tell perfect strangers in the store all about Greek Mythology.   What IS the best way to measure learning!!!  Pass a test about levels or being able to use and understand information that they learn?  What is learning?  In my gut, I KNOW that he is learning amazing things, I see proof of this every day.
Picture- My son was inspired by learning about cave art that he made lots of pictures of his "cave art"



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