D&Z Ch. 12

            The final chapter in Daniels and Zemelman’s book functions somewhat like an overview of previously discussed material.  Some of the points which struck me the most are things that I have believed for a very long time.  1.) Students need to read a lot; volume, quantity, and practice count.  In this case, D&Z use studies to back up their claim that students who read more will do better on standardized test reading scores.  They do not simply cite claims to support their beliefs.  In fact, they go so far as to mention opposing claims and refute them with their research.  Opposing views mention that some students read more because they are better readers, instead of students becoming better readers because they read more.  Although I have not done research on either of these viewpoints, I would think it only logical that students who do more reading would become better readers.  That is not to say that students must read books by Stephen Hawking or Jane Austen all the time in order to become better readers.  Give them a copy of Harry Potter and let them have some fun.  Even if their reading levels do not improve, the worst that could happen is that they read a book—I’m not exactly seeing the bad there.

            Another point I would like to highlight from the chapter claims that students need to read plenty of material at a comfortable reading, recreational reading level, not frustration level.  I think these two points go hand-in-hand.  Students do not need to read “hard” books in order to glean knowledge.  For instance, think about literary theory.  Students do not need to read Saussure’s essays on linguistics in order to discover that assigned words are arbitrary in nature; give them a wordless graphic novel and they will discover that on their own with very little prompting.  My point is this: reading does not have to be incredibly difficult for students to learn from it.  In fact, studies have shown that students’ reading improves if no more than 10% of the content is difficult for them to grasp.  Reading material does not have to be hard to be important.