Re: Reading thread

[Cheryl Bybee <cbybee@TENET.EDU>]

Right on!  I remember spending day after day reading one Nancy Drew after
another in the back of the classroom...still made straight A's, but was
bored to death at the progress of the class... I taught French and English,
became a school librarian who has worked as such at elementary, middle and
high schools and who adores poetry and "real" literature as my current
reading of choice.

Let kids read whatever they like!  I had several "battles" with reading
teachers over the whole fiction vs non-fiction thing.  They were
constantly sending middle schoolers to the library to check out novels,
or about once a year--biographies, then complaining about all the kids
who weren't reading for fun.  I invited them in one morning before school
to observe some of their less exemplary students READING--books about
cars, airplanes, animals, monsters, sports, technology, space, dinosaurs,
etc.  You get the picture.  I made at least a handful of converts on at
least one campus!  :-)

Cheryl
******************************************************************************
        Cheryl Bybee, Director of Library Services --  Northside ISD
        6632 Bandera Road, Bldg. D              San Antonio, TX 78238
                        (210)522-8190     cbybee@tenet.edu
******************************************************************************





 On 2 Feb 1996, Sister MaryVeronica wrote:

> I have been paying attention to the people on the subways in NYC.  Did you
> know that elementary school students are often imitating their parents
> especially during the rush hours?  they sit or stand with their current
> paperback open and eyes glued to the page.  There is less of the headphones
> routine, at least on the lines (1 & 9, 2 & 3) I ride back and forth to
> school.  This morning, I watched a youngster with one of the Goosebumps
> books.  He even had it open as he walked up the stairs at 14th Street.
> I'd like to be more hopeful than I was a few years back.
> Let them read!!!  Whatever they will read is better than being a passive
> couch potato.  I am not worried about their selection of material half as
> much as I am that they get the things that they want to read.  It will be
> sorted out later.  I read the Bobbsey twins...and majored in 19th Century
> English Literature in college.
> Take heart.
> Sr. MV
> --
> Sister Mary Veronica,CHS      "Give what you have to someone -
> Xavier High School             it may be greater than you dare
> New York City                  to think." -Beau's Book
> 212-924-7900    and  mveronic@nylink.org
>
>