The article focuses mainly on giving students the opportunity to read more informative text at a younger age. I agree with this to an extent. I feel that when children begin to learn how to read, they need to read something that sparks their interests. The students should be allowed to read whatever it is they like to read in the early years, whether it be a children's book or a baseball card. Before students begin to read for comprehension, they need to be fluent in their reading so I do not think it should matter what they are reading as long as they are reading. However, I do not object that the students should have more access to informative text. I feel that students should have a variety of text available to them. Once students are able to comprehend what they read, why would they not be able to comprehend informative text if they can comprehend narrative text?
The article also mentions that a majority of the time, teachers read informative textbooks to the students. For our lab today, we talked about this. Teachers read the textbook or a book to the students while the students follow along in their book, and then, the teacher ask questions. When the students reply with the correct answers to the questions, teachers think that the students are comprehending the text. When in reality, the teachers are only testing their listening comprehension. This practice does not ensure that the student could read the same text on their own and comprehend it. While discussing this, we tested the readability of some elementary textbooks. The textbook that I had was for a fourth grade science class. Its readability turned out to be on a ninth grade level. In fact, a majority of the text books turned out to be way over the grade level. How can you expect a fourth grader to read this information on his own when it is not even on his grade level?
Another thing that stood out to me in the article is it mentioned several strategies to test a student's comprehension. I substitute a lot, and I see that schools use Accelerated Reader to get students to read more. They read a book and then take a test to determine if the student is comprehending what they read. As they answer questions correctly, they gain points. Once the student has earned so many points, they get a prize. Each student has a goal, and if he doesn't meet his goal, he is penalized by not being able to participate in something fun. I am sure this started with good intentions; however, I see that students are merely picking up a book, not reading it, and taking a test on it to see if they can guess correctly enough to get points. I think they would be better off by using some of the strategies mentioned in the article like learning logs, fact books, alphabet books, etc.
Finally, the article made the comment that elementary children choose to read informational texts over narrative text almost half of the time. If informational text is what motivating students to read, then why not allow students access to it? In conclusion, I feel that students should be exposed to a variety of text throughout their reading experiences.
