The Reading skills
Today many students do not like to read. When given something to read, they only glance through it and consider that they are already reading it. This “bad reading” habit starts early in high school or even in elementary school when students are told to read something that can be memorized to answer test questions. No one teaches them to develop “reading skills” to understand the concept and build knowledge, or at least just enjoy reading. Because of this “reading enough to pass tests,” many students develop a “shallow” knowledge. They can talk about many things but not “deep enough” to understand anything.
Many students bring this bad habit to college where they must read a lot of books to understand, analyze, organize, and apply the concept. With “shallow learning” based on short-term memorization instead of “deep learning” that involves total comprehension many cannot handle college works and often fail when the class goes into advanced concepts that require deeper understanding. For many years of teaching, I found that reading is one of the biggest issues with college students, especially students who came from countries where learning is still based mostly on memorization.
To solve this problem, we have to develop a good reading habit for students in the elementary school when they begin learning how to read. All children love to read, especially on books that they like but sometimes teachers force them to read something that they do not like, and they begin to hate reading. When I visited Sweden and Finland a few years ago, I learned that elementary students were given a list of books to read and they can choose whatever book that they want to develop their interest in the subject. A teacher explained to me: “We learned from our mistakes, several years ago our school administrators, even with good intention, did not understand children’s preference. They ordered books that they believed children must read, but we learned that at the early age, it was not about the content but about developing a good reading habit, so we changed.”
She said: “Today teachers are allowed to find the right type of book for students, and allow them to select what they want to read. By monitor what students like to read, teachers can guide them toward their interests. After they complete each book, teachers encourage them to explain the book to the class. By letting them to self-reflect based on the context, children will read more carefully and develop “deeper learning” skills. As teachers, we do NOT test students based on the books that they read because reading should be enjoyable, not intimidation. We let them choose what book to read from a list of books with many subjects because they must have their reason to read based on what they want. As teachers, we help them see the value of reading and the results which are the knowledge that they gain. By allowing them to express their opinions after reading, we encourage the development of critical thinking at the early age because they will recognize that reading is knowledge. Having knowledge will help them to choose between the life that they have now and the life that they want to have in the future.”
Now I know why Finland is one the country to have the best education system. To the students, reading is something enjoyable NOT things they must remember for the test. Because of this reading habit at the early age, the country has a large population of adults who love to read. When I was there, I saw a lot of people reading in the train station, in the parks, in the coffee shops. The other countries that I saw more people reading were Japan and Singapore.
I had taught in several countries and noticed that today many students see reading as something that they only do at school because it is required, NOT an opportunity to improve their knowledge, to enjoy, to explore new ideas, new concept and to enrich their lives, etc. When I assigned reading materials for them to read before coming to class, many complained that it was too much reading. They preferred just to listen to a lecture so they can at the same time, sending text messages, or watched YouTube on their laptop but considered that they were studying.
A few years ago, when teaching in Asia, a professor complained: “Even we have many engineers and scientists but still could not invent anything worthwhile. The only things we do are just copy something from other countries. We are good at copying but not good at inventing or innovating.” I told him: “It is inherent in your education system. When your students do not like to read when their knowledge is “shallow” the best they can do is to copy. If you want to innovate, your education system must change and begin with improving reading skills of your students.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
