É de nossa intenção implantar um trabalho pedagógico que estimule e crie em nossos alunos o hábito da leitura, algo muito carente em nossa cultura. Os países mais desenvolvidos tem média acima de 8 livros lidos per capita por ano. Nosso Brasil não chega a 2 entre as classes mais acadêmica e economicamente em condições para tal! Mesmo ensinando línguas estrangeiras, dá sim para ajudar a mudar esta realidade. Estamos inaugurando nossa nova biblioteca nesta semana e pretendemos (aos poucos) enchê-la de bons materiais de leitura. Algo na sala de aula também precisa mudar. A gente trabalha muito bem a fala e a escuta, mas sinto que leitura não tem sido o nosso forte. Para 2011 pretendemos fazer algo bem mais substancial, mas para começarmos a mudança primeiro precisamos, nós professores, mudar nossas mentes quanto à importancia do hábito de leitura. O artigo em anexo é o tema do nosso blog desta semana. Leiam-no e postem seus comentátrios.
Motivating people to read is by large and far one of the most difficult challenges I have as a teacher. When discussing the habit of reading with my students it is rare to encounter one who actually has the habit of reading constantly. As such, I hereby suggest a path forward in order to create such habit. First you plant the seed with some comic books or gossip/miscellaneous magazines, than you irrigate with "the little prince"; let it grow for years with some Dan Brown, J.K. Rowling, John Crisham, Agatha Christie, Assis, Veríssimo etc. When ideas and interests start to be more profound and you think you mastered open some Saramago to realize that you are not the greatest and still have a long way to run; and when the drought moment of interest comes embellish your ideas with some poetry to re-start the evolution process. After the flower has blossomed open some Calvino or Eco, and when it finally reaches full maturity swallow Joyce and all his hardness.
ResponderExcluirOnce in a while re-visit the whole process to avoid boredom.
That is just a philosophical way to describe a good chronological reading development process.
Sorry if I was too vague and shallow, I could never near Paulo Freire´s outstanding word/world level.
Reading is a habit! That’s it. The point is: How to create in my students the feeling of passion for books? I am a toddler teacher and I evaluate that we can easily create this habit when they are little. Do my 2 year old students read? No, they don’t. But every day during our routine they get one of the books from the shelter, open it and start creating something from the colors and pictures they see. On certain occasions I catch them pretending they are a teacher telling stories to the other ones. In a bad-mannered I would say that is just like brushing teeth. Would you stay one day without it? Probably not. Reading must be a moment of pleasure. Not an obligation. Not related with scores. I can say I have had teachers that directly influenced my career. And during the University I found myself surrounded by authors and books. I had to read them. I needed to. Some I just felt in love. How couldn’t I fall in love for Fernando Pessoa when I had a teacher that was a respectable doctor in his literature? She had passion! She knew everything about him; every single aspect of his history, his poems, his heteronyms. We teachers have this responsibility: Give to our students the opportunity of fall in love with us. The possibility of thinking and have a different interpretation and analysis of the world. That’s my contribution! :)
ResponderExcluirThe importance of reading is undeniable, but what must be understood is that as a habit to be developed, it is a process that takes time and must be built little by little, taking into consideration a basic aspect of the communicative approach: having real life as a starting point, going from the concrete to the abstract. So, as the author says, we must reach the students' world if we want to make them interested in the words. There must be a matching between students life and interest and the books suggested for them and, as Mateus wrote in his comment, beginning with simpler texts until they can reach more complex ones. Another aspect that must be considered is that children who see their parents regularly reading at home tend to develop the habit more spontaneously since reading is part of their world. As well, students would develop an interest in reading if they saw their teachers enthusiastically engaged in reading, talking about a book they're reading at that moment, asking if students have read a certain book they liked...anything that could make them feel more interested in doing so.
ResponderExcluirPaulo Freire's reflections about the importance of reading help us review some concepts that are some times hidden in our minds. Reading isn't just a school activity; it's a life activity, if we can say so. In our regular school, we know the importance of teaching children how to read words and we tend to forget to help them read the world (Paulo Freire). Some school books use fragments of texts just as a means to teach grammar and thus reading becomes something boring. Reading as a habit is better developed if it starts at home. However, as we know that most students don't have this opportunity, it's the school's role to provide conditions for students to acquire this habit. Reading is essential to develop creativity and critical thinking. These are abilities that we want our students to have, right? I like when Mateus mentions a list of books or authors that could be read in a certain order to awaken students' interest in reading. This is exactly what happened to me. I grew up surrounded by books, my parents and grandparents helped me find the pleasure of reading and this is what my husband and I have tried to do with our daughters. Roland Barthes has a book called "The pleasure of Reading". I believe that as a teacher, it's my role to motivate, show the way, give tips and share interests in order to help my students find this pleasure.
ResponderExcluirReading the world precedes reading the world!
ResponderExcluirAbsolutely fantastic!
Following Dani's point of view, reading must be a habit. And following Mr. Lotufo's idea, reading is a seed that we should plant and expect good fruits after a while. If we link these ideas, we can clearly notice that reading should start even before students are able to actually read.
However, how to bring teens attention into reading? If teens are not used to read, it will be much harder to motivate them to do it now, since they only want to read 144 characters on twitter and basically only read surfing on the net.
I suggest that we can give the new library a "web-face" by creating its website in which the students can download e-books, specially the ones they are more interested in reading such as the vampires ones! Also, throwing a party at the library would get their attention and as well as creating contests on twitter like: read the book "twilight" and describe it in 144 characters. The best one would get a special prize. Creating an online community would be a way to bring reading into their world.
Perhaps the other teen teachers can suggest something else and we can develop this projects!
Teacher Adriano Alves
Barthes's actual title of the book is "Le Plaisir du Texte" (The pleasure of the text). Sorry!
ResponderExcluirI must agree with what all the teachers said. I believe that everybody knows the importance of reading, however, it's not easy to stimulate another person to create the habit of reading. I grew up in family where my parents always motivated and continue motivating us (my brothers and I) to read. My mom, some times, reads two or three books at the same time. That's an example to be followed, but we know that not everyone has this example at home. The school, on the other hand, has the mission of creating strategies to make students read, and transform the act of reading in a way of having fun, of discovering new things, of understanding the world they live and acquiring useful information. I mean, reading must mean pleasure. I ponder that this habit must be created since the first years at school, and it must goes on through the whole students' school time. When it comes to teenagers, that job is much harder, but it can be done by making them reading things they have interest in. Teacher Mateus' and Adriano's ideas are very interesting and useful. They could be developed at our school.
ResponderExcluirHow often do you read? How good have been your readings? More important than planting seeds is watering your own tree. You cannot spread an action that you do not perform. Paulo Freire's parents were great readers, as afore mentioned. Thus, to make him read and to influence his personality on this topic, they were "full of knowledge".
ResponderExcluirThis text sparked my interest and all your words provoked me to think through my readings lately. The truth is: I used to read a lot more in the past. I'm pretty sure that many others face the same situation. However, we cannot accept it.
I highly agree with Mateus' lines, it is our role to tease students and guide them throughout the process of "falling in love with books". Nevertheless, we must warm up our passion first, that in many cases has been into hard sleep. Before promoting the use of the library, use it yourself. =D That's what I'll try to do this coming week. I have already chosen the book: Dan Brown - The lost secret. (the one I bought a couple of months ago and is still lying on my bookshelf).
Ps.: I've read the text, but did not comment about it directly, once I share everybody else's point of view.
Reading is crucial for our learning, once it is through the act of reading that we can enrich our vocabulary, get knowledge, stimulate and enhance our thinking and interpretation. In other words, reading develops us. I've heard many people saying that they don't have patience to read a book. I believe this is a matter of habit!
ResponderExcluirAs educators we have a great tool in our hands because we have the art of teaching. We have to be careful in order not to kill our students pleasure of reading.
To guarantee this pleasure of reading, we need to know our students well, what they like to read and what they are interested in. Also, it is advisable to recommend easy books before the difficult ones so that they don't feel bored or frustrated.
When students are attracted to the universe of reading they become potential citizens and have the power of transforming themselves and the world around them.
Reading really is a habit!!! I can guarentee that because of my own behavior... I've been reading a whole lot more lately, cause I am in a reading environment. All my family members are reading a whole lot more and here at Yazigi... people also read more. But what to read?? Like Matheus said, start by reading anything and then you will be reading a more complex piece of literature... of course it takes time and a lot of exercise, but you will be rewarded. Through reading you have access to the most interesting topics and cultures in the whorld, I know many have said that before, but through reading you travel. First you make the change on yourself and then you try to make somebody else change with you by spreading the reading culture!!! Take advantage of it you will never regret...
ResponderExcluirI agree with what all my mates have said about it and started thinking about what could be done to enhance this process in my kids groups. Something we could do is to make a reading kit for each of our groups, with magazines, comic books and books, and then draw one student to take this kit home and spend one week with it. as a follow-up activity, this student could have a moment in class to share his/her favorite reading with the rest of the group. It's simple and anyone could do it.
ResponderExcluir