"Readicide" by Kelly Gallagher

Readicide is something that even I, as a die-hard book lover and English major, experienced as a high school student. The constant chopping up of books and short stories and trying to break apart books to dissect each potential learning ability out of books was exhausting. Realizing and seeing how much standardized testing takes away from letting students enjoy reading is heartbreaking. I love reading and learning and experiencing new things from books that I would never get to experience otherwise. So much can be gained from books and teaching and pushing students away from a love of reading by overdoing books in class is terrifying.

As a future teacher I have to find ways to encourage students to read and find even just a basic liking of reading. Gallagher presents ideas that would help alleviate readicide in the classroom itself but it would still happen in other classrooms and throughout other schools. Yes, I as one teacher can make a difference in the lives of my students by doing my best to stop readicide and to encourage reading in all areas of life – even for fun.

I think that the only way to truly eradicate readicide in schools is to take a few hundred steps away from constant standardized testing. One of the points made constantly throughout the book is that standardized testing and prep for the test is taking time and energy away from reading and teaching content that teachers feel should be taught. The skills that schools should be teaching are taken away from because of the focus on standardized testing. Or if testing is not moved away from there needs to be a change in the way that testing is happening is structured and administered. If the test focused on students exhibiting skills instead of content and were less often the testing would be more effective and teacher would be able to focus on teaching students those skills instead of prepping for testing.