Reading strategies in promoting children’s reading through casual chats on Weibo

   
I’ve recent­ly read sev­er­al books writ­ten by Amer­i­can teach­ers on using read­ing strate­gies in teach­ing, and while I’ve gained some insights, I’ve also been left with a feel­ing of deep emo­tion. I’ve scat­tered some of my thoughts here and there, scat­tered on Wei­bo, and I’ve com­piled them here as anoth­er form of read­ing notes. Relat­ed arti­cles:Some sug­ges­tions on reg­u­lar read­ing class­es
 
   
Teach­ing chil­dren to read is, to some extent, about guid­ing them to iden­ti­fy as read­ers (and, of course, proud­ly con­sid­er them­selves mem­bers of the Tianx­ia Read­ing Club), and to read and think like mature read­ers. There­fore, we some­times need to share our own expe­ri­ences, show­ing them how mature read­ers like us do things and how we cul­ti­vate these skills. I under­stand this to be the oft-men­tioned # read­ing strat­e­gy.
 
   
Many adults (teach­ers and par­ents) long to find a cheap # read­ing strat­e­gy that will eas­i­ly and seem­ing­ly “pro­fes­sion­al­ly” teach chil­dren to read, or at least make it eas­i­er to han­dle read­ing com­pre­hen­sion ques­tions on exams. I believe this desire stems pri­mar­i­ly from a lack of under­stand­ing of the dif­fi­cul­ties involved and an over­ly eager atti­tude that leads to over­look­ing poten­tial down­sides, such as devel­op­ing aver­sion while help­ing chil­dren “learn.”
 
   
# read­ing strat­e­gy # is not impos­si­ble to teach, but it requires some basic con­di­tions: the instruc­tor must be a tru­ly enthu­si­as­tic read­er; the instruc­tor can be a “half-tick­et” read­er at the moment, but must strive for self-growth and be good at sum­ma­riz­ing his or her own and oth­ers’ expe­ri­ences; it is nec­es­sary to clear­ly real­ize that the read­ing expe­ri­ences of adult read­ers and chil­dren can be ref­er­enced, imi­tat­ed, and com­ple­ment­ed, but must not be equat­ed; and one must dare to explore through fail­ure.
 
   
There­fore, adults who hope to guide chil­dren to love and become pro­fi­cient read­ers by skill­ful­ly teach­ing the # read­ing strat­e­gy should first read fre­quent­ly them­selves, espe­cial­ly chil­dren’s books (based on inter­est, not just a task), reflect on their own read­ing expe­ri­ences, and observe chil­dren’s cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment and spon­ta­neous read­ing respons­es. If pos­si­ble, it’s best to have like-mind­ed read­ing part­ners with whom to share and dis­cuss fre­quent­ly, such as Red Mud’s Chil­dren’s Clas­sic Book Study Work­shop.
 
   
For exam­ple, # read­ing strate­gies like con­nect­ing per­son­al expe­ri­ences and empathiz­ing can be prac­ticed through act­ing out sto­ry roles. How­ev­er, teach­ers may not under­stand this approach or may not be able to apply it effec­tive­ly. There­fore, the most effec­tive approach is to have teach­ers study chil­dren’s books, expe­ri­ence it them­selves through act­ing out, and enjoy it, so they can nat­u­ral­ly apply it in the class­room. Sim­ply put, adults must first learn to play with mud them­selves!
 
   
Think of the # read­ing strat­e­gy as a bridge across a riv­er. We need to find our own bridge, and if it’s already been torn down, we need to try to find it again. Then, using this bridge as a pri­ma­ry ref­er­ence, help chil­dren find their own bridge. And remem­ber that such bridges will even­tu­al­ly be torn down, and the best bridges will be demol­ished as soon as they’re crossed. For those on the jour­ney, bridges are not the goal; for those who tru­ly love read­ing, so-called strate­gies are mere­ly tem­po­rary tools.
 
   
For exam­ple, ask­ing real ques­tions is a cru­cial com­po­nent of the # read­ing strat­e­gy and a cru­cial means of mak­ing one’s think­ing heard by one­self and oth­ers. How­ev­er, in real­i­ty, we often regret­tably see adults eager to coax chil­dren into express­ing desired, pre­de­ter­mined answers, turn­ing read­ing dis­cus­sions into a form of pun­ish­ment that tor­tures chil­dren who love read­ing. There­fore, we must first try to get adults to engage in dis­cus­sions among them­selves and learn not to pun­ish them­selves!
 
   
As for the more advanced # read­ing strat­e­gy of sum­ma­riz­ing and gen­er­al­iz­ing, true read­ers believe in the say­ing, “For every 1,000 read­ers, there are 1,000 Ham­lets.” How­ev­er, from the per­spec­tive of test-tak­er, if the stan­dard answer is this, even ten thou­sand Har­ry Pot­ters can only answer one Ham­let! There­fore, we are trained from a young age to guess the main idea and cen­tral theme of para­graphs based on answers from text­books. Teach­ing such a strat­e­gy is deeply harm­ful!
 
   
In gen­er­al, I believe that in the ini­tial stages of read­ing pro­mo­tion, it’s best to min­i­mize tech­ni­cal­iza­tion and con­sid­er the # read­ing strat­e­gy as an option­al fol­low-up. A few teach­ers and par­ents inter­est­ed in fur­ther explo­ration can first col­lab­o­rate with like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als on chil­dren’s book (and espe­cial­ly empha­size chil­dren’s books!) read­ing activ­i­ties, grad­u­al­ly accu­mu­lat­ing knowl­edge and fos­ter­ing mutu­al growth. Guid­ing chil­dren to love read­ing is actu­al­ly an oppor­tu­ni­ty for our own growth.
 
The pic­ture below shows the pic­ture book dra­ma writ­ten and per­formed by teach­ers from Hefei Study Work­shop