Day: March 28, 2023

When teachers familiarize themselves with students’ reading histories, they may uncover reading trauma — moments when students had a negative experience with a peer, teacher or librarian that turned them off of reading. Students with reading trauma associate reading with painful feelings of shame or stress and doubt their reading abilities, said Boston-based educator Kimberly Parker in a recent webinar organized by the Texas A&M Collaborative for Teacher Education.
Take reading logs, for example. Asking students to track at-home reading can make exploring books seem like a chore. And students with incomplete reading logs can learn to associate reading with penalization. A 2012 study found that reading logs led to less motivation and less interest in recreational reading. “It actually drives students further away from reading,” said Parker, who wrote “Literacy is Liberation: Working Towards Justice Through Culturally Relevant Teaching” and has spent over 20 years working in literacy co..