"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Monday, March 18, 2013

An allergy to reading

Ten people contributed opinions on vocabulary development in Larry Ferlazzo’s recent blog on “Many Ways To Help Students Develop Academic Vocabulary” (Ed Week, March 17; http://tinyurl.com/ctesagq).

There is massive research from many different kinds of research showing that reading is a powerful source of vocabulary knowledge, most likely the most powerful source. Also a number writers in the professional literature present evidence showing that direct instruction of vocabulary can have only a limited effect.

Nevertheless, only one contributor to Ferlazzo’s blog mentioned reading. In a tweet, SaroltaGB wrote: “Students develop their academic vocabulary best by reading academic texts on topics they are interested in.”

Why this allergy to reading?

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