Gallagher, K. (2009). Readicide. Stenhouse: Portland.
This book is based on the concept that standardized testing and schools are killing reading. It also contains a fair amount of information on how to prevent “readicide.” Gallagher defines readicide as: “noun, the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools.”(2) He suggests several reasons why the love of reading is being killed in schools: to many standardized multiple choice tests and all the test practice that goes along with it, the over-teaching of books, the lack of reading time in schools, the lack of emphasis and time for free reading for children.
Reading this book in 2013 just before the Common Core is about to be fully implemented, I feel as if several of the major points are a bit out-dated. He suggests that because of the wide range of content driven standards teachers aren’t able to teach in-depth thinking. However, the standards have changed from content based to in-depth thinking based, so his argument lacks the strength it had four years ago. I also felt while reading this book that some of his arguments are so specific that it’s difficult to relate to some of the crazy things other teachers do to kill the love of reading.
On the other hand, Readicide did offer many useful suggestions on how to teach not only reading but the love of reading. The book serves as a reminder that as teacher we are not only responsible for making sure students understand the book, but responsible for making sure they continue reading when they leave class. He explains in detail how to teach his suggested strategies and their importance: “articles of the week,” “one-pager” free reading responses, frame the book before hand, start with the guided tour and end with the budget tour to avoid over-teaching, reread chunks for a greater understanding of the whole, and the 50/50 approach to teaching reading, where 50% of the reading students do is academic and 50% is recreational.
Overall I would recommend this book to someone who wanted to learn about how to instill the love of reading into their students, but not to someone who was looking to read up on the latest opinion on reading standards.
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