Literacy Is Liberation by Kimberly N. Parker

Author:Kimberly N. Parker [Parker, Kimberly N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781416630920
Publisher: ASCD
Published: 2022-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Independent Choice Reading as Routine

Everyone deserves the freedom to read whatever they want to read. They also need the freedom to not read or to abandon what they're reading (see the National Council of Teachers of English [2018] position statement "The Students' Right to Read" for more). Unfortunately, BIPOC students often don't have those freedoms. If they are in low-performing schools, they are more likely to have "drill-and-kill," excerpted reading aimed at increasing their performance on standardized tests. They also have most likely read texts that have not reflected or affirmed their broad backgrounds. Students in these contexts are most likely to benefit from a robust literacy experience, but they are unlikely to experience that benefit because of the other demands schooling places on them.

What we need is a reframing of how choice and independent reading act as a routine for anchoring students in literacy and supporting students' development of a love of literacy.

We know that reading proficiency is tied to all sorts of successes. The challenge, though, is too many students have had few opportunities to be immersed in a classroom literacy culture that centers their entire reading development. If students have not gained grade-level proficiency, their time is mostly taken up in remediation. It is often during these moments (and even years) of focused instruction that young people tell me they experienced a significant disconnect in their personal reading identities because the tasks did nothing to develop an understanding of the broader goals of liberatory literacy and competence. Reading became something that was unpleasurable, a chore, or something they could not "get" or "do."

However, students do not develop these negative experiences on their own. They are in classrooms where seldom, if ever, are they asked what matters to them and to their reading lives. When we listen to our students, they'll tell us, over and over again, that they want to decide what they want to read.

Independent reading offers tremendous promise for changing the lives of young people. The National Council of Teachers of English (2019c) defines independent reading as follows:

Independent reading is a routine, protected instructional practice that occurs across all grade levels. Effective independent reading practices include time for students to read, access to books that represent a wide range of characters and experiences, and support within a reading community that includes teachers and students. Student choice in text is essential because it motivates, engages, and reaches a wide variety of readers. The goal of independent reading as an instructional practice is to build habitual readers with conscious reading identities. (para. 02; boldface mine)

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