The Importance of Teaching Readers

1491 Words6 Pages
The Importance of Teaching Readers Part I: Literacy is an important element of academic life. Students may think literacy only involves the reading and writing they do in their English and social studies classes, but literacy is so much more than that. It involves not only reading and writing, but comprehension and the ability to communicate thoughts and ideas. It isn't just taught in English and social studies courses, nor does it apply only to academics. In fact, “all teachers are teachers of reading...” including those who teach math, science, and even music. When I entered Literacy and the Learner this semester, I did not understand why I needed to take a literacy class. I believed, as a future mathematics teacher, that this class would be completely irrelevant to my future teaching career and was, therefore, a waste of my time and money. Luckily, I had a complete paradigm shift about five minutes into the first lecture, and now understand completely why reading is so important in all subjects. Through the assigned readings, lectures, and labs with students, I am finding many ways I will be able to incorporate literacy in my future classroom, as well as a multitude of reasons that it must be taught by every educator. Reading is arguably the most important building block of literacy. It is very difficult to go anywhere for an hour without having to read. The ability to read is necessary to understand everything from simple directions to science textbooks to medical forms. Unfortunately, as discussed by Dr. Seahorn, reading is not a natural process for the brain. Because of this, all educators must teach reading in some way. As said by Richard T. and Jo Anne L. Vacca, “...reading is a tool students use to construct, clarify, and extend meaning in a given discipline” (pg 19). Students need to be able to read in science, math, art, and even music classes.
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