Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters

by G. Kylene Beers

intensive study of a single novel does little good and perhaps significant harm.

Listening is not reading. There is value in listening, but listening uses and hones different skills from reading.

If your solution is to read the book aloud to students, then you might improve listening ability, and you’ll certainly model fluent, expressive reading, but this solution does not offer students the needed practice of reading on their own.

Listening doesn’t build reading stamina; listening doesn’t allow the reader to decide when to reread, when to untangle a confusion, when to mull over a favorite passage, when to stare at illustrations. Listening doesn’t allow the student to take responsibility for the reading. But it does allow us all to experience the text together.

But an educated citizenry, a populace who expects and demands clear and honest discourse, may be able to reject those who would use language to mislead, inflame, or enslave.