The Attitude of Secondary School Teachers towards the teaching of Reading!

Here is an article review of Secondary School teachers' attitude towards the teaching of reading. I really do feel that all teachers across all content areas should see themselves as teachers of reading, and not just leave that responsiblity to the Language Arts teachers. Have a good read, and please share your thoughts...


J. O’Rourke, W (1980). Research on the attitude of secondary teachers toward teaching reading
in content classrooms. Journal of reading, 234, 337-339.

SUMMARY OF ARTICLE

Research on the attitude of secondary teachers toward teaching reading in content classrooms by William J. O’Rourke is an insightful article that addresses the various shortcomings of teaching reading in the content areas. He lays the foundation for his research by identifying a major deficiency in Secondary Schools’ reading programs, that is, that they only comprise remedial reading and he notes further that positive attitudes on the part of teachers toward this initiative needs to be fostered.
O’Rourke then analyzes research done in this area. He discusses ‘The Nebraska Study’ that analysed teachers’ attitudes at the junior and senior high school levels. He found no difference in attitudes based on whether the teacher taught at junior high or senior, nor did teachers’ years of experience determine their attitude. Not surprisingly, English teachers revealed the most positive attitude with all other subject areas scoring “average” (p. 338). This he argues confirm notions that English teachers are associated with reading because of their training and because teaching English requires much reading (p. 338). He also notes that most of his sample had not taken a university reading course, nor did they participate in in-service reading workshops.
He concludes by recommending that a course on teaching reading should be required for teacher certification and that content reading workshops should be set up for teachers. This he believes will improve teacher attitude, although he does note that further research needs to be done to “measure the relationship between attitude and skills” (p. 339). He ends by arguing that only when reading can be incorporated in all content areas then, “we can begin to make more than just pious claims” (339).

COMMENTARY:

This is an article that was written since 1980, but sadly in 2010 there is little change. Reading programs at the Secondary level is still limited to remedial reading and there is still the pervading attitude that it is the English teacher’s responsibility to teach reading, so that it is not done in other content areas. Indeed if a teacher does this in one of the content areas it is because of his personal philosophy, because although it is encouraged by the Ministry of Education, there are no formal measures in place to ensure that this is done. No wonder there is a global, regional and local reading/literacy crisis.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) has been made efforts to incorporate reading across all content areas. In the new syllabuses, there is a reading strand across all subject areas. However, teachers stick to their old attitudes, see reading as the responsibility of the English teacher, and focus on delivering the content matter of the curriculum. As a teacher, I myself am guilty of this because in my practice I have blindly accepted the notion that it is the Language Arts teacher’s responsibility to teach reading and ensure that children master Standard English. In this respect, I find this article very thought provoking because although I have heard the saying that ‘all teachers are teachers of reading’ I never truly internalized and believed this before. I have finally changed my attitude, because I see the merits of this.
I cannot help but wonder though, that if all teachers were teachers of reading, would the literacy problem in Trinidad, the region and the world have gotten to this crisis level? Indeed, teachers need to get out of this old mode of thinking because our students are suffering.
As advocated by J. O’Rourke, I really think that the Ministry of Education needs to implement a rigorous in-service training in the teaching of reading for teachers across the subject areas, that a university reading course be a basic requirement of all teachers, regardless of the subject area they teach, and they need to market the idea more of all teachers being teachers of reading. In the meantime, I will do my part to encourage my peers at work to get involved. If I do this, then certainly I will effect some change among teachers. An improved attitude to teaching reading on the part of the teacher will certainly filter to an improved attitude to reading on the part of the student. They will ultimately benefit.