Whether or not state standards and curriculum expectations are ruining the reading experience for students and crushing their innate love of literature has been a debate carried out in every teacher's lounge in every school that I have worked in. The Common Core Standards are currently at the center of this debate due to their heavy emphasis in the area of non-fiction text.
Over the last decade the national push has consistently been to incorporate more non-fiction text into our students daily lives. To use articles, speeches and biographies to teach reading comprehension skills instead of just novels, short stories or poems. Many teachers of reading have voiced that this practice is crushing student's love of reading and making it difficult for them to teach important concepts such as elements of literature and main idea.
Over the past decade, teachers of every subject have also been trained to teach content through reading instead of simply teaching content. This has raised concern primarily with teachers of math, science and the arts. They fear that the content will be lost to students because the focus is on reading instead of equations or formulas.
As the Common Core Standards gain more momentum in schools across the country this debate will likely continue to dominate conversations amongst educators.
Below is an interesting article published by Education Week outlining the reform taking place as a result of the Common Core Standards.
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