YATW Blog #2 - Literacy In Philadelphia

Hey again! My name is Adlynn Gonzalez and this is my second blog about Literacy In Philadelphia. For my first blog, I introduced this topic and talked about how many kids in Philadelphia aren’t up to par when it comes to their reading scores. I just recently found out that in 2012 there was a decline in PSSA reading scores, and that Philadelphia’s NAEP scores lag far behind other cities. Just 19% of Philadelphia’s children scored proficient or above on the PSSA’s and that’s extremely low compared to other cities.

For our You And The World project we were required to do some original research. For my original research I did field observation. I went to Boy’s Latin Middle School (6th graders) and observed 4-5 English classes and interviewed a few of the students. Before interviewing a couple of the students, I just merely observed the class; and since it was a make-up work day in that English class, I observed the students that didn’t have to make up work. There was a TED talk video playing for the kids to watch, but others did not watch. I noticed that some of the ones that weren’t watching were reading books of their interest, others were goofing off. That’s when I decided to interview some of the kids. I asked them simple questions like “what’s your favorite book?”, “do you like to read?”, “on a scale of 1-10, how much do you like reading?”, etc. Then I asked them “what do they think of people who don’t care about reading”, “ when kids end up not liking to read, what do you think is the issue”, etc. The answers I got were surprising. One kid blamed kids not liking reading on technology, which is one factor I have not thought of before. While doing the field observation and interviewing the kids, it kind of opened up my eyes a bit to see what these kids are thinking. (Transcript below)

After meeting those kids and interviewing them, I now want to know more about what that one kid said about technology being a reason for kids not wanting to read. Also I want to know what else they think about PSSAs because most of them said that it wasn’t stressful, but they feel the need to exceed expectations. While doing some online research, I read about how students more male than female dropped out because they struggled with reading and felt inadequate in class, and that standardized tests were stressful, and not in a good way.  I also asked their teacher a few questions and he thought that PSSAs put good stress on the students. He is also really enthusiastic about reading.

Last but not least, I wanted to talk about my Agent of Change. In our You And The World project, we are required to be an Agent of Change and I wanted to possibly help out a reading organization. Like the Eagles Mobile club, or the Phillies Be  Phanatic About Reading program, or even the Reading Olympics (which I was a member of). All I want to do is promote why reading is important, how it can be fun, and lastly how it benefits you in the long run.

Well, that’s it for now, but make sure to stay tuned for Blog #3 where I actually talk about what I eventually did for my Agent of Change, and what other information I found out about this topic.

Links:

Philadelphia’s Test Scores

Philadelphia’s Scores Drop

Be A Phanatic About Reading

Transcript