Struggling Readers... PC or accurate?

Reading through chapter 12 of the Flint text, I see over and over again the term struggling readers. It initially strikes me at an attempt at political correctness in describing students who are behind... the students that are not meeting the standards set up by the same political institutions that coined the phrase struggling students to describe students who aren't suceeding in their institution. Here is where I could easily go into a long, embittered discussion about the stressors lovingly known as standardized tests and AYPs, but I want to look at the other side of this term, struggling readers.

When I think struggling readers, I think of students who are not succeeding at reading, not necessarily at standards set out by the teacher, the school, or the state, but these are the students who are not reading as well as they are capable, and a lot of the time, they know it. Students can learn to love to read, but they have to pass the stage of struggling with it to be able to love it. Struggling readers lack confidence in reading because they are not as strong in some of the necessary skills as they need to be. BUT, I would argue that it is NOT their fault. Our jobs as teachers are difficult, and I doubt any one of us would argue otherwise, but we owe it to every struggling reader and succeeding reader alike to teach confidence and a love of reading in a way that benefits each reader.

At the end of this post, I have included a silly video with two "kids" in the library. It's not really related to this topic, but I think they are ridiculous with what they can do, so I am sharing. Also, I can make the connection that part of reaching out to every reader is reaching out to the interest of every reader! Maybe for these "kids" it's music, maybe for others like Rakwaun it's spiders, or even others, it's Black Beauty.

While I dislike the term struggling readers, because it places the blame on the students, I am grateful for this politically correct way to group the students we aren't reaching together. Hopefully, we can use this to remind ourselves to work to foster their learning in a way that DOES reach out to them.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lDWU2OBm6U