Kelly Gallagher
Veteran teacher and author Kelly Gallagher explains why kids have turned away from reading, and what parents and teachers can do to bring them back.
Kelly taught high school English for 35 years. He's the author of *Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading*. His work has earned him the National Council of Teachers of English's Kent Williamson Exemplary Leader Award (2024), the Adolescent Literacy Thought Leader Award (2018) and the California Association of Teachers of English Award for Classroom Excellence.
In this episode, Lee Schneider talks with Kelly about the forces pushing young people away from books. Some of those forces include: test-driven schooling, teaching techniques that make assigned reading a chore, social media that is built to be addictive, the temptation to take AI shortcuts instead of actually reading the book assigned.
Kelly shares that when he was in the classroom90% of his recent 12th graders admitted they had "fake read" their way through school, meaning that they hadn't read a novel in years and only had read excerpts.
Links: Kelly Gallagher website: https://www.kellygallagher.org/
Books mentioned in this episode include:
Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It (Stenhouse, 2009) | Kelly Gallagher | Bookshop · Amazon · Author site
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World | Maryanne Wolf | Bookshop · Amazon · Author site · HarperCollins
Kelly taught high school English for 35 years. He's the author of *Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading*. His work has earned him the National Council of Teachers of English's Kent Williamson Exemplary Leader Award (2024), the Adolescent Literacy Thought Leader Award (2018) and the California Association of Teachers of English Award for Classroom Excellence.
In this episode, Lee Schneider talks with Kelly about the forces pushing young people away from books. Some of those forces include: test-driven schooling, teaching techniques that make assigned reading a chore, social media that is built to be addictive, the temptation to take AI shortcuts instead of actually reading the book assigned.
Kelly shares that when he was in the classroom90% of his recent 12th graders admitted they had "fake read" their way through school, meaning that they hadn't read a novel in years and only had read excerpts.
Links: Kelly Gallagher website: https://www.kellygallagher.org/
Books mentioned in this episode include:
Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It (Stenhouse, 2009) | Kelly Gallagher | Bookshop · Amazon · Author site
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World | Maryanne Wolf | Bookshop · Amazon · Author site · HarperCollins
Teens Choosing to Read: Fostering Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Growth Through Books (2023) | Gay Ivey & Peter Johnston | Bookshop · Amazon · Teachers College Press
The Year of Magical Thinking | Joan Didion
Sophie's Choice| William Styron
A Lesson Before Dying | Ernest J. Gaines
The House on Mango Street | Sandra Cisneros
Of Mice and Men | John Steinbeck
