Report from Ontario: No joy in reading for half of students. Push to boost literacy test scores blamed for �worrying trend�

�The People for Education report cites several possible reasons for the decline, including the intense focus on literacy, which is good but �maybe there�s a part of that focus that makes kids see reading as work, and that�s taken away some of the fun and joy,� Kidder said. S...tudents may not consider all the reading they do online � from websites to text messages � as �real� reading. Or they may not enjoy the reading they do at school, she added.

The report also points to the dearth of teacher-librarians in Ontario schools; many studies show a significant correlation between having a teacher who is also trained as a librarian in an elementary school and the number of kids who like to read. �

 I am planning on publishing a couple of readers next year and will use some of the stories I have uploaded here, but for comprehension I plan to personalise half of the comprehension questions. So many time I see comprehension questions which disect the text into meaningless and uninteresting portions and then we serve it up tastelessly to our students.

How do you help make reading comprehension a meaningful and pleasurable experience?

David