Double Entry #9

The author states that the strange fact is the majority of students who have trouble with reading come from poor families or minorities and have faced oppression and prejudice. This fact is strange because being in a particular social group or being poor should not have an affect on ones ability to read. School separates students into different groups, the author calls those who enjoy and excel in school the "school club". Traditionalists advocate a skill based approach while more progressive educators focus on meaning making. According to the author reading is not a natural process like learning to speak. A natural process is something that just happens such as learning ones language. An instructed process is something we must learn through skill based approaches such as learning physics. A cultural process is one that a culture values so much that they ensure that everyone who needs to learns it, reading should be considered a cultural process according the author. Humans learn best through cultural processes but reading is taught in schools using the instructed process. The author attributes the "fourth grade slump"to the fact that the students can not read for understanding but can read in the sense of decoding. A better predictor of reading success is language ability. The parents of the child are not to blame because it is more than that. According to the author reading is a cultural process and as a cultural we need to make sure all of us can read. I struggled at certain parts of the chapter and I would say it was due to my unfamiliarity with the specialized language used throughout the chapter.