Reading as a subversive activity.

Schoolchildren 'failing to read books' - Telegraph  27th March 2010

Best-selling author Alan Gibbons joined the NUT in speaking against the trend to deal in extracts rather than whole texts.

Speaking before the conference, he said: “Schools use extracts to spot the metaphor or the simile, instead of allowing children to read whole books.


“We have seen a real increase in the technical dismantling of literature with the specific aim of hitting targets and doing well in exams.”
He added: “One of my daughters came home to tell me she was doing Great Expectations as part of her GCSEs.
“It turned out that all they were doing was reading chapter one, when the character Magwitch first appears, and then skipping to chapter 39, when he reappears, to compare the two scenes.Speaking before the conference, he said: “Schools use extracts to spot the metaphor or the simile, instead of allowing children to read whole books.

It is a frustratingly familiar picture. Pressures on teachers to fit so much into the year, and a climate in which having students 'merely reading' could be criticised as a lesson  lacking  in 'pace', having insufficient differentiation, a lack of activity or insufficient interaction is making sustained reading a subversive activity. Think I joking?  It would be a brave teacher who included a  period of sustained reading in a Performance Management or Ofsted observation.