Reading is only good for assessing...

When we were told that during the reading PSSA (PA's version of state-wide standardized testing) students could not take out a book or anything with words because "it might help them somehow" or that teachers couldn't wear shirts with words (pshh), I was done!

The idea that reading is only good for assessing is the not-so-hidden message that we send to children when we tell them things like "you can't take out a book when you're finished. It might help you" or when it's said that you cannot cover up your classroom with newspaper because it has "words on it".

The experience became all the more surreal and ridiculous one day when one of my voracious readers looked around, saw others reading books and blurted out to me, "oh we can read books today?"

smh

Note: this same voracious reader, doesn't take too kindly to standardized reading tests. I don't know this because s/he said as much, but based on other provincial benchmarks and standards of reading success -__-

Another note: the idea that "reading should only be assessed" is also evident in our district's spending of some million dollar grant money on DRA2 kits and not on magazine subscriptions, class sets of books, fun/interactive reading programs, librarians, etc.