Keeping Up with Professional Journals

Question: How can teachers keep up with professional reading?

Note: The following is a letter to the editor of The Reading Teacher:

Quote: “As an IIRA member, I have received The Reading Teacher for a number of years and consider the caliber of the articles to be excellent. However, it is very difficult for me, an involved reading specialist who is dedicated to her work, to get to read it each month. As far as I know my coworkers have the same trouble and I imagine the majority of members do.”

Comment: Try my system. Read the title and sub-titles of each article and then the first paragraph and last paragraph of the article. Know enough? Have the basic idea? In my experience that information alone tells me the essence of the article. Write a brief summary at the top of the article. If I still have questions, I read a sentence in each column for details. Occasionally I return and read the first sentence of each paragraph. Very rarely, almost never, do I read the entire article. If you read professional journals 15 minutes each day, you will accumulate most of the essential ideas in each article In a relatively short period of time. Note: If you can take the time, reflect in writing on these ideas as I do in this blog with my “Comments.” RayS.

Title: “Cut RT in Half.” Margaret C. Ball. The Reading Teacher (October 1974), 64.