Encouraging Reading Habits on diverse perspective of literature

Encouraging Reading Habits on diverse perspective of literature

Encouraging adolescent students to love reading is the primary challenge many teachers put at the top of their daily "To Do" list. Teaching adolescents to read and instilling a love of reading is a unique combination of talent, skill, care and determination. Teachers should fully understand of what their students are, how to encourage their reading habits and what they should not do to decrease their motivation in reading.

As children grow to be adolescents, their skills increase, the type of books and how they read will change and develop. Some will read one book at a time; others may have two or three going at once. If it works for those adolescents, it's alright. Some will take a book wherever they go, others may read only in a certain spot at a certain time. Again, they will have some ownership and develop their own reading characteristics.

As they grow, they may see that they are living in differences. Then, they try to find identity to be theirs. It may happen in multicultural education. The realization may impact reading habits. They will not hit books, if they think those books can not represent them any way.

In reading, it is undeniable to comprehend all the book. But, there are some obstacles to make students love their books, and one of them is something who related to region diversity, such as culture, ethnic, and nationality. When they read a book, which they do not have any senses in relation to the book, they will not love it.

However, if those students just set up to see differences of them from others, they will have no respect to see and to adjust the different situations. Then, possible problems will rise; prejudice, racial, and stereotype. Consequently, teachers should know how to decrease prejudice from their classroom. Thus, reading diverse literature includes culturally, ethnically, and nationality can be one way to bridge the gap.

In my experience, the first thing to do by all teachers is selecting literature, which can cover diverse perspective. Fortunately, nowadays, there are many YA novels in print that present both good stories and diverse perspectives. I find that a well-selected piece of YAL embodies the essence of the concept and expresses it in ways that young adult can identify with much more than any single poster, audio-visual aid or mini-lecture those teachers might give.

In classroom, if teachers use literature reflective of the young adult experience from diverse cultural perspectives, actually they can demonstrate to their students that they care of them as individuals or as members of society. So they can ask their students to care of each other.

Furthermore, if teachers have selected YA novels, they can step to let their students find certain books that can represent them. At any rate, actually they need to develop ownership towards their choice. Moreover, independent reading for young adult is a right choice as they grow up. Teachers also need to recognize that forcing students to read texts they do not like, do not trust, or do not value just for the sake of introducing them to diverse culture that may affect their negative attitudes toward members of those cultures. So, let them enjoy their thinking to develop their reading characteristics.

Then, let those students to share their feeling about the novels they have read. Feeling that is shared to all members of classroom, will create the classroom develop tolerating and appreciating diverse value. They will respect each other and more realize to the diversity that surrounds.

It is a good way since from the sharing activity, so many things they can understand. Through reading-sharing activity, however, students can examine various cultures values of such topics as the conception of family, the role of each family member, the view of technology, science, religious view, and political view, moral and philosophical beliefs. Those values actually need understanding by all students. Teachers should make them understand that they can not live alone, do something lonely, but need friends to help them. And they may come from diversity, so the only way can they live is by appreciating and tolerating the diversity. If teachers can manage the multicultural classroom wisely, in my experience, students will have appreciation to each other in cover of diverse perspective.