Classics in the Remedial Classroom

Abstract

The mind just naturally quails at the prospects of finding something useful to read in remedial English classes, especially forjuniors and seniors. For those students, with limited vocabularies, faulty word attack skills, specific disabilities, negative attitudes toward school-what can we give them to read that they can handle, that will still have substantial meaning for them? The available anthologies seem singularly depressing, often with titles like Reading from Experience, Experiences from Reading, The Experience of Reading, Reading Experiences. Surely the students must suspect, must somehow know, that they are being smugly patronized. The students I work with are usually a frothy mixture of Easily Distractibles, Designated Disableds, and Guidance Department Referrals, with a few ESLs thrown in for ballast. Finding something they can and will read has always been a frustrating task once we finished with the short selections in the skills books.