Every week M has a reading assignment that we are supposed to do together. She reads a page-long story or article aloud to me (I suppose she could read it to S, but he's never home), and then we answer some questions. It's not the most challenging of assignments, for M at least, but it's kind of fun, especially listening to her read aloud, which she does with great drama.
This week, however, we were not very happy. The reading was called "Want Fries With That?" It's a newspaper article from the Orlando Sentinel, repackaged by Scholastic Books for Week-by-Week Homework for Building Reading Comprehension and Fluency (mmm, now that's a title to excite a developing reader). Really, though, it's a McDonald's ad.
The first two paragraphs describe the history of French fries. Apparently American G.I.s in World War I first had them in Belgium, "But because of poor geography skills, or because many Belgians spoke French, the GIs assumed they were in French territory." Good to know that we were as stupid back then as we are now.
The rest of the article describes how to make not French fries, but "the fries that made McDonald's famous," a process that ends "at your neighborhood McDonald's of course." Are we teaching reading comprehension and fluency, or are we teaching kids to go to McDonald's? How much do you think McDonald's paid Scholastic?
At least M saw right through it. She punctuated her reading with "yuck" and, upon finishing with a flourish, announced, "That was such a big ad and so stupid!"
Yup.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
What a testament to her ability to be critical! I wish some of my former students (college!) had been that astute.
Tell M that I think she is awesome!
Smart girl. Ridiculous material! I remember being taught in 1st or 2nd grade how to recognize what commercials did and not fall prey to advertising. Is the opposite the case now?
Post a Comment