Wow. I was a total Sarah.
I think Zivic is competently biased against kids who are early readers in a way that is very harmful to the kids she teaches. I don't know why I was an early reader, but I sure did love to do it. I also felt, until high school, like no teacher ever really liked me. Maybe this is why. Maybe they were all Rachel Zivics.
I read whatever I wanted. I, too, read with second graders. I got sent to the library for three years during reading class. What I didn't get was reading instruction. EVER. No teacher ever taught me anything about reading.
So did I learn those strategies she mentioned? Not until college. Don't blame that on the kid. If the school offered me reading instruction at my level in K-3, maybe I would have been able to build my foundations systematically too.
In my mind, this is just another call for true differentiation. Every kid deserves the attention of a teacher. For what it's worth, in my case it turned out okay. I've always loved to read and I became a writer. But I did that in spite of my instruction, not because of it. Perhaps the "painful resentment" comes from not getting the same instruction everybody else does and then watching them pass you by. What's abnormal about that?
