To ensure space for all wishing to attend, please RSVP to .

We plan to have a spirited discussion surrounding the issues presented in Readicide. The Minnesota Reading Association plans to host similar book studies throughout the coming year. If you have a particular resource or book in mind for discussion, please send your suggestions to the link provided above.

In addition, we will have an opportunity to discuss the book with Kelly Gallagher himself, as he is scheduled to be a keynote speaker at this year's MRA Conference, “Making Connections,” on August 13, 2009. A conference breakout session is being held for this follow-up.

A review of Readicide from Amazon: Reading is dying in our schools. In this provocative new book, Kelly Gallagher suggests that it is time to recognize a new and significant contributor to the death of reading: our schools. In Readicide, Kelly argues that American schools are actively (though unwittingly) furthering the decline of reading. Specifically, he contends that the standard instructional practices used in most schools are killing reading by valuing the development of test-takers over the development of lifelong readers, mandating breadth over depth in instruction, requiring students to read difficult texts without proper instructional support, insisting that students focus solely on academic texts, drowning great books with sticky notes, double-entry journals, and marginalia, ignoring the importance of developing recreational reading; and losing sight of authentic instruction in the shadow of political pressures. Kelly doesn't settle for only identifying the problems. Readicide provides teachers, literacy coaches, and administrators with specific steps to reverse the downward spiral in reading--steps that will help prevent the loss of another generation of readers.