How to make classroom reading interesting for students?

Abstract

The oral presentation titled «Experimental study of classroom reading» was given by methodologist and wordsmith Ts. P. Baltalon at the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Pedagogical Psychology in St. Petersburg in 1909. In the published paper, the author presented himself as a researcher of school psychology. This study was focused on the school student’s reading interests. The study was conducted using a survey among 1600 respondents of different ages and different types of schools. It allowed the author to draw a conclusion about school students’ reading preferences and correlate them with the content of educational chrestomathies for classroom (program) reading. This study allowed the author to conclude that the composition of school chrestomathy neither in content nor in genres of the proposed texts does not meet the reader’s interests of the school students. Baltalon proposed to replace the chrestomathy with pamphlets of artistic and popular science content, reading and in-depth study of which should make classroom reading an interesting activity for school students. In order for this to take place, teachers and publishers need to work together. The purpose of the article is to present the concept of educational reading by Ts. P. Baltalon and briefly describe its main provisions.