Reading is FUNdamental…no seriously, it’s important.

As I read through PEOPLE Magazines list of good summer books, I began to make a list of the titles I wanted to download on my Sony Reader or pick-up at the bookstore.  I was about 3 books into my list when I began to wonder how many of the kids I’ve taught over the last 4 years might be doing the same thing.  When the number that I could name barely reached a second hand when counting, I decided to start adding adults, any adults, friends, co-workers, family, random people I talk to via social networks, whomever and I have to be honest, the list didn’t grow much longer.  I have heard all the reasons in the world, or close to it, about why people of all ages don’t read: I don’t have time, I can’t find a book I like, I’m not a good reader, I’m a slow reader, reading isn’t important, I don’t know the words so I’m not going to read and (my favorite) reading is boring.  So in honor of one of my favorite things, I’m going to explain to you why reading shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly.

First, the Gilmore Girls defense.  For those of you not familiar with the show it is basically about a mother raising her daughter and the show chronicles Lorelai (the mother) and Rory’s (the daughter) life from 10th grade through Rory’s college graduation.  Rory is well-read to say the least and often times this is part of the shows humor efforts because Rory often talks over the head of her mother unless they are referencing classic rock bands or old tv shows and movies…or so the shows creators would have you believe.  Often times Lorelai makes references that are from classics of literature and often go un-detected by viewers or they miss the reference because they’ve never read the book.  A whole episode spawned from a comment Lorelai made to her friend about how the friend was somebody’s “Daisy”.  You get an hour of tv programming that consistently references The Great Gatsby that most people didn’t get and instead of figuring it out they instead chose to delve into the shallower lines of plot because it was easier (trust me…I’ve watched this episode with people who didn’t get it).  However the Gilmore Girls defense is not so much that you miss things in pop culture but rather relates to a comment Lorelai made when Rory references a book.  Lorelai says “Can you de-Mensa that?”  If you don’t know what Mensa is, google it.  My point simply being that the more you read the more you expand your vocabulary and your knowledge base.  When having conversations with another adult, people should not have to “dumb down” relatively common words, yet more and more I hear adults using words that don’t even properly convey what they mean to say because they either don’t know the correct word or they think their friends don’t know the word.  Bottom line, no one should bomb vocab on the SAT or ACT because if you read you would know most of those words.

Second, practice makes perfect.  Whenever a student told me they couldn’t read or didn’t read because they are a bad/slow reader I would respond with “Practice makes perfect.”   Isn’t it true?!?  How do you expect to get better at something if you dismiss it?  No offense to my non-reading adult friends but odds are if you don’t read on your own and to or with your kids then your kids aren’t going to read either.  Monkey see, monkey do and all that.  Aside from the practice aspect, consistent reading teaches us tools to help us read better, like context clues.  If you have a digital reader then you’ve got the added benefit of being able to look a word up.  When I read growing up and didn’t know a word I would ask my mom…till I was 9, then she started saying “look it up” and so I did.  I say the same thing to my students and they gripe at first and then before the year is over they are telling others so I don’t have to or they trudge over to the dictionary shelf and pull a book out.  The most rewarding thing to see when you tell that to a kid constantly is to be reading in a textbook in the last quarter of the school year and have a kid say “What does that mean?” and have another kid jump up and nearly run to the dictionary while asking “Can I look it up?”  Adults often make the mistake of coddling the kids until they are co-dependent readers, they can’t get through one chapter without asking an adult to define something.  I’m not saying don’t explain, I’m saying explain how to problem solve otherwise your kids will call when they are 30 asking you what a word means.

Third, reading can be a team sport.  In school you know you loved it when the teacher had the class read aloud because it was WAY less reading you had to do on your own right?  So find the balance in your own life.  Share a book with someone and compare thoughts on what you read, it makes reading so much more enjoyable when you can talk to someone who is reading the same thing.  If you have kids, nieces, nephews, you babysit, whatever…then read with those kids.  The best way to read with kids who are old enough to read is to do a “You read, I read”.  It is just like what it says, you read a page or a chapter depending on how long the pages are and then switch off and have the child read.  When doing novels with 7th, 8th and 11th grade I used this and it worked with all 3.  They learn inflection, voice and lots of other tools from hearing you.  When reading with kids it is always important to correct without criticizing.  You do kids a disservice when you ignore mistakes.  Again, not saying you hand an 8 year old Shakespeare and then correct every word, but don’t let a kid continue to make a mistake over and over because it just teaches them to say a word incorrectly and then use it incorrectly.  Be careful though, that you correct in a way that doesn’t make them afraid to read ever again.  Case in point, we were doing projects on countries in Africa and I had a 7th grader who chose Niger.  I probably don’t have to explain how he pronounced this incorrectly, I’m sure you can guess 🙂  When he was showing me his facts he said it wrong and I said “Whoa, wait, lets back up.  Lets try saying the name again.”  He tried again and it still came out wrong.  I told him how to say it and then added “Well we wouldn’t want you to get suspend for saying it the other way!”  He laughed, I laughed and he wasn’t afraid to try pronouncing other things in his report and even when he presented to the class he paused before he said the name of his country and looked at me and his brain filled in the rest.  Because the correction was kind and non-threatening, he wasn’t afraid to try again and his brain assigned a positive connection to the experience, which science has shown helps us learn and remember.

In between all my intellectual examples here, can I just point out that reading helps improve your creativity?  If your brain has to create pictures to help you get into the story then it has to get creative.  I can tell you that none of the Twilight movies really impress me because the pictures in my head were better.  No offense to Rob Pattinson but he wasn’t, and isn’t, MY Edward.  Taylor Lautner is nothing like the Jacob I saw in my head and although Kristen Stewart resembles the Bella I saw, her portrayal of her does not reflect the self-conscience yet gutsy girl the book describes.  If anything, the movies have down played the characters to the point where I no longer care to watch them because they are not a true reflection of the story to me.  Don’t get me wrong, I love movies that match the books, like Lord of the Rings or even Harry Potter.  Those work simply because I can’t even begin to imagine some of the vivid settings of Middle Earth or some of the magical creatures in Harry Potter and so seeing how the movie makers envision those things helps my enjoyment of the story.  Favorite movie going moment ever was when my friend and I were at one of the Harry Potter movies and the magical creature, a Hipppogriff I believe, came on-screen.  A kid in the front row went “WHAT?!”  Clearly, this was not how he had seen this creature at all and I loved that.  Sometimes books surprise you with the impact they make.  My 8th graders cried at the end of Anne Frank, the book, not the movie.  The movie made it more visual but the connection to Anne was formed through the diary, not some director’s vision.  Their anger, sadness, confusion and that general lost feeling when the world lets you down and you realize not all stories end happily was due solely to the people in that book whose pain they felt and whose lives they lived through those pages.  I always tell people that at Language Arts meetings there was always talk of getting newer novels because Anne’s story wasn’t meshing with “our kids”.  Well my kids were the complete opposite of Anne in every way possible except they knew what it was like to be hungry or scared or alone or picked on for something you can’t control.  Those things they hadn’t felt themselves personally they felt through her.  I always pointed this out and hope that they never remove that book from the 8th grade curriculum because the stories that matter are the ones that get kids interested in reading.

Finally, it is never too late to start!  My husband will be the first to tell you that he wasn’t that big of a reader, mainly because he prefers to see things and his eyes get tired easily when he reads.  The solution to the latter problem was apparently to get a digital reader because his eyes focus better on computerized items then they do on text and paper.  I don’t know why or how, but it has worked for him and he seems to have forgotten the former reason because of it because his brain is showing him the parts he previously said he needed to see.  I love that 1/3 of the books on our Sony are his.  Now I have someone who can talk about books with me because he can open the book I’m reading or have read and read it at his leisure and then compare with me.  I love it!  Aside from him I can’t help but think of a student I had a few years ago who brought his younger sister to conferences with him.  She must have been about 4 and she sat at my desk where we had conferences and she drew pictures and spelled her name and her brother seemed to dote on her.  Imagine my surprise when she told me he doesn’t do anything with her when I asked what she liked to do with her brother.  I said “Oh he must play dolls with you or read with you or color with you..right?”  She shook her head.  I turned to him and reminded him that he always told me he was a “bad” reader and so why wasn’t he practicing with someone who could really use a big brother to read with her?  He shrugged sheepishly and just watched her color so I turned to her for reinforcements.  I told her that she had to give him a penny anytime she wanted him to read with her and she smiled so wide at that suggestion that I knew I had my way into his thick head 🙂  I handed her 4 quarters and said “Well…thats good for 100…will you read to her for a penny?”  He agreed because he saw how happy it made her.  I didn’t think of it much but slowly his reading got a bit better in class, although he still rarely read.  At spring conferences she bounded up to my spot and took a seat.  Before I could ask she said “I help brush the dog and my mom gives me a quarter and then (insert student’s name) has to read to me 25 more times.  Did you know there were 25 pennies in a quarter?”  Not a bad way to start getting him to read more.  He told me a couple of years later that even now she will still come and ask him to read with her, but he doesn’t make her pay 🙂

So I’m sure most of you have quit on this by now but in hopes that you stuck it out, my point is simply that reading helps improve you and those around you.  It enables you to expand your mind and your world view.  If nothing else, it allows you, if only for a moment, to walk a mile in the shoes of a stranger.  Through books I have explored vampires, magic, Middle Earth, concentration camps, revolutionary Russia and the U.S., the Civil War, Apartheid in South Africa, Communism in China, the Underground Railroad, the age of Pharaohs in Egypt and I’ve been visited by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future.  I have lived in Denmark along side a prince in mourning who discovers his uncle is to blame for the death of his father and whose quest for vengeance only leads to more death.  I have fallen in love with Romeo and died with Juliet.  I have seen history through the eyes of kings, queens, slaves, soldiers, the poor, the rich, the haves and have-nots, immigrants, natives, saints, sinners, heroes and failures.  I have laughed, cried and held my breath along side the Frank family and their friends when the Nazi soldiers came knocking.  I have learned so much in the time I’ve been able to read and I look forward to learning more and being immersed in a new adventure every time I read.  Reading is an escape and an education that no amount of money could replicate as clearly and as profoundly.  There are millions of stories out there and millions of journeys at our fingers, if we only take the time to begin them.