Loving to Read

I do want them to enjoy reading so that they would choose to do that when they have free time. Kathleen 2015

In my study, almost all the women expressed a wish that their children would not only learn to read but that they would love to read. It was a universal desire.

I loved to read books to my grandchildren. They loved The Five Chinese Brothers. Berenstain Bear books held a huge appeal for years. Charlie Brown’s Christmas was a favorite with us all singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing together at the end. We read Fancy Nancy over and over and laughed madly at the end of Shel Silverstein’s poem The Monkey. I loved reading and I wanted them to love reading.

Recently, with all the ‘teaching to the tests’ in school, I wondered what kind of a job they were doing with getting the kids to love reading. I had an opportunity last year to see a first grade reading class. My grandson had spent the night, and a snowstorm arrived in the morning. It resulted in an asynchronous snow day; he had a list of activities he had to complete in his own time, and I watched over his shoulder, very curious about how he spent this time. I was very disappointed in the reading task. He had to read a story twice. It was called Gail the Snail and Jake the Snake. It was about Gail and Jake who flew in a plane to Spain and painted in the rain. It was exceptionally boring. You didn’t get to know the characters, there was no humor, no plot, no excitement. And he had to read it twice! You’ll never guess what he had to do at the end. Yep, he had to list all the words with a long A sound in them. How is this going to nurture a love of reading? And to top it off, Jax is already a very advanced reader. One would have hoped that he might enjoy reading at a more challenging level, or at least a quality story.

Where are all the fun books? Dr. Seuss? Frog and Toad? Amelia Bedelia? I loved Frances who wanted to only eat Bread and Jam and struggled when her little sister Gloria celebrated her birthday. And who couldn’t relate to Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? And didn’t the wild rumpus in Where the Wild Things Are stir up just a little fear with excitement? These are books I remember from reading to my children. I’ve seen possibly even better books that my daughter finds for her children. Rosie Revere, Engineer was lots of fun for the children of two engineers. The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors was charming and the book about crayons made me laugh.

I was in South Carolina a few years ago and had a tour of a new K - 5 school. I asked to see the library and was ushered into what seemed like a large closet – no windows. It was really just a storage room lined with shelves filled with little wire baskets. In each basket there were eight or more identical cloth books and what looked like teachers’ guidebook. I was puzzled. Apparently, it was used to teach to the test. It gave the children first-hand experience with the type of questions and material that they would face when they took the standardized tests. I believe there was also another library somewhere in the school with windows and bean bags and a librarian who would help kids find books they might love, but it was interesting that the closet library was the one I was shown.

 Whether your kids are in school or at home, find books they love!