The Art of Reading

When people tell me they don't read and that books don't interest them - I become very judgmental.  What do they do with their time?  How they learn new things?  And, most importantly, what is wrong with them?  Despite the best efforts of the 1970s reading curriculum used in central Wisconsin, books have always inspired and challenged me (more on this later).  
   I am a reading specialist and work daily with middle school kids on everything reading.  I try to match hormonal students with books they enjoy and then conference with them about what they read.  89 percent of the reading curriculum involves students choosing what they read and teachers suggesting strategies for students to have a richer reading life.  Do these kids know how lucky they are to have agency over book choice?  Nope. 

Time for a rabbit hole!  Here are my favorite books, so far, from the 2018 - 2019 school year.

The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, by Dusti Bowling
Front Desk, by Kelly Yang
Restart, by Gordon Korman   

Reading class was very different when I went to school.  There was no choice.  If choice existed, I would have been on a steady diet of pioneer books and red headed sleuth books.  (What the heck.  Time for another rabbit hole.  My students have the good fortune of binging on books about girls loving werewolves and boys climbing Mt. Everest with their estranged father.  I have yet to read a book about a boy falling in love with a girl werewolf or a girl climbing Mt. Everest with an estranged mother.  Would someone please write these books?)

Teachers weren't sweating over finding books I connected with.  I had to find those books on my own.  Educators followed a simple formula every year.  Students were divided into three groups - high, medium, and low.  We were given basal readers which were collections of boring stories with comprehension questions and vocabulary words at the end.  We spent the year reading the basal readers and that was it.  I read the basal stories quickly so I could get to the books I brought from home.  

See what I mean? 

My 6th grade reading teacher, Mrs. Stack, must have noticed I was ripping through the basal stories because she dropped a copy of Dickens' Great Expectations on my desk.  To say I read it would be a lie, I skimmed it.  Sadly, Great Expectations didn't include covered wagons or orphans living in box cars.  Plus Dickens was addicted to describing each and every thing with so many words!  Tedious.  

I am bored just looking at this illustration.  

I was excited to return to my 7th rereading of Little Women after finishing Great Expectations.  Unfortunately for me, Mrs. Stack noticed and assigned me to read "To Build a Fire," by Jack London.  What eleven year old wants to read about a cold man trying to build a fire in a snow drift?  The dog in the story did little to move the plot along.  Later in the year, I wised up and hid my book inside the basal reader. 

I don't know what to do about adults who don't read.  But, I will continue my journey of finding engaging books for my students, hoping they will become adults who read.
    
Prairie Eydie