This article was very insightful. Being a person who loves to read and who always has, it is sometimes hard for me to understand why someone wouldn't like to read. I have often thought about how I would deal with students who didn't like to read as I would have to be the person who made them read and want to be the person who inspired a love of reading in them. I know that a lot of middle school students are not fond of reading, but I think the article helped me realize it may be more than I originally thought. It really inspired me to want to cultivate a love of reading in my students, but more than that, to advocate how important of a role parents play in students ability and love for reading.
I grew up with a grandmother, mother, and aunt who constantly read to me, bought books for me, took me to the library, and would spend any amount of time or money on my love of reading and books. I knew that these were the reasons I loved it so much, but I never thought about if my situation had been the opposite. If I had not had one member of my family who took an interest in introducing me to and keeping a passion for books and reading, would I have loved it? After reading this article, I'm not sure I would. My heart breaks to know that students possibly hate to read because a parent or family member did not nurture that so important need in a child's life.
Another realization that made me sad was to realize that students hate reading because of what we, teachers and educators, have turned it into. I think the interview with Katy, which is repeated twice in the article, puts it the best:
“So, Katy, what should I tell teachers to do so that they can help students like to read?”
“Tell them to ask the students what they thought. No teacher ever asked me what I thought. And when I start to tell them what I thought, they say, ‘We all have our opinions, but what does the story tell us?’ and you know what that really means? That really means what I think isn’t important. But maybe it is; maybe it was important to me.”
Katy's thoughts simply prove how important it is to recognize children's thoughts, not just about literature, but about everything. Children need to know their thoughts are important and valued. Honestly, if I was told that my thoughts didn't matter, I wouldn't like the subject it pertained to either. Teachers must keep in mind that they do have control over how much a student can grow to love reading in their classroom. Teachers have to create a classroom environment which allows readers to grow in their passion and love for reading.
On a final note, society as a whole has to put an emphasis back on reading. Students interviewed in the article cited things like TV, Internet, and video games time and time again as past times that were more entertaining and exciting than reading a book. We, as a world, as educators, as parents, have a duty to show children the magic, adventure, emotion, and love that can be found between the cover of a book.
The link to the article is below. It is well worth the thirty or so minutes it might take you to read it:
I agree that there are many sources contributing to this issue, and many sources that can contribute to changing it. It is hard for the teacher to turn a child around alone. Hopefully you'll have willing parents and a schoolwide culture of reading to support your efforts.
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