Creating lifelong readers

[babylonsister]

Creating lifelong readers
Posted by tscarrit November 25, 2007 3:31 AM



If you are reading this col­umn, chances are you are more successful than the average person, more involved in your community and less likely to be in prison.

That is not because of anything I have written. It is because you have chosen to read.

A new study by the Na­tional Endowment for the Arts suggests that reading transforms lives. "Regular reading not only boosts the likelihood of an individual's academic and economic success -- facts that are not especially surprising -- but it also seems to awaken a person's social and civic sense," wrote Dana Gioia, chairman of the NEA.

While correlation is not the same as cause and ef­fect, it is clear from the new report, "To Read or Not To Read," that all kinds of posi­tive measures go along with voluntary reading. Those who cannot read, or choose not to read, do not fare so well.

After considering data from a number of studies, the NEA reports three conclusions: "Americans are spending less time reading. Reading comprehension skills are eroding. These declines have serious civic, so­cial, cultural and economic implications."

This new study uses some data from the group's 2004 report, "Reading at Risk," and adds information from a lot more sources.

In the midst of the bad news, though, there is an opportunity. While reading skills for older teenagers have been dropping for 15 years, the reading test scores for 9-year-olds are at an all-time high.

more...

http://blog.al.com/tscarritt/2007/11/creating_lifelong_readers.html

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. But decoding skills mean nothing if a person

1) can't understand what s/he is reading and/or

2) isn't interested in reading

I went to a mediocre high school and a third-tier undergraduate college, but I can hold my own with private school and Ivy League graduates. Why? Because I grew up in a house full of books with parents who encouraged reading. By the time I got to world history in high school, I already knew most of it from having read the Horizon books that my dad liked to buy.

One of the undergraduates I taught had unusually good skills in spelling, grammar, and sentence and paragraph construction. I commented that she must have gone to an acadeically rigorous high school. Not at all, she told me. In fact, she had gone to a poor rural high school with low academic standards but because she read so much she developed a feeling for good usage and an expanded vocabulary.

Back when I was teaching (1984-1993), some of my older colleagues told me that the college students of that day seemed less articulate than those of previous generations, in the sense of speaking with smaller vocabularies and less complicated sentence structure, even when making presentations.

I had no basis for comparison at the time, but I've noticed over the years that many people nowadays talk like TV sitcom characters.

[Mythsaje]

3. Readers (and writers) rule. n/t

[Mythsaje]

2. I think JK Rowling was a godsend...

And I thank whatever Gawds there may be that both my children are readers...

[LWolf]

4. Lifelong readers are created in the home.

Children who grow up seeing adults reading by choice, hear them discussing what they are reading, are read to every day, are surrounded by books, learn to value reading, and learn to open a book to learn or to be entertained.

Children who don't, don't.

I have a 7 yo grandson who is a great reader. He reads well beyond the norm for his age, but he "doesn't like reading." He will read if he has an audience, because he likes performing, so we get reading done by providing him that audience, and we get to talk to him about it.

He spent his first 4 years with his mom, though, who didn't like reading and never had a book in the house. He spent most of that time in front of the tv, and by the time he came to us, his priorities were well set. We've severely limited tv time, taught him to read, surrounded him with books, shared our favorites, read to him, and he reads to us, but after 3 years he still "doesn't like reading" and would pick the tv every time.

We haven't given up, but early conditioning is very difficult to overcome.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. My father was a classic bookworm, the kind who bought

food, shelter, and books in that order. (Clothing was way down on the list.)

There were always new books coming into the house.

On my mother's side of the family, reading one's self to sleep is a tradition that goes back at least four generations that we know of.

[LWolf]

6. That sounds like my place.

My mom always had a wall of books, and I was at the library a couple of times a week. I have so many books as an adult I can't fit them all in the house. I still read myself to sleep every night.

[murielm99]

7. Our kids grew up reading.

One of my most cherished pictures is a snapshot of my husband sitting in a chair reading a book, and my oldest daughter sitting in the chair next to him reading her own book. Another favorite is a picture of my son reading "Tooth-Gnasher SuperFlash" to his little sister.

I started working part-time in the local public library when my oldest was six. Over a period of years, I moved to full-time employment there. My kids came to the library every day after school. They knew the library as a source of information and fun. It made a huge difference for them academically. They still read.

Not every child will get to grow up in the library. But parents can still read to their kids regularly. Fifteen minutes a day can make a huge difference.

[babylonsister]

9. Great advice! I too was fortunate to have parents who knew the value

of reading and enjoyed it. It must have rubbed off on me my 4 siblings, because we all love to read.

And I'm jealous of your job! I always thought working in a bookstore or library would be great fun.

[murielm99]

10. I don't work there any more.

I was there for 14 years. After I became library director, it became all politics. It consumed me and my health. I also inherited a terrible board, a pack of republicans who were more concerned with upgrading the facility than the services. I went back to teaching. It paid better, too.

[LWolf]

11. My boys grew up in the school library,

since that's where I worked. They were there every morning before school, and every day after school, K-8th grade. They never ran out of things to read!

[Arkansas Granny]

8. I began reading to my kids as soon as they were big enough to

sit in my lap and look at pictures (one of my sons told me recently that this is his earliest memory). They always scored in the 90th percentile or higher in reading skills and comprehension. Reading is the basic building block of knowledge.