I’m watching my sons become readers and it is glorious. As a reader myself, I am thrilled to see that books and words exert a magnetic pull on them as well. It’s pretty fucking magical. But not unexpected.
See, we’ve been reading to our kids since … well, since day one. Literally. We had a book shower instead of a baby shower. We built them a library of engaging, age appropriate fiction and nonfiction. Books are quilted into our routine. It is never if. It’s when.
Books have always been a cornerstone of my life. And my husband’s life. It’s how we were raised. Reading is a priority. As it was for our parents. And our parents parents.
In the alternate universe I like to call “my job,” I work with teenagers who could give a shit about books. Since 2001, I’ve been confronted by scores of 15-22 year olds who have never read a novel cover to cover.
“Books are boring.”
“This story is wack.”
“I’m too tired, Miss. Reading makes me wanna take a nap.”
I cannot fully articulate the ways in which this infuriates me. For my uber-urban, fucked up, emotionally damaged students, what could be a better escape than a good book? Give it a chance! Jesus!
(This is me throwing my hands up!)
Except, they can’t give it a chance. Even if they can read the words, they can’t read the books. They’ve never learned how to personally connect to a text. They’ve never been empowered to question an author’s authority. They’ve never used a story as a launching pad for a down and dirty discussion about how to be the change. Without all that, books are simply pages and pages of letters that all look the same.
My children devour books. My students would rather starve.
What’s up, Achievement Gap?
Last night’s State of the Union bummed me out. Teachers work really hard. Incentivizing our work with merit pay is a diss. By all means, pay teachers more, but don’t expect that a higher salary or a gold star behavior chart will in and of themselves close the Achievement Gap. Families have to pull their weight too.
I work one job for 45 hours a week. I can’t imagine how incredibly stressful it must be for, say, single moms who work two jobs and have three kids at home. But research shows that reading to your kids before kindergarten offers them a serious leg up. I adore Obama, but perhaps his administration could shift its spotlight, just slightly, toward parent accountability as well.
Yes, I understand we parents aren’t “experts.” And we don’t get paid to “teach” our own kids. But it’s a sad state of affairs when 10th graders who have traveled through the public school system since they turned 5 are struggling to read.
We can point fingers. We can fire every teacher these kids have ever had. But the families are the constant. If the priorities at home match the priorities at school, I think the Achievement Gap could die a pretty quick death.
I know this is an overly simplistic approach to a very complex problem, but reading books at home with your kids can’t possibly be that far of a reach. There are some excellent (and short) books out there.
Just sayin’.
