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’.
Amen!
Well said! And glad you said it!
I’m so very with you on the reading. It’s good for them, good for you, good for the family.
Side note: when do I get empowered to question the author’s authority? This I find confusing and makes some books, “SuperSadTrueLoveStory” being the latest, a very confusing pleasure. I like my narrators reliable and my situations tidy. Please advise.
I’m not sure where I come down on the accountability part. My daughter is 10. She can totes read to herself; has started reading books that I have to guiltily admit I never read (“You never read ‘Little Women’? Dad! It’s soo good.”); and I am trying to create family book club (first stop, Jane Austen. Book suggestions?).
I still love to read to her. I can’t imagine not loving it. I will miss it dearly when she decides she has outgrown it (though I will let her decide that, unlike the slightly creepy guy once profiled in the times who would call his daughter at sleepovers so he could read to her *every* night).
So what would my life have to be like for me not to want to do that? Parenting is super hard and I can imagine letting go of a million good and family-style things (helping with homework? Buh bye. Morning get-ready-for-school time? See ya!) but the reading is automatically cuddly and giggly and warm. To not want to do that, my life would have to be so bad that I can’t imagine it. So I have trouble judging it.
What I will judge, and this rolls back to Mr. President, etc., is a society where so many people live that life. That sucks.
And if you’re looking for an awesome read-aloud which is sort-of apropos, I love love love “The Very Persistent Gappers of Fripp” by George Saunders. All ages, for reals (realz? help!).
Adam
Adam, I love you. What a terrific comment! I can’t wait to read SuperSadTrueLoveStory and Gappers of Fripp. As for Jane Austen, I recommend Sense and Sensibility for your first stop. Family book club. I love it!
This reminded me when I thought back on it of an ad campaign here in Mexico. There is a big problem with reading in general here and there is a huge campaign about spending 20 minutes a day with your child reading aimed at parents. They are working to change this from not just the school side, but the family side as well.
exactly.
Completely wonderful blog xx
Hello, I have been reading your blog for a while now, but this is my first time commenting. Love your blog! This post is true on so many levels. I am a dietitian, and think it is too easy to blame the schools for childhood obesity and poor nutrition. The truth is, more responsibility should be given to the parents to expose their children to healthy foods and engage them in physical activity regularly. It makes me want to pull my hair out when I am counseling an obese youth, and encouraging him or her to try 1 new vegetable, when their parent starts making a face and comments how gross vegetables are. Argh! Ok I will get off my soap box now. Thanks for being so honest.
Jen
By the way, we are starting to build our library for our 4-month-old, and I would love suggestion!
Thank you so much for commenting Jen! Noce to meet you! It is easy to blame the schools for multiple ills of society. But imagine how healthy we’d be if nutrition and literacy practices started at home. hmmm….
Book suggestions for your 4 month old: Anything by Sandra Boynton, Dr Seuss board books (they like the rhymes), Mother Goose, books that you can sing (Old McDonald, Itsy Bitsy Spider etc).
Yay!
Kami for President!!!
Love this post.
miss you Ar!
I’m so with you on this. If you asked my boys to list their favorite things to do, “reading books” is right up there with bike riding, legos, and even movies. Ask the middle school kids what’s on their list of favorite things to do, and it’s rare that reading is even ON the list, let alone in the top 10. I feel sad about parents who don’t read to their kids, as well, because THEY are missing out on an incredible way to bond as a family. The time I spend reading with the boys snuggled up next to me is the most stress-free, calming, centering, flat-out happiness-inducing time of my day. I couldn’t live without it. So, it’s not just the kids who are missing out. Sad. On the flip side, I do see more of my adolescent students getting into reading because of books like “The Hunger Games”, “Unwind”, and anything written about vampires or fantasy worlds.
On that note, I hear Dr. Seuss calling….Gotta go read with the little guys. Cheers!
I could not agree more with you on bringing the responsibility of the parent back to the forefront of our children’s education. My husband is a teacher so we are very in-tune with how un-involved parents are! Its sad, its pathetic and to be honest; it totally disgusts me. Now, he teaches at the high school level and those kids, wow…I never knew just how un-involved parents could really be. Sadly I also see it at the lower grade levels because our eldest son is in 2nd grade. In first grade there were kids who would show up to school without their homework done…without their reading done…really?? Who sends a 7 year old back to school without their schoolwork done? A parent who doesn’t care, that’s who. But society as a whole, it seems, will always blame the teacher for why their precious angel is failing 1st grade, 2nd grade, etc.
Schools now must have “incentives” for kids to actually get their shit done. Really? I mean, ok…that’s great…reward them for working hard, but hello, I had NO incentive days, rewards, prizes, etc for doing MY homework, for SHOWING UP to school or for respecting the educators who will get me ahead in this rat race we call, “The real world.” I JUST DID IT. And now, I have the same expectations for my kids as my parents had for me. Do your work…do it yourself, no one is going to hand you anything…you have to work for it. Be honest, be respectful cause if you’re not, well, you’re gonna be punished for it – by me…the big bad Mom (and Dad) who actually care about raising a good kid. And why do we do this?? Because we love them!
A book shower! I’m reading your blog and taking notes on how to be a kickass parent.
I feel your frustration on getting urban kids to read. I remember in my first job mentioning reading a book for fun and my students looked at me quizzically and said, “Why would you do that?”
And who could blame them? They lived in a book wasteland. The school library had long since shut down and the books were all trashed. Their “reading” class was a scripted, teacher proof curriculum that consisted of drill and kill phonics lessons and reading out of early reader books created especially for that curriculum. They never got their hands on real literature. Worse, their teachers had no time to read aloud to them. It wasn’t in the schedule! If that was your only exposure to books you’d think reading was boring too.
SO effing unfair.