Reviving a Passion for Reading

Last Friday, I went to DC’s Politics and Prose bookstore for an author talk by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith about their book Van Gogh: The Life, which I highly recommend. Apparently, Van Gogh’s family was big on reading. According to Naifeh and Smith

Every evening at the parsonage ended the same way: with a book. Far from being a solitary, solipsistic exercise, reading aloud bound the family together […]. Anna and Dorus read to each other and to their children; the older children read to the younger; and, later in life, the children read to their parents. Reading aloud was used to console the sick and distract the worried, as well as to educate or entertain.

While I would love to delve into the big problems of the education system, this passage reminds me of how becoming passionate about books was one of the biggest advantages I had in overcoming my circumstances. Let’s face it: we may want teachers to save our kids and prepare them for the future, but it is unrealistic to expect such miracles from even the best of teachers when they get at most 6 or 7 hours with a kid. So, I firmly believe that finding ways to engage kids outside of the classroom in a constructive way is essential to their development. One of the most important ways to do that is to go beyond just getting them to read, but rather getting them to love reading.

Growing up in Chicago, one of the best places to go in the heat of summer or icy winter was the library—and Chicago has a large network of libraries, some with great selections. We also had a phenomenal program called Book It! Pizza Hut would give you a personal pan pizza if you read 6 books in a given month. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, my mom would often read to or with me and would save up money to buy me new books.

Mom didn’t limit what I read much either. When it came time to buy that book for being good, it was often a book out of the Goosebumps series (no disrespect, R.L. Stein). My teacher contacted my mother to “let her know the kinds of things I was reading” (ironically for that Book It! program). My 3^rd grade teacher was slightly taken aback when my mom calmly said, if Ryan wants to read a book—even if it is Stephen King’s Needful Things—then I’m not going to stop him.” While adolescence may have made my mom question her choice, in the end I think she was dead on. Not only did she empower me to make decisions for myself, but she also gave me ownership over reading and allowed me to enjoy it by choice not force.

When I taught in rural Panama, I faced a very different culture: reading was viewed as drudgery necessary for school at best or utterly useless in many cases. When I had spare time between planning lessons, I would often lay in the hammock under the mango tree with a book (and one of my host siblings and a bunch of chickens running around). My host mom would marvel at the amount of reading I did. She loved to ask the neighbors coming through the house, “can you guess how many pages Ryan read today?” They’d guess a “ridiculously high number” like 15 and then she’d drop the bomb, “No, 80.” I may have been responsible for a small number of aneurysms that year.

When adults and kids share the idea that reading is something that is inaccessible, irrelevant, or downright boring, it deprives the whole community and it makes it incredibly hard for teachers to be effective. Teachers often have to waste class time trying to force kids to read items that should have been read at home, often at a slower pace because the kid does not have the passion for reading or the focus that previous reading experience brings. That reduces the amount of interactive time among students and teachers, and denies kids the benefit of having a structured activity outside of the classroom to continue their learning. So much learning attrition occurs during the summer for kids that lack such structure, so it is particularly critical that they have this passion to bridge the time between lessons (especially for breaks over 24-48 hours) in a meaningful (and ideally enjoyable!) way. (Read more about summer attrition in learning and how it particularly affects low-income kids on the School Fest Blog.)

There are many benefits to reading, especially when you are poor:

1. Reading requires and develops an intense sense of focus, as you need to recall plot, character development, themes, dialogue, and bring them together to get the most out of a story. Unlike Facebook, TV, and computers, reading demands and cultivates your ability to give your undivided attention. This skill of focus is what ultimately allowed me to become so good at studying foreign languages, completing complicated tasks, and realizing long-term goals.
2. When done with others, it opens spaces for conversation and discussion. It is a great way for a parent to engage with their kids on complex issues, events, characters’ decisions and morality that may not otherwise present themselves. This social aspect (which is an important part of the quote I shared from the Van Gogh book) in turn makes reading more interactive and enjoyable and reinforces a kid’s love of reading.
3. Reading a book gives you an opening to make a new friend when you see others reading the same book or a book you’ve already ready (just don’t be a spoiler).
4. It reinforces your knowledge of grammar and builds your vocabulary. This in turn makes you better able to express yourself, communicate, and write. Importantly, it gives you alternative ways to communicate. Surviving poverty can require a lot of ingenuity, but all those talents are often unrecognized because others don’t take you seriously when you sound “uneducated.” Be yourself, but also know how to show the world what you've got to offer.
   
5. Reading often requires that you bring something to the table to get the full story, usually a vivid imagination and a willingness to engage using your memories and experiences. In a country when start-ups and small businesses account for about 80% of job creation, we want people who are constantly engaging their imagination because exercising their creativity makes them more likely to come up with that product or service that will fill a great need and employ some people.
6. The process of choosing reading prepares people for self-directed study and research, which can serve in schooling but also when you want to teach yourself how to fix a roof. In general, it creates an opportunity for kids to improve in their decision making and to take ownership over their learning outside of school.
   
7. It gives you a form of escapism in new situations or a sense of belonging when a character or occurrence reminds you of something you've felt or lived.
8. It is a quick way to experience many other ways of thinking and acting.
9. Where there are libraries or free newspapers, it is a relatively low-cost or free form of entertainment.
10. Reading has become intensely democratic: I could read Tolstoy on an annual income of $20,000 and a few years later Oprah Winfrey and millions of Americans of various social strata, backgrounds, and ages read the same book. I can also brag about reading Anna Kerenina before Oprah, so put that in your pipe and smoke it.
11. Books are always better than the movie.

Now, if you are a volunteer, a teacher, or a parent, here are some tips from Missouri State on how to get your child to love reading that I think provide a good start (so too is the Van Gogh biography quote in this post). The gist is that you need to model behavior of loving books and reading whenever possible, being mindful of any potential vision impairments that may be preventing your kid from reading. I can’t help but think if only more kids got addicted to books instead of drugs or booze…okay, okay, I’m admittedly a dork. Nonetheless, it is never bad to give kids a leg up, a new hobby, and a chance to be Oprah’s equal without having to give an audience full of people new cars.

Act on it!

If you have kids, set aside a time where you read with or to them. Give them an opportunity to choose a book they are excited about, and read with them, ask them questions about the book, and see where it leads. You can strengthen the appeal of reading by creating a special, cozy place for reading or by making it a night that you do something special like bake cookies so that reading is embedding in a web of positive associations.

If you don't have kids, consider volunteering at a library, hospital, bookstore, or school.

Donate used books that have been sitting on your shelf (not just those romance novels, send some of those good ones, too) to public libraries and schools so that more people can use them!

Support your local bookstore and for your next night out, bring your friends or family and get them excited. There are amazing institutions like Politics and Prose around the country that need your support to compete with e-readers to stay afloat and offer cool programming that helps get people behind the text of a book or find that bridge between books and real life.

If you are in a position of authority with kids and notice they don't like or are uncomfortable reading, try to get their vision checked or look for conditions that may impede reading. Often times, it is an undiagnosed physical problem that makes a kid unable to enjoy reading. (read more about these problems at the Children's Vision Information Network.)

Insist that libraries are not cut from your local schools at their PTO/PTA/PTSA or with local government officials. Work with the community to find funding or alternatives when government or school budgets become tight. (Read this amazing article from Washington DC's City Paper about a woman who shaped libraries in an admittedly problematic DC Public School System).

Start a book club and let your kids know about it! Let them join or do a family book club too.

Start a book swap or find one and become active.

If you hear a child being belittled for reading or doing something bookish, subtly show admiration or praise to reaffirm that what they are doing is right (confronting the bully may not be the best strategy because it could lead to more teasing). Sometimes kids just need a role model to give them that extra push when other kids are mean and potentially could curtail a love of books and learning.

In the meantime, read something: you never know who is watching and might catch the bug.

Discuss it!

What are some ways you've gotten your kids to read?

What strategies help you to read?

How have you gotten involved in creating a culture of reading in your home or community?

Do you know a kid with a vision problem that affected reading? Share a story of the struggle and how you worked to overcome it!