June 20, 2001
School is shutting down.
Summer vacation is just about here.
This is a great time for the students who have been working on academic
skills all year. Summer
vacation time is when kids need to take a break from their academic demands and
relax their brain for a little while.
But the summer months are also a great time for some pleasure
reading. Our communities have some
great public libraries. Each
library has tons of great books for kids. And
the books are all free. Going to
the library once a week and allowing the kids to pick out their own books can
lead to some fun reading.
But when the kids come home with their books, let them read
the way they want to read. The
easiest way to kill the love of reading is to sit down with your kids and try to
teach them phonics, pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling and other academic
skills. This is a time for fun
reading. The kids don’t need any
pressure to read. And the
kids don’t need teaching, interrupting and correcting while they read.
I still feel guilty about how I handled my first boy’s
reading experience. I love reading.
I love writing and I love learning.
And I couldn’t wait to teach my first child all of those skills.
I knew Ross would just love reading as soon as I taught him how.
And I also knew how much pleasure he would get when he learned to read
books.
I remember sitting Ross down on my lap to begin his first try
at reading a book for me. I kind of
knew it was too early but I couldn’t wait.
The first line in the book was something like: “The boy ran into the barn.”
Ross was nervous as he began to read:
“The boy ran ‘in’ the barn.”
I stopped him and told him he was doing fine but the word was “into”
not “in.” And then I asked him
to read the line again. This time
he read: “This” boy and I
stopped him again and reminded Ross that the sentence was:
“The” boy—not “ this” boy.
By the time he read the line for the third time he had lost
interest in the story. He was fed
up with being interrupted and corrected. And
he just wanted to get away from the book and away from me.
Ross looked up from the book and said, “Dad,
I don’t want to read this book anymore.”
I will never forget his look or his words.
I was so disappointed. I was
so hurt.
But I learned a lot about teaching and learning that evening.
When it was time for my second boy to read I had a completely
different attitude. I had learned
from my disaster with Ross.
Brian sat on my lap and read the same story with the same
line: “The boy ran into the
barn.” Brian read something like: “The
boy ran over the grass.” I said :
“That’s great, Brian. Keep
on going. You’re doing fantastic.
Way to go. What a reader.”
Brian finished the entire book his way.
He read the words the way he saw them.
And he made any changes he felt necessary.
But he kept on reading and I kept on encouraging.
I could see that Brian really enjoyed the experience.
When he turned the last page he looked up at me with a big grin and said:
“Dad, this was fun. Can we
read another book?”
My third boy, Kevin, seemed to get a head start on reading.
When it was his turn to begin reading, my wife and I had taken off all
the pressures connected to reading. I
think Kevin was aware of this relaxed attitude.
And I know he still finds a lot of pleasure with reading and with
writing.
I have always been pretty cheap when it comes to buying
material good for my sons and my grandchildren. But I have always made it a point to provide plenty of books
for them.
And I always wrote something personal in the book.
I would write: Their name—love—Grampa in the book. My son Brian told me a great story about my ten-year-old
granddaughter, Jessica. Brian and
Jess were clearing out some of her old books.
Brian said she wouldn’t throw out any books that read:
“Jess—Love—Grampa.”
When kids learn to read they don’t need the pressure of our
emphasis on mechanics and achievement. And
they don’t need our correcting and interrupting.
But they do need our encouragement and our enthusiasm.
Kids need the freedom to develop a rhythm and a flow to get their
balance. They need to see reading not as a chore or a task.
They need to see books as their friend.
And they need to see reading as a pleasure.
In our house we made it a point to put books in the cribs of
our kids when they were very young. I remember how pleased my wife and I were
when we walked by their room early in the morning and saw them looking at a
book. In our family, books were a
very important part of the furniture. And
we usually ended the day by tucking the kids into bed and reading them a special
story.
If you put lots of pressure on your children and force them
to read, they may graduate from school reading two years above the national
norm. But what is their attitude
about reading going to be? And how
much are they going to read after graduation?
If you emphasize the joy, the pleasure and the excitement of
reading, your children will teach them selves to become better readers each
year. And they will read for
the knowledge. But they will also
read for the pleasure of reading.