Encourage Reading

Ted's Column for the Mapleton PRESS- Thursday, November 8, 2007

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." ~Groucho Marx

Nothing is quite so discouraging for teachers than hearing students complain about how much they dislike reading. Some kids claim that reading is boring. If that’s the problem, they just need to look a little harder to find something to read that interests them.
It’s more likely that it’s work. Kids call things “work” not just when they’re dull, but also when they’re difficult. Farm families know that some of the best things in life are the result of hard work.

I try to help students see that it is an upwardly moving spiral; the more you read the better you get at it, the better you get at it the easier it is, the easier it is the less work it is, the less work it is the more fun it is, the more fun it is the more you’ll want to do it, the more you do it, the smarter you’ll get… and so on.

Somehow over the years some kids have gotten the idea that it’s somehow “uncool” to be smart. Popular culture dictates that people who like to read or who have broad vocabularies are somehow either nerdy or untrustworthy. What’s “cool” is to be crude, thick-headed and “red-neck.” I have no problem with being proud of one’s working-class roots. Love Country music, trucks in the mud, beer, hunting and NASCAR. I like most of that stuff myself, but being willing to get your hands dirty and going out of your way to not be a snob does not mean you have to be dumb as a stump.

Knowledge, learning, reading and curiosity should never be things that only belong to people who are rich enough or good enough or sissy enough. And schools and teachers will never be able to make you any smarter than reading on your own will.

Back in the 1500’s Martin Luther encouraged families to teach their children and communities to start schools for everyone’s children so that everyone could learn to read. His main reason was so that people could read their Bibles for themselves and have personal relationships with God, rather than waiting to hear a little bit about God on Sundays.

Thomas Jefferson and many of the founding fathers advocated free universal public education because they wanted everyone, including poor children to be able to read so that they could be better informed and able to participate in our democracy. Jefferson felt so strongly about it, he proposed an amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing a right to education. His proposal got shot down, and he instead focused his energy on the University of Virginia.

During the turn of the last century Steel baron Andrew Carnegie poured his fortunes into 2,500 public and university libraries because he wanted to give other people the opportunity for learning and self-improvement that he had as a child in Scotland. That commitment to reading no doubt helped to spur many an entrepreneur and helped build the middle-class of the twentieth century.

Let’s face it, you’re sitting here with a newspaper in your hands, so obviously I am “preaching to the choir.” If you hated reading, you we wouldn’t be having this chat.
So what can we do to encourage other people to read- especially kids? There are all kinds of things. It starts with attitude.

Research suggests that the most critical aspect of reading is how a child feels about reading. Positive reinforcement is important. Kids need to know that adults they know care about reading.

How can you do that? Ask them what they’re reading, ask them to tell you about whatever they’re reading. Talk to them about whatever you’ve been reading and what you enjoyed about it.

Let them see you read. Give books and magazine subscriptions as gifts- you can write in side the front cover like you would in a card, this will make it an even more special gift. Why not give a subscription to the PRESS to your 18 to twenty-something relatives for Christmas whether they’re off in college or not?

Let them read what they want. If they’re not interested in Jayne Eyre, so what? Is it so bad if they’re reading Sports Illustrated, Cosmo Teen, Progressive Farmer, or Spiderman comic books? Hey they’re still reading. When you were young you drank McDonald’s orange drink and Tang, now as an adult you have no problem with grapefruit juice and double-decaf fat free soy milk mocha lattes. Maybe your kids will never read Leo Tolstoy, but eventually they’ll graduate to James Patterson and John Grisham. So long as they’re reading, that’s the important thing.
Have books in your house, have them in your child’s room. Read out loud, you’d be surprised that even older kids enjoy this. Don’t be embarrassed if you have a hard time reading out loud, that will only show them that they don’t have to be embarrassed.

If you do feel confident in your own reading, make it fun by spicing it up a bit with silly voices or dramatic expression. That will exercise their imaginations.
Take kids to a book store or library and let them pick out their own books. Make it a regular family outing.

Donate your old books to your local school or public library. Donate your time to that same school or library to help kids. You don’t have to read to a whole room full of kids or serve as some expert tutor- many schools have volunteer programs where all you have to do is listen to the students read, maybe gently coaching them along.

You can get lots of other ideas online at places like http://www.rif.org (RIF stands for Reading Is Fundamental).

Remind kids that reading gets easier and more fun, the more you do it. And the more you do it, the smarter you get and after all, knowledge is power. Above all, let them know that reading isn’t dumb, dorky, or lame. Reading opens opportunity.

Is reading scary? Face your fears!

“The man who doesn’t read is no better off than the man who can’t read.” ~Mark Twain.

I was a Literature major for about a semester. I thought that Art and Lit. would be a great combo. Something happened that semester though. I don’t think I read one story or novel all the way through. Somehow, just by skimming I managed to pull a ‘B’ in my Literature classes.

I felt terrible. How could I have any integrity as a high school English teacher if I hated reading? How could my professor let me get by with a decent grade, when I hardly read anything completely. That’s when I switched to History as a second major.

I thought I was lazy. I was convinced that I had Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.). As it turns out, I’m just a guy. Research shows that males prefer non-fiction (like history). We like newspapers and magazines better than books, especially articles on things hobbies or sports. We like short chapters, humor, suspense, and sometimes gross.

How do I know this? Mostly because, me, an Art teacher was appointed to a Reading Achievement Leadership team at Boyer Valley. Our job is to initiate strategies for helping students learn to read, read better and enjoy reading more.

Once a month we attend a course offered by our Area Education Agency on things like literacy and using test data to determine better teaching strategies too. One of the things we’ve started is a D.E.A.R. time in the high school. Every day, every class has to Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) for at least fifteen minutes.

One student complained to me, “but I don’t like to read.”

“Why don’t you?” I asked as sincerely as I could.

“Because I’m not good at it,” was their reply.

Fair enough. No one enjoys doing something that’s difficult. Think of it like exercise, or a sport. At first you hate roller skating because you can’t seem to keep your balance and you fall down a lot. But eventually- the longer you do it and the more often you do it, the easier it gets. The more you do it, the easier it gets. The easier it gets, the more you want to do it, and so on, until two things happen; you get really good, so it’s really easy and you like it so much that you want to do it all the time!

What makes reading more powerful than roller-skating is that the more you read, the smarter you become. Some people have this messed-up idea that there are just some people who are smart, and other people who aint (aren’t). As if there are some people who can skate and some people who can’t. Okay, not everybody is going to be Dorothy Hamill, but unless you don’t have legs, you can wobble around a rink holding on to the rail until you get your “sea legs.”

One of the most wonderful things about America is our freedom to read and our freedom to learn. Libraries are free, Public Schools are free. Anyone can strap on a pair of skates and get wobbling.

I wanted so bad to be an avid reader like my folks. I tried getting into the John Grisham, Tom Clancy or Michael Creighton mysteries like my parents. I thought I’d like Tony Hillerman since his books take place in my native Arizona, but it just didn’t do it for me.

Finally this year I found an author I could get into. J.A. Jance. Her series of mysteries takes place in Southern Arizona and follow the adventures of a thirty-something insurance adjuster who’s husband is shot down by a drug cartel. Maybe as a way to deal with her loss, she runs for Sheriff and is elected. The only experience she had was that her father had been Sheriff, but he was killed in the line of duty when she was a teenager.

You may prefer magazines or newspapers to novels, you may want to just read comic books, but everyone can find something they like to read.

The latest adventure I’ve had with reading this year, is that one of the other members of our Reading Leadership team twisted my arm to attend a meeting of the West Central Iowa Reading Association. There were teachers, librarians, and school administrators there from Denison, West-side, IKM, Battle Creek, Mapleton and Dunlap.

The keynote speaker was Jacquie McTaggart the author of a book called ‘From the Teacher’s Desk.’ She spoke about her experiences from 43 years of teaching First Graders to read. It ended up being a lot of fun, even if I was the only high school Art teacher there. I even won a free membership as a door prize!

They’re next meeting will be at Cronk’s in Denison on October 21st. Anyone and everyone is invited, you don’t have to be a teacher, you just have to believe that reading is important.

A great way to encourage your kids to read, is to let them see you reading. Of course, you can also read with them. That’s not just something for little kids either, big kids get a kick out of reading something with their parents. If you’re not comfortable with your own reading out-loud, ask your kids to read to you. It will be a fun role-reversal over the days when you read them bed time stories when they were little.

Teen Read Week is coming up October 17-23, the theme this year is “It’s alive @ your library.” I guess that since it’s October they want to appeal to the kids who like scary, spooky, and gross stories. You can find out more about it at the American Library Associations website at www.ala.org/teenread

It’s never too late to start your summer reading

I really admire my wife. She can tear through a 300 page book in a day if she wanted to, in a week at the slowest. It’s a great way to relax and regroup, to lose yourself in a good story.

Needless to say, I’ve never been as voracious a reader as she is for a variety of reasons. I think that I’m just more visual (normal for guys, more normal for an Art teacher). I certainly read a little slower than she does and frankly I get crabby easy. What I mean by that is that I’m pretty cynical, if a story is too cheesy or hokey or otherwise melodramatic, it irritates me. Consequently, when I do read, I end up reading more non-fiction than fiction. You know, history, political commentary, religion, self-help, all that kind of gobbly-gook as opposed to actual stories with a plot.

While I’ve never been formally diagnosed by a physician or a psychiatrist, I’ve always thought that I have a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder. So instead of whole books, I tend to go more for magazines or collections of essays. If I read a book it either has to really grab me, or it has to have lots of short little chapters.

When I was in college I had a roommate one who owned every book Stephen King ever wrote. He wasn’t a sick-o or anything, although he got a kick out of having people be afraid of him once they’d seen the bookshelf in our dorm room. I’m not a big horror fan any more than I am a roller coaster fan. But I love learning about any artist’s creative process, whether they’re a writer, painter, musician or actor. As a result I read almost every “Author’s notes” and afterward that Stephen King included in his books, but I can’t say as I read more than one or two of the actual books themselves.

For whatever reason this summer has been different for me. I set a goal of reading at least two books this summer and ended up getting through three. I’d like to offer you mini-book reviews in case you’re looking for something help you fall asleep at night.
Wobegon Boy by Garrison Keillor was an excellent antidote for insomnia. That doesn’t mean it was a bad book, but you know how you create a voice in your head of the narrator? Well since Keillors voice is on his radio show, A Prairie Home Companion on NPR every week, his voice was the voice I listened to in my imagination. His voice is very relaxing and slow.

The gist of the story is that John Tolofsen is a middle aged Lutheran guy who sort of lost touch with his roots and his values by rising too fast in business in New York. When his father dies, John realizes that what he’d taken for granted or even rejected are the things that he needed most.

Fletch by Gregory McDonald was a much quicker and funner read. One reason for that of course is that Chevy Chase played Fletch in a movie that came out in the late ‘80s around the same time as Eddie Murpy’s ‘Beverly Hills Cop.’ My point is that I imagined Chevy Chase’s voice reading all of Fletch’s dialogue soaked in sarcasm. As usual, the book is better than the movie.
Fletch is an investigative reporter in L.A. who’s avoiding his ex wives lawyers, his editors and dirty cops while trying to uncover a drug operation on the beach. The real mystery kicks into gear when a wealthy aviation executive hires Fletch to kill him. Like a real reporter, McDonald uses short paragraphs, sparse description and a lot of dialogue. That made Fletch perfect for someone with A.D.D. It’s a mystery novel for people who don’t like to read novels.

Because Fletch was written in third-person and used almost all dialogue, I was intimidated by my next book, but I’d been searching bookstores for it for a couple of years now, so when I got my hands on Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella I had to at least give it my best shot.

Shoeless Joe is the novel that the Kevin Costner movie ‘Field of Dreams’ was based on. Once again I had a famous actor’s voice to use and once again the book is better than the movie. That’s a tall order in this case because ‘Field of Dreams’ is one of the greatest movies ever. ESPN rates it as the all time best baseball movie, even above ‘the Bad News Bears’ and ‘Bull Durham.’

The only things that make me cry are the Gettysburg Address and the scene in ‘Field of Dreams’ where Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) finally works up the nerve to talk to the ghost catcher, who’s a younger version of his dad.

Shoeless Joe is written in first person and it does include a lot of description, but its practically poetry and it’s mostly about Iowa. Ray’s father, who played baseball as a young man but never made it to the majors, owned a hardware store in Montana. Ray came to the University of Iowa for college, tried selling insurance, but was talked into farming corn by the girl he fell in love with and married in Iowa City. It didn’t take long for him to fall in love with the land too.

Anyone who’s seen the movie knows that it’s not so much about what Ray can do for Shoeless Joe and the other 1918 White Sox as it is about what Baseball does for Ray. This book is about guys figuring out how to have relationships with other guys. Something we guys aren’t always good at.

There are two major differences between the movie and the book. One is that Ray doesn’t just have to reconcile with his dead father, he also has an identical twin who ran away from home at fifteen that Ray hadn’t seen in twenty years. The other is that the character of the radical sixties writer played by James Earl Jones in the film is actually a real writer, J.D.Salinger.

When Bethany and I first saw ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, we went out and got a copy of ‘An Affair to Remember’ with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr because the characters in the ‘Sleepless’ were so caught up and influenced by ‘An Affair.’

Likewise, I enjoyed Shoeless Joe so much that I went out and bought a copy of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger. Be warned, this book has pretty much nothing to do with baseball. I still don’t know what it has to do with the title at all. It’s probably just as well, I mean the title doesn’t make any sense anyway. Catchers don’t stand around in the rye ( a kind of grass), they’re stuck behind the plate in the dirt in front of the fence.

Catcher is also written in first person, but it’s narrated by a 17 year old boy who’s been kicked out of boarding school for poor grades. This is a smart kid, but it’s pretty clear that if this book was published in 2004 instead of 1951, he’d probably be labeled with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most banned books of all time, but I’m yet to figure out why and I only have three or four chapters left. The language is barely PG-13. Perhaps that’s another difference between ‘51 and ’04. I think it pretty accurately depicts the way a kid’s brain works.

Reading is like exercise. The more you do it the easier it gets and the easier it gets the more fun it is. The more fun it is the more you want to do it. I’m already looking forward to John Grisham’s The Bleachers when I’m done with Catcher (just in time for football season). After that I think I may try to get my hands on a copy of Garrison Keillor’s new book, Home Grown Democrat.