Doug Johnson

The Man Who Does Not Read…
St. Peter School Hilites, May 1990

Consider being involuntarily placed in an institution which rigidly controls your reading:

• You are given only very short pieces of writing to read, not of your choosing. Many stories are of no personal interest to you.
• You are to read fewer than 3 of these pieces each week.
• This material is written to strict editorial standards of vocabulary and sentence length.
• Some of the vocabulary in each story has been purposely chosen to be unfamiliar to you.
• You are not allowed to read ahead, nor are you encouraged to re-read what you have already read.
• Many times you must listen as non-fluent readers read paragraphs of stories aloud.
• You are required to fill out 2 to 8 pages of difficult forms only marginally related to the materials for each story before you may read the next piece.
• Discussion of the stories is restricted to factual occurrences in plot. Questions of character, motivation and theme rarely arise.

Does this sound like a situation in Orwell’s 1984? the “Twilight Zone”? pre-Glasnost Russia? What I’ve really described are our own schools’ attempts to teach children to read using only “basal readers” and textbooks. Remarkably most children develop at least minimal basic reading skills in such a program. Less remarkably, far too few students develop a strong enough love of reading to make it as compelling an activity as television or video games. Science and history textbooks do little in themselves to peak a life-long interest in these subjects by students.

Happily, most schools supplement or supplant basal reading instruction with “whole language” approaches to reading, “literature-based” reading programs, or strong strands of independent, individualized reading activities in conjunction with the basal reading program. In these programs, students are actively encouraged to pick picture books, easy readers, and novels of personal interest to be read and re-read at individual rates. The student’s success in reading such materials is not measured by tests or worksheets, but by one-on-one teacher conferences, small discussion groups, and creative papers or projects.

Using novels and non-fiction books other than textbooks in content area classes in the upper grades also promotes the reading habit. For many children, history does not “come alive” until they read an historical novel in which a character with whom they can identify is affected by the major events of the day. By identifying with a protagonist who faces Lee’s guns at Gettysburg, flees the ash of Mt. Vesuvius, or sails with Captain Cook to the Sandwich Islands, the reader smells the smells, sees the sights, and hears the voices of history. Students who have but a nominal interest in science itself, often will read books dealing with current issues in science - spaceflight, bio-ethics, drugs, acid rain, diseases, conservation, natural disasters, computers, and super-conduction. Increasingly, our children must have both a knowledge of and long-term interest in science to be able to intelligently make some very hard decisions about our rapidly changing technology as adults.

The most noteworthy side-effect of a students reading independently, regularly, and in quantity (even at slightly below their ability) is that long-lasting gains are made in reading skills - fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. In this sense reading is just like shooting baskets or playing the piano or taking photographs - the more we do it, the better we get. That’s skill building which sure beats the socks off worksheets!

Strong media programs and well-trained media specialists in schools are critical to the success of these alternate types of reading programs. Having taken classes in children’s and adolescent literature, the certified library/media specialist is familiar with a foundation of literally hundreds of books. (At the time I was taking the classes, it seemed more like thousands.) Educational psychology and human development courses train the media specialist to recognize books which are “just right” for each age’s developmental interests and needs. Library/media programs teach library professionals “selection” methods and sources which assure the highest quality, most appropriate new books are added to the collection each year. We are also taught how to evaluate our library/media center’s holdings to see that the materials it it are appealing, the collection includes the “classics” of children’s and young adult literature, and that the materials are accessible and attractively displayed.

Media specialists, of course, directly give individual students reading guidance and advice. I have had students who would not read books that I could not personally recommend. (And who were also quite indignant when they found out I had not read every book in the library!) Whole class booktalks, bibliographies of thematically related materials, and reading contests and promotions are other methods St. Peter media specialists use to directly “match the right book with the right child at the right time.”

Less directly, but just as effectively, Pat Colby, Chuck Eggert, and I work with teachers to enrich the classroom reading and content area programs. Media specialists select supplemental books for class units, conference with individual students about books, lead small group book discussions, and help students create book reports, posters, videotapes, dioramas, dramatizations and other products which intensify the literary experience.

My greatest professional pleasure has always come when a student personally returns a book I have recommended, and asks me to find one “just like it.” Mark Twain wrote, “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” In St. Peter schools, the media program works to produce citizens who not only can read, but do read.