The Book Whisperer

“To Read or Not to Read” that is the question, and the title of the National Endowment of the Arts analysis of the reading patterns of Americans. Released last week, the NEA report compiled data from federal agencies and educational institutions in an effort to explain the role of reading in the lives of American children, teenagers, and adults.

The findings of the report indicate that reading for pleasure is on the decline among Americans of all ages with the exception of elementary school children. As students move through the educational system, they read less. Americans 15-24 years old spend as little as 7-10 minutes per day reading for enjoyment. Compare this to the 2 hours or more per day they spend watching television. As a result, reading ability declines as students get older, reinforcing the evidence that the more you read the better you get at it. Students who are poor readers do not do well in school and are less employable as adults. Bottom line, if you are not a competent reader, your ability to earn a living and participate fully in society is hindered.

Did you know when you held a child on your lap to read a bedtime story or gathered your students together to read that you were saving America? I did not know when I became a teacher what a political and social issue teaching reading was. With NCLB and reports like those from the NEA, I know it now.

The NEA report outlines many factors that have contributed to the decline in reading among our citizens including TV watching, the rise of the Internet, and the decline in book purchasing. The debate over how to teach reading is not new, and the NEA report is simply more evidence for what we should already know. What I do know is that teachers will be asked to fix it, no matter what families and society should be doing to foster a love of reading- it will fall to us. That is our job, isn’t it? We do not teach because it is easy; we teach because it matters.

We cannot control the world of the Internet (although many school districts try!), we cannot control the lack of student preparedness or home support for reading, and we cannot control the federal and state mandates for testing. What we can control is what happens in our classrooms. We are literate adults guiding and role modeling for children who are developing their literacy skills and attitudes towards reading. This is our true mandate.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 6:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My first NCTE conference was a blast! Seeing the experts who have so impacted my teaching practices was the equivalent of a four day rock festival. I felt like such a groupie! After running into Janet Allen, my idol, at three separate events, I am pretty sure she thinks I am a stalker. One of the vendor booths was passing out “I Love Janet” buttons. I snagged three!

Not only were the literacy gurus there, droves of book authors attended. I stood in line to get Neal Schusterman’s autograph and told him (and anyone else standing by) how much my students have loved The Schwa Was Here. Bruce Coville chatted with me about the mythical Butterfly Road Bill from The Prince of Butterflies. Laurie Halse Anderson is just as hip and intelligent as her characters. I went from line to line for over two hours, collecting autographs, chatting with authors, and gathering an avalanche of books.

How I wished my students could have been there with me! I missed them, then. Each would have been thrilled to talk with the creators of their beloved stories. I cannot wait to share the inside scoops I heard about upcoming sequels and new titles, show off the autographs made out to them, and pass out the new books I harvested for our library.

I was reminded of the time last spring when Rick Riordan, author of The Lightning Thief, came to our school. My students were wild about the book and rushed to get to the library for Rick’s visit. I had to stop many students from running down the hall! Arriving early (trust me we were never early anywhere else!), we earned the front row seats. The kids were overjoyed to talk to Rick and stood in line afterwards to meet him and talk about his characters.

My students and I share this bond--this love for authors and their books. We are crazy book fans together. I know that I could never lead my students to fall in love with reading if I hadn’t fallen long ago. As Wordsworth tells us:

What we have loved
Others will love
And we will teach them how.

Reading teachers should be readers first. Students need more than classroom modeling to become readers, they need life modeling. Some may not get it from home, but they should always get it from us- their reading teachers. For me, a teacher who reads, sharing books with my students is the greatest joy there is.

Thank you authors- all of you- those who have shared the wisdom of your practices and those who show my students and me the magic of words. I could not teach reading without you.

I wound up with more books than I could carry home. Fortunately, you can buy a cheap suitcase in Times Square!

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One often heard mantra from my old food service days (check out resume references from the late ‘80s) was, “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.” Managers regularly prodded line workers to clean instead of stand around during slow periods. Applying this philosophy to reading, I now believe, “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to read.”

I am packing for the NCTE Conference this week, and besides tracking down my coat (it is twenty degrees colder in NYC than Texas), I am selecting books to read on the trip. Currently in the pile- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass and A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines. Sadly, I cannot read on moving transport (motion sickness) so reading on planes and shuttles is out, but I know I will spend plenty of time waiting in airports and conference rooms. Prime reading time!

I am suspicious when people tell me that they “do not have time to read”, and even more shocked when teachers tell me that they do not have time in class for students to read a self-selected book. I capture a substantial amount of time for my students to read each day. Students read while they are waiting in line to be dismissed, waiting for class pictures, or when an interruption such as a phone call halts instruction. These moments can stack up significant reading time for students. Disruptive behavior during unstructured time becomes a non-issue, too.

I have also abandoned “warm-ups” and “when you are done” activities. I have yet to find a research proven reason for asking students to edit sentences or write journal entries for a class opener- same for those fun folders for the fast finishers. When students walk into my class, they start to read. Reading is the best way to warm-up for my class, and prepares students for instruction that circles back to their own books. If some students finish class work early, I encourage them to grab a few more precious minutes of reading time.

Recently, at a curriculum writing meeting, a colleague was alarmed when I told her I did not provide extra activities for students to complete when they finished class assignments. “Don’t you think students will rush their work in order to get back to their books?” I waited for a beat, and replied, “Lord, I hope so!”

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 8:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I belong to a book club of women who are all moms like me. Once a year we pick a classic to read (or reread). This year’s pick was To Kill a Mockingbird, for which Lee won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and on Monday received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I had read Harper Lee’s classic in high school and I remembered the plot, but what I did not remember was how magical Lee’s prose was, how connected I felt to Scout Finch, the narrator, and the rhythms of her life in that small Southern town. I wonder now if I forgot all of this or if I never got the chance to feel this connection when I read Mockingbird in English class.

I was an avid reader even back then, but I often felt disconnected from the books that we read in school. I was reading James Michener’s historical tomes and Robert Heinlein’s fantasy by the time I was in high school (OK, not classic literature, but so fun to read!). The books we were assigned were so boring! It took forever to read one, stopping after every chapter to “do something” with the book: memorize vocabulary lists, hunt for examples of figurative language, and write lengthy essays from teacher prompts. These assignments killed any momentum that might have pulled me through a book, and killed my appreciation for the book, too.

Many colleagues have insisted to me that students cannot read books that are complex and rich with literary detail without a teacher’s guidance because students are not sophisticated readers. The irony of these opinions is apparent when To Kill a Mockingbird is trotted out as an example of a book that students cannot read without a teacher. As a teacher and a reader, Scout’s views towards school and reading haunt me long after I finished the book. On the first day of school, Scout is chastised by her new teacher because she learned to read before she received formal training in school. The teacher tells Scout, “Now you tell your father not to teach you anymore. It’s best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him that I will take over from here and try to undo the damage.” Scout is crushed because she is told that she cannot read at home and tells us, “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”

As Mockingbird continues, Scout’s views show that she has become increasingly disconnected from the learning she must do at school. She says, “…as I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what, I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.” To Kill a Mockingbird was written in 1960 (set in the ‘30s), I was in high school in 1984, and as teachers and parents, we are still bemoaning the lack of engagement that students seem to have in school and with reading. Much research into reading has taken place since 1960, so what has not changed for students?

I think the mistrust is still there. Teachers do not trust students to take control of their own literacy development or their own learning. We still teach books instead of teaching readers. Students are given very little control of what they read, when they read, and how they are allowed to respond. School reading still seems to be about what teachers think students should be getting out of a book. The opportunity to fall in love with a story is denied to students who have come to view school reading as an obstacle course of comprehension assignments. Teachers are the gatekeepers of knowledge instead of the guides. Should knowledge have a gatekeeper? Until we release some of this control back to our students, they will never become independent thinkers or readers. As for students like Scout and me, who walk into classrooms already readers, we will continue to wonder why our love of reading has no place in school.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 7:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)