Reading is a gift. The experience of it, a gift. One that should be treasured, but is often seen as more of a “have to do”, than a “get to do”. The stress that sometimes accompanies reading causes students to despise the task, and dream of the days they no longer have to read. But I watched a TED talk that really got me thinking about the love of reading, or rather the fading love of it in our students. If inspiring a love for writing is important, then creating a love for reading is even more so.

Author Jacqueline Woodson spoke so eloquently in “What Reading Slowly Taught Me About Writing”. As with most things I come across each day, it made me think of how I’m instructing students. What can I do to better serve them? So, I thought I would jot down a few reflections, and perhaps inspire some changes in your reading experience, or how you read with your kiddo.

1. Reading fast can’t be the primary goal. Fluency is always a reading goal, as is comprehension; however, it’s important to the enjoyment of reading that a reader take their time, get engrossed in the story, and, as Woodson suggests, “respect the narrative”.

2. Reading is the single, greatest influence we have to building our vocabulary and language skills, and exposing us to people, places, and cultures we’d otherwise have no knowledge of. How do we make the most of this when we sit down to read? Expand reading genres and levels as much as possible. For most students, ambitious reading goals means lots of academic reading assignments. Outside of grade level reading material though, exposing your student to more challenging books and stories, even if you have to read to them, will expose them to more mature vocabulary, and sentence structures. If still recommend you do so for kids already reading above grade level. The point of the challenge is to increase exposure. It will also fill in gaps in their background knowledge and geographical or historical content to weave in engaging stories about history, geography, and various cultures.

3. ”… I learned to imagine an invisible finger taking me from word to word, from sentence to sentence, from ignorance to understanding.” Every reading experience should teach us something. Leave an imprint on our brain of its presence. Whether we’re remembering the fantastic imagery of a fictional tale, or storing details of a story never read before, the words don’t leave us when we close the book. Every story, lesson, and text should stay with us to connect the dots of others we’ll read, or even places we’ll experience later.

4. “… I continue to read slowly, knowing that I am respecting the author’s work and the story’s lasting power.” Savor every word. Get to know each character, every part of the narrative, and then, read it again! What does the the text show the second time? Third? I hope you (and our students) find a story that makes them want to live in it again. What a wonderful gift that would be.

Happy viewing, and happy (slower) reading!

-Tia