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RE: Trying to define "reluctant readers"
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From: Kate Brown <kbrown_at_brevisconsult.com>
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:25:49 -0500
I have an uncle who is now about 87 (?) years old. A frustrated, sometime angry, but generally nice kid, all reports indicate that he probably was dyslexic as a child. Instead, he was labeled "slow," but for this reportedly terrific kid, grade-school and high school teachers set "loser" expectations." As a growing kid and adult, he was a non-reader, not just a reluctant reader, until his late 50's when, during his family's annual visits, he and my mother, his sister, would spend several hours on the porc h or at the kitchen table talking, drinking coffee, eating NY crumb cake, and doing the crosswork, my mother's daily avocation. "What's a five letter work for ascend," my mother would ask. "Starts with c." "Climb?" he woul d suggest. And it went on like that for all day, for days, weeks, and years, until finally, my uncle said to my mother, "How do you know all those words?" "Reading, I guess," she answered. "Well, you have anything I'd lik e to read?" he asked ... and that was the beginning of almost four d ecades of voracious reading of anything and everthing that caught his eye and/or interest. Sports, of course; politics; history; fiction; gardening; construction ... and always fiction. Not only was he reading for himself, but without realizing it, he was modeling reading for his four kids. He ha s become so at ease in just about any conversation; he is always looking for the next "good book;" and he always has two or three in process at a time.
I know my uncle isn't unique, but he also isn't that rare. Reluctant reader? Non-reader? How many adults can you think of who don't read something? Not everybody is a book read, but tons of people are passionate about the blogs they read every day or the magazines they read every week o r month. So it's the TV GUIDE ... it's reading! Working in a middle school, I'd sense I was loosing kid mid-seventh grade, but if I could find the righ t magazine or short work of fiction, I could help him/her bridge that "I hate reading" period. Worked with some, but not all, but reports from the high school librarian encouraged me with news that they were still reading magazines at least, or websites!
Three more thoughts and then I'll sign off:
1. If you havent' yet heard of them, look into stereoscopic screens. They are shaded pieces of glass that are laid over printed pages to reduce the amount of yellow in the paper. Evidently, they make what is a physically uncomfortable experience for many kids into an entirely different experience. People have told me they may be covered by insurance, and that the particulars of the screens have to be diagnosed by trained personnel. A friend, a reading specialist, introduced me to them, and told me amazing stories of what the screens did for certain kids' reading ability.
With this in mind, I became much more sensitive to the quality and color of the paper, especially of paperbacks, and in all books, to the size and type of a book's font, how much of the page was given overn to white space, and openness, or distance, between characters, lines, and paragraphs. Have you ever watched a kid read, and noticed that s/he he blinks frequently, wipes his/her eyes, moves the book/reading material toward and away from his/her eyes? There you go.
3. My reading indicates that with pre-adolescent and adolescents, a subjectively large percentage of reading discomfort has a direct connection to hormonal imbalance (hormonal imbalances!) in these age groups. Now I don't see myself walking up to a kid struggling to read a book and say, "Hi, I see you're having trouble reading that copy of the book ... how are your hormones today?" I could see myself saying something like, "It's amazing how often one copy of a book hurts my eyes to read, while with another, I find myself racing through it. Would you like to try our hardback? It might not make your eyes water like that ... like mine do?"
Just a couple of ideas. Throw them away if you want, or get into some of the databases and look for other articles on physicl reading. I have been amazed at the research that's going on ... position of the book, the chair the kid is in, reading alone v reading with friends ... Have fun! -- kbb
Catherine O. Brown kbrown_at_brevisconsult.com Consultant Massachusetts
_____
From: Christine Taylor-Butler
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 5:37 PM To: ccbc-net_at_ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: Re:
Trying to define "reluctant readers"
I think Nell and Meghan are on to something. I've noticed a tendency for the world to try to "categorize" readers and then we develop one size (or two size) fits all strategies. Really - each kid is different and even those with "issues" don't necessarily learn or are motivated the same way.
I have one daughter who has Attention Deficit. She also test off the charts on IQ. We've learned that students with ADD and ADHD often have "high interest" topics which you have to drag them away from because they'd do it ad nauseum - in her case, reading. And low interest topics that don't interest them (in her case math). When she was in High School she struggle d with grades and classwork until a doctor told us that schools determine progress by the ability of a student to complete the task on the school's timeline rather than the student's. The school then balked when - for a final assignment she had to pick an author and a book to read and while her peers picked short stories, she picked Atlas Shrugged (don't ask - I can't explain that one). She completed the assignment ahead of time and included notes from audio interviews she found on Youtube. The key was that as a family we supplemented what she "had to read" for class with what she wante d to read for pleasure. That's been the philosophy since she w as in kindergarten. Back then, we played audio books while we worked on chores an d that may have been a factor.
Contrast that to her younger sister who was a reluctant reader and no amoun t of shoving books at her could get her to read independently. We finally found the magic key - audio books. Turns out she had advanced comprehension and wanted to read above the level of books provided for her in elementary school. Her intellectual interests were in line with her sisters (5 year ag e gap). So we bought audio versions of books her older sister was reading (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Dark Materials trilogy, etc.). Her oral comprehension began skyrocketing, but her reading skills were still lacking . Her elementary school - using "designer techniques" had not taught her any "decoding" skills. So reading was mentally exhausting for her. Then we bought Artemis Fowl when she was in middle school. She burned through the first four on audio while getting tutoring, then demanded to get the next i n the series as a book. She carried the book around like a bible, even asking me to drive her back to school one afternoon w hen she discovered she'd left it in her locker. Afterwards I did the unthinkable - I gave her Twilight. She balked at the 450 pages - I acknowledged the books were a bit weird - but told her I wanted to see if she could tackle something that size. She burned through the first three books at lightening pace, and is now so "hungry" for YA books she's digging through my boxes of ARC's and asking to join YALSA. She's coming with me to ALA-NOLA in the summer.
The right book - for the right kid - MAY be what flips that switch.
As an African American writer and parent I'm always mystified that people translate the idea that urban kids want to read about students like themselves to mean "exactly like the stereotype." We get ghettos and drugs , and bleak environments, etc. The kids tell you they like those books because they want to please you, but all of my daughter's friends at the college prep school (boys and girls) hate them with a passion. We have a hard time convincing local schools to give students something that will stretch their imagination a bit more even as those students are sneaking those books into school and recommending them to each other. I can't tell you how often Twilight was borrowed by boys (scratching my head over that one).
So from my perspective - what the "system" wanted my children to read turne d them off to reading (peruse a school's summer reading list and see what I mean). What my children wanted to read turned them "on." We emphasize both since required reading is just that - required to get the needed "grade". But I wanted to raise children with a lifelong love of reading. That's why there are so many books on our shelves and in a library and in a bookstore. Because somewhere in that pile is a story that will captivate a child and not let them go.
But if reading is a chore - then turn them on with an audio that has a good reader. I tell urban parents to do that when they are too tired to read to their child at night, or use them at bath time, or in the car.
Maybe if we worked harder to match the right book to the right child - ones they love instead of the ones WE love, this conversation about reluctant readers would be less urgent......Christine
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:25:49 -0500
I have an uncle who is now about 87 (?) years old. A frustrated, sometime angry, but generally nice kid, all reports indicate that he probably was dyslexic as a child. Instead, he was labeled "slow," but for this reportedly terrific kid, grade-school and high school teachers set "loser" expectations." As a growing kid and adult, he was a non-reader, not just a reluctant reader, until his late 50's when, during his family's annual visits, he and my mother, his sister, would spend several hours on the porc h or at the kitchen table talking, drinking coffee, eating NY crumb cake, and doing the crosswork, my mother's daily avocation. "What's a five letter work for ascend," my mother would ask. "Starts with c." "Climb?" he woul d suggest. And it went on like that for all day, for days, weeks, and years, until finally, my uncle said to my mother, "How do you know all those words?" "Reading, I guess," she answered. "Well, you have anything I'd lik e to read?" he asked ... and that was the beginning of almost four d ecades of voracious reading of anything and everthing that caught his eye and/or interest. Sports, of course; politics; history; fiction; gardening; construction ... and always fiction. Not only was he reading for himself, but without realizing it, he was modeling reading for his four kids. He ha s become so at ease in just about any conversation; he is always looking for the next "good book;" and he always has two or three in process at a time.
I know my uncle isn't unique, but he also isn't that rare. Reluctant reader? Non-reader? How many adults can you think of who don't read something? Not everybody is a book read, but tons of people are passionate about the blogs they read every day or the magazines they read every week o r month. So it's the TV GUIDE ... it's reading! Working in a middle school, I'd sense I was loosing kid mid-seventh grade, but if I could find the righ t magazine or short work of fiction, I could help him/her bridge that "I hate reading" period. Worked with some, but not all, but reports from the high school librarian encouraged me with news that they were still reading magazines at least, or websites!
Three more thoughts and then I'll sign off:
1. If you havent' yet heard of them, look into stereoscopic screens. They are shaded pieces of glass that are laid over printed pages to reduce the amount of yellow in the paper. Evidently, they make what is a physically uncomfortable experience for many kids into an entirely different experience. People have told me they may be covered by insurance, and that the particulars of the screens have to be diagnosed by trained personnel. A friend, a reading specialist, introduced me to them, and told me amazing stories of what the screens did for certain kids' reading ability.
With this in mind, I became much more sensitive to the quality and color of the paper, especially of paperbacks, and in all books, to the size and type of a book's font, how much of the page was given overn to white space, and openness, or distance, between characters, lines, and paragraphs. Have you ever watched a kid read, and noticed that s/he he blinks frequently, wipes his/her eyes, moves the book/reading material toward and away from his/her eyes? There you go.
3. My reading indicates that with pre-adolescent and adolescents, a subjectively large percentage of reading discomfort has a direct connection to hormonal imbalance (hormonal imbalances!) in these age groups. Now I don't see myself walking up to a kid struggling to read a book and say, "Hi, I see you're having trouble reading that copy of the book ... how are your hormones today?" I could see myself saying something like, "It's amazing how often one copy of a book hurts my eyes to read, while with another, I find myself racing through it. Would you like to try our hardback? It might not make your eyes water like that ... like mine do?"
Just a couple of ideas. Throw them away if you want, or get into some of the databases and look for other articles on physicl reading. I have been amazed at the research that's going on ... position of the book, the chair the kid is in, reading alone v reading with friends ... Have fun! -- kbb
Catherine O. Brown kbrown_at_brevisconsult.com Consultant Massachusetts
_____
From: Christine Taylor-Butler
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 5:37 PM To: ccbc-net_at_ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: Re:
Trying to define "reluctant readers"
I think Nell and Meghan are on to something. I've noticed a tendency for the world to try to "categorize" readers and then we develop one size (or two size) fits all strategies. Really - each kid is different and even those with "issues" don't necessarily learn or are motivated the same way.
I have one daughter who has Attention Deficit. She also test off the charts on IQ. We've learned that students with ADD and ADHD often have "high interest" topics which you have to drag them away from because they'd do it ad nauseum - in her case, reading. And low interest topics that don't interest them (in her case math). When she was in High School she struggle d with grades and classwork until a doctor told us that schools determine progress by the ability of a student to complete the task on the school's timeline rather than the student's. The school then balked when - for a final assignment she had to pick an author and a book to read and while her peers picked short stories, she picked Atlas Shrugged (don't ask - I can't explain that one). She completed the assignment ahead of time and included notes from audio interviews she found on Youtube. The key was that as a family we supplemented what she "had to read" for class with what she wante d to read for pleasure. That's been the philosophy since she w as in kindergarten. Back then, we played audio books while we worked on chores an d that may have been a factor.
Contrast that to her younger sister who was a reluctant reader and no amoun t of shoving books at her could get her to read independently. We finally found the magic key - audio books. Turns out she had advanced comprehension and wanted to read above the level of books provided for her in elementary school. Her intellectual interests were in line with her sisters (5 year ag e gap). So we bought audio versions of books her older sister was reading (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Dark Materials trilogy, etc.). Her oral comprehension began skyrocketing, but her reading skills were still lacking . Her elementary school - using "designer techniques" had not taught her any "decoding" skills. So reading was mentally exhausting for her. Then we bought Artemis Fowl when she was in middle school. She burned through the first four on audio while getting tutoring, then demanded to get the next i n the series as a book. She carried the book around like a bible, even asking me to drive her back to school one afternoon w hen she discovered she'd left it in her locker. Afterwards I did the unthinkable - I gave her Twilight. She balked at the 450 pages - I acknowledged the books were a bit weird - but told her I wanted to see if she could tackle something that size. She burned through the first three books at lightening pace, and is now so "hungry" for YA books she's digging through my boxes of ARC's and asking to join YALSA. She's coming with me to ALA-NOLA in the summer.
The right book - for the right kid - MAY be what flips that switch.
As an African American writer and parent I'm always mystified that people translate the idea that urban kids want to read about students like themselves to mean "exactly like the stereotype." We get ghettos and drugs , and bleak environments, etc. The kids tell you they like those books because they want to please you, but all of my daughter's friends at the college prep school (boys and girls) hate them with a passion. We have a hard time convincing local schools to give students something that will stretch their imagination a bit more even as those students are sneaking those books into school and recommending them to each other. I can't tell you how often Twilight was borrowed by boys (scratching my head over that one).
So from my perspective - what the "system" wanted my children to read turne d them off to reading (peruse a school's summer reading list and see what I mean). What my children wanted to read turned them "on." We emphasize both since required reading is just that - required to get the needed "grade". But I wanted to raise children with a lifelong love of reading. That's why there are so many books on our shelves and in a library and in a bookstore. Because somewhere in that pile is a story that will captivate a child and not let them go.
But if reading is a chore - then turn them on with an audio that has a good reader. I tell urban parents to do that when they are too tired to read to their child at night, or use them at bath time, or in the car.
Maybe if we worked harder to match the right book to the right child - ones they love instead of the ones WE love, this conversation about reluctant readers would be less urgent......Christine
---Received on Fri 04 Feb 2011 06:25:49 PM CST
