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The Challenge of Reading

We All Need to be Challenged by Reading

by Mary Curcio
Superintendent, McGraw Central School District, 2010-2016

A family reading program benefits parents, children, and the community. In 1998 the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act defined literacy as “an individual’s ability to read, write, speak, compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job, in the family and in society.”

Family literacy is more important than ever. While schools march ahead with curriculum, technology, the common core and more, parent engagement by reading aloud to their children should not be overlooked.

When schools decide to use a Family Literacy Program, their primary concern or assumption is that parents can’t read. Their solution is to choose a book that requires a low-level reading ability. School districts feel if they choose a book with a higher reading level, their parents won’t read. They are concerned that parents will be stressed and thus won’t engage in a Family Literacy Program.

This mindset only perpetuates the problem around reading. It supports the learned helplessness theory for parents. With children, we know to set the bar and they will rise to the expectation. Why not set the bar for parents, too? Piaget’s theory of learning is that there must be a disequilibrium in the environment for children to learn. For parents to realize that they might need to improve their reading abilities, we must give them “a bump in the road.” If they continue to encounter low-level reading material with their children, parents might not recognize their need to read or to want to improve their reading ability.

To help children become not only life-long readers but lovers of reading, parents reading aloud to children is a must. What parents do is what children value. The research is clear, when parents are involved in their child’s learning, they do better in school, they are more likely to graduate and receive some form of an advanced degree.

The evidence is clear that parents stay engaged and involved in a family reading program longer than if they are in an adult education program. Parents reading to children develop better parenting skills. Their own reading level, acquisition of vocabulary, and math skills improve. Family bonding improves and families that read together experience less stress and improved family relationships. Parents come to place a higher value on education and become moved involved in their children’s schooling.

For children, they benefit by:

Their brains grow
They develop better social and emotional skills
Attendance at school improves
Increased capacity to learn
Increased curiosity
Encourages use of their imagination
Increased vocabulary

The access to vocabulary can’t be overlooked. Vocabulary is a primary predictor of success in all grades. It is a prime predictor of success in kindergarten. A child’s vocabulary determines how much more a child can learn. Reading aloud at home supports capacity for comprehension and increased vocabulary. As children hear more and more words, they develop better comprehension leading to more success in school and life.

Albert Einstein knew that the key to achievement is developing the capacity for imagination. He is reputed to have said, “If you want your child to be intelligent, read them fairy stories.”

We say, if you want to raise a “kind, smart child,” read to them at home. Make it a priority. Read aloud every day for at least 15 minutes. Get it on the calendar. Don’t make excuses for not following through. Children model what parents value.

Parents and children use language to talk, play, and interact. Reading aloud to children is not old fashioned. It is a family habit that sets children up for lifelong success. Reading influences every area of the life of child. It’s the best investment made in the life of a child.

Vocabulary Acquisition in Real Time!

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First of all – a disclaimer. My recent posts have principally concerned reading to older children – high elementary school, middle school, even high school. Mainly because my own daughters have been growing up and my most recent experiences have been with them. This blog receives input from moments of current inspiration and that’s where the spontaneous anecdotes and apercus have come from.

But all that has changed. I have an infant in the house – now 20 months old (as of this writing) – and thus I happily, joyfully get to do it all over again – starting with those infamous board books and working our way quietly and patiently up to chapter books.

As I don’t have to tell you, it’s been delightful to introduce my son to books – to see what he responds to, becomes enthusiastic about, wants to hear again – and what words and phrases, images and scenes, he remembers, repeats, and learns. To see him begin to respond emotionally to moments and characters – to identify with them, to laugh with them, to fear with them. Who doesn’t know the joy of seeing your child light up at the zoo-keeper’s wife’s eyes on that otherwise all black page in Goodnight Gorilla? My own son wants to skip the page when the scary bulldog with the big teeth chases the toy clown in Quentin Blake’s textless Clown.

Reading to an infant is all about noticing and proceeding through stages. You never can tell how long a favorite book will last as a favorite (for us it was Caps for Sale and Go Dog Go and Green Eggs and Ham) to be replaced by the current obsession (baseball books, truck books) or how long the next stage will last. But those stages also mark progress. Can his attention span handle a book you can complete from beginning to end? When can you add books with more text (or read the whole text)? What kind of edgy material can he handle? And best of all – what language acquisition to you see resulting from your reading? Is that where he picks up colors? How many obvious and eccentric nouns and objects does he acquire just from your books?

Recently, we’ve had one of those unexpected developments that I don’t remember from before – but now that I’m paying attention it’s clear as day.

One thing we know about reading to small children – they like to read their favorite books again and again. Admittedly, this can be tiresome for their adult readers. I have reflected on why they like this – and I think it is more than the mere truism that children like routine. Yes, they like routine. They also like novelty. (Even when they don’t know it.) But I think it’s something else, too. Children are like little scientists who want to confirm their understanding of the world. They want to check and make sure that what they “know” is still true. They want to test and confirm the unconscious premises they are learning about their world – and make sure they are still true each day. That is why they ask questions they already “know” the answers to. And that, I think, is why they want to hear some stories again and again. It makes them feel safe and sure – and confident – to be in command of a story – to know what’s going to happen and be right. (Life, of course, isn’t like that – the cruel truth they will learn soon enough.)

Esphyr Slobodkina’s Caps for Sale was the first picture book I ever read to my new son. We read it in the public library in Evanston, Illinois when he was 14 months old. I had to paraphrase the sentences and narrate the action – but he was taken (as I believe all children are) by the monkeys going “Tsk, tsk, tsk” to the peddler. I don’t know how many times he’s read (listened to) Caps for Sale since then but I do know that it is still in the rotation. 8 months later, he still picks it out and asks for it.

But in a recent reading, I noticed that what he gets out of the book – what he follows and enjoys and anticipates – is different than before. Like most kids, he gets the most fun out of the monkeys, imitating and repeating their finger and fist shaking and foot stomping. But he likes to act out what the peddler is doing, too. So when the peddler gets sleepy for his nap – my son anticipates it with a big yawn. When the peddler wakes up – he likes to stretch with the peddler. (Don’t all little kids relish that big stretch when they wake up? Don’t all parents?)

This time through, he added something more. The story is clearly familiar to him. He knows how to anticipate what will happen next. He knows when you come to the picture of the sun (“The peddler slept for a very long time”) on the next page the peddler will wake up and he will get to stretch. But after learning about caps and trees – and monkeys – and about different colors (and aren’t those blue/green caps confusing – what do you call them??) – there is still more to be mined verbally from a simple picture book like Caps for Sale.

We can’t help but teach them and show them about the nouns and objects and characters and perhaps the feelings of characters in our picture books. And they can’t help but learn them. If we’re energetic and they are attentive – we use picture books to teach about descriptive things like colors. It comes naturally. You can’t help it. But sometimes there’s even more.

As I sat reading this time, he focused on new words – new concepts! – in the story. The peddler sought to keep his 17 caps straight on his head. “Straight” my son repeated. The peddler walked slowly to keep the caps balanced. “Slowly” my son repeated. The peddler sat down to nap by the tree – very carefully. “Carefully” my son repeated. Lo and behold – my son was picking up adverbs!

Did I have anything to do with it? I don’t really think so. Did I do anything to re-iterate or emphasize or clarify the concepts of straightness or slowliness or carefulness? Definitely not. It is a truism that young children’s minds are sponges – hungry and capable of absorbing new information – especially verbal information. This is what reading aloud can do for them. Their own hungry minds can reach out on their own and pick up all the elements of language they will need in school and life. And we don’t have to do anything but pick good books, read with enthusiasm, and be patient when they want to confirm their hypotheses.

What I was witnessed was my son’s acquisition of adverbs – right in front of my nose – live in real time! Without explanation. Without didactic instruction. Merely from his (unconscious) extrapolation from context. That is the power of reading aloud. If we only stop to pay attention and enable its natural course.

Daring to Challenge

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Several years ago I was preparing to speak before my children’s elementary school. It was the first time I was asked to speak at the full PTA meeting (the one where half the parents are just there to see their children perform during the entertainment portion of the evening). I had so much to say. This was my first chance to explain the One School, One Book program to my local home audience, to discourse on all the reasons we should be reading aloud, and encouraging and enabling those families not yet doing so.

The day I was to speak happened to be the day before Halloween and the New York Times ran this editorial, by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). I was faced w/ a dilemma. The editorial said something powerful and subtle that is one of the hardest things to explain to parents and teachers and principals. It said something that some people just get naturally – and others need to be convinced – and others can’t be convinced. He said that letting children encounter and experience “scary things” is not only OK, not only salutary, it’s even necessary. Not an easy thing to say – and he said it well.

I chose to read the entire editorial at the PTA meeting. That’s how valuable and important I found – and continue to find – the sensitive way he expressed this difficult concept.

There are lots of reasons to read at all, and lots of reasons to read aloud. And I needn’t explore the full catalogue here. What I want to offer here is a gloss on Handler’s insight – on why it’s not only OK, but salutary, even necessary to challenge our children when we read aloud to them.

Challenging doesn’t mean scaring them. And it doesn’t mean inundating them w/ information. It does mean offering them new worlds and new experiences, new authors and new styles. Many children want the old familiar at the dinner table and the old familiar when they pick up a book. It’s fine if they want to re-read safe, comfortable, familiar books. But when you read aloud together, that’s an opportunity for you and he/she to explore something new – something fresh – something daring.

[Not that you have to. I, too, love to re-read my favorite adult books – the topic of another essay, perhaps. And there is joy, too, in re-reading a favorite book w/ your children – from Little House on the Prairie to Lord of the Rings. That’s just not the element I want highlight here.]

I found another example of this phenomenon, also worth sharing, in A.O. Scott’s recent essay on children’s films, especially Where the Wild Things Are and Fantastic Mr. Fox (both, of course, based on children’s books). I haven’t seen either film yet – but his track record is strong enough (though sophisticated, Scott understands and appreciates children’s films) – that I am confident that even if I end up having misgivings about either film (possible) his insights are still valuable.

As Scott says, parents do worry about (and judge each other on) what films their children see. That’s the duty and responsibility of being parents. And as Scott also says, where there is happiness, there is also discomfort. That’s life. Scott asks if Fantastic Mr. Fox is too scary or confusing? I don’t actually know, but I do know these are the right questions to ask. And I believe that we shouldn’t be afraid to let our children sometimes help us answer them – we can do so by gauging their reaction to edgier films/books like these. But in order to do so, we have to be willing to push the envelope a little here and there. Sometimes a book or film works thru some strange alchemy we don’t understand. If we try to identify or delineate its constituent parts, it doesn’t add up. But it is the strength of the artist or creator to understand something we don’t. This is how art – and literature – work. We just have to be brave enough to let it.

Finally, David Brooks contributed a recent op/ed piece (also in the Times) that has a lot to say about the broad way we help educate ourselves – specifically the auxiliary education we create – that ends up being a secondary education for our children as well. I am sure each of us can think of other interests in our lives that seep into our children’s understanding of the world – interests similar to but other than Bruce Springsteen – interests that constitute the auxiliary education of which he speaks.

I remark on it here because reading aloud is one of those things we do to create that auxiliary education. It is the time spent sharing culture together – books, movies, music, but also shared activities like cooking or sports or hunting or craft-making – that inform that auxiliary education. It can be the way we talk about things in the books we read together. But even more it is the habit of doing so – the inconspicuous things that a child doesn’t notice but that take effort and patience and perseverance – like just making the time to read together – that are the heart of this process. In many ways it is the example we set – what children see us do and consume – that informs that education. (“My Dad listens to Bruce Springsteen. Or Johnny Cash. Or U2. Or Bob Dylan. My mother reads Oprah’s magazine, O – or Oprah’s book club selections – or never reads at all, except to me. My father likes to work in the basement. My mother is always cooking in a hurry.” Etc.)

These are the components of that auxiliary education. How valuable it is to recognize this and know that we have this time w/ them to inform it and bolster it and enrich it. We each provide the curriculum for that education, whether we’re trying to or not. Here’s to suggesting we each pay some conscious attention to what goes in – as we do when choosing or not choosing books and movies – and to remember that doing some things and sharing some things together should give us the strength to be brave and bold and daring and insure that that auxiliary education is as rich and stimulating and challenging as it can be. Do not shy from life. Doing so is not only salutary – but necessary.

[I am somewhat embarrassed that each of the pieces cited here are from the New York Times. I can’t really control that. You collect what you encounter, it percolates, and eventually adds up to a blog piece. In this case, these pieces coalesced for me. Pure coincidence that they all come from the Times.

Further, once I do get around to seeing Where the Wild Things Are and Fanastic Mr. Fox, if I have any adjustments to make, I’ll post them here.]