November
28
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Can You Make Someone Fall in Love? by Emily Hill
Last week, I posted a picture of my three-year-old sitting in our dog’s bed reading a book. It was a precious little moment that I was lucky enough to capture. After I posted the picture, a friend and former colleague of mine suggested that I write about how I work to instill a love of reading in my children.
And it truly is something I “work” towards.
I am not a person to whom reading comes easily. Yes, I was a high school English teacher. Yes, I have a Masters degree in reading. Yes, this does sound crazy, but I am a struggling reader, and my passion for reading took a few decades to develop.
I grew up with parents who read and valued education. My mom is, and always has been, a voracious reader. I always had books in my house and saw her reading every night. Yet, I struggled.
I wanted to be a great reader. I was envious of all the kids in grade school who were reading book after book. They would fill their “Book It” chart with stickers and earn their Pizza Hut pizza, and I never once finished a book challenge or summer reading book.
I am a slow reader and never could keep up with my classmates or the reading schedule. It was discouraging and made me self-conscious.
As I grew up, I learned coping mechanisms to help me in English class. I could do well on quizzes and tests for books I had never read. I always had good intentions and would start the books, but I’d quickly fall behind and just give up.
It wasn’t until college when I had a professor assign a book to read each week: there was a quiz on Friday and absolutely no discussion before the quiz. WHAT??? After failing my first-ever reading quiz, I was finally forced to make it work. Instead of giving up on the books, I discovered audio books and other strategies to help me finish. It was like a whole new world was opened up to me.
As I finished each book, I felt like I had summated Everest!
I want my kids to love reading. I want them to read and read and read. There are quantitative benefits of reading: better vocabulary, greater grasp of grammar and rhetorical strategies, higher test scores on standardized exams. But even more, there are innumerable qualitative benefits like the pleasure of getting lost in a book and finding yourself transported to a new world.
This school year my oldest child has been extremely lucky to have a teacher who has a passion for reading. Her teacher’s passion has definitely sparked the same in my daughter, and she is already trying to read chapter books and wanting to push herself.
My two younger children are not yet in school, but I want them to learn to love books and be excited about books. In order to accomplish this, I try to fill our home with books – every room has books on hand so that they are always present and available. We also read a book every night before bed. This routine makes books a part of their everyday world and ensures that no matter what, they have engaged with a book that day.
I also take my kids to the library as frequently as possible and help them find books in which they are interested. This week my oldest had a specific book in mind and my younger two wanted books about hippos and books about construction: we found them all! And their smiles as they proudly carried their newly borrowed treasures to the car were like and early Christmas present to me.
I am never shy about my opinions on different books. In the process of discovering what you like, you are also going to discover what you don’t. It’s ok to dislike a book or an author or a genre. That doesn’t make all books bad or garbage, it just means that you have to keep looking and reading to find what you do like.
This is something I either missed or was never taught when I was younger. I always felt that if I didn’t like a book it wasn’t because of the subject or the author or the writing style, but rather because of me. It took me a long time and a lot of books before I realized that it is perfectly OK to say that you dislike a book, as long as you can back it up.
I want my kids to feel the joy a book can bring and to hold that feeling inside forever. The excitement and wonder that they feel when they look at books now will not be forgotten, and as they grow, so will the books that they choose.
In our house, we talk about reading. I think this is such an important part of cultivating a love of reading in children. Reading makes you smart. Reading can transport you to a new world. Reading introduces you to new friends. Reading can teach you lessons. I know these things, and I make sure that I regularly say them out loud to my children so that they will know them as well. Kids don’t know any of these things instinctively – they have to learn them. Just as they learn what a Shopkin is or how fun it is to ride a roller coaster.
Reading is something I love, but something I still work at. I am still a slow reader, and I don’t always finish my book club books each month, but at least there isn’t a quiz! I am not on anyone else’s timeline, and I’ll finish the ones I want to – some day.
Emily Hill is a blogger, reader, wife, mother and wine drinker. She is a former High School English teacher and reading specialist who has traded her hours in the classroom for hours driving her three children from one activity to another. You can read about Emily’s love of wine and other misadventures in motherhood on her blog: Please Send More Wine at www.pleasesendmorewine.com
Nerdy Book Club 
Emily, I think the thing you mentioned about the teacher’s passion sparking your daughter is at the heart of it—-the passion of reading—the “WHY it’s so wonderful” aspect—needs to be shown, explained, touted. Then let kids find and choose what they love after you’ve shown them great books. They all need to be let loose in a library or bookstore and be challenged to find great books 🙂 They need to be shown what it is that’s worth their time more than a movie, TV or video game.
Thanks and I completely agree! Kids need to be allowed to explore books the same way they can easily explore YouTube or different games on their own. I love the image of kids on the loose at bookstores and libraries!!
Reblogged this on Meghan Marentette and commented:
I love this blog by Emily Hill – an honest admission that she is not a naturally quick reader, but that she works at it still as an adult and instills the love of reading in her children by making books a part of their everyday enjoyment. She teaches them that it’s okay not to like a book, that you just have to keep searching for the ones that you do like, and that the search is part of the fun. I used to gobble up books as a child but as an adult I got more and more picky and I barely read anything in my twenties. Then, I worked at it. I remembered how much I loved reading as a child, how comforting and fulfilling it had felt to me. And I wanted that again. Now I, too, rarely finish my book club’s book per month, but I do read the books that I like and I keep searching until I find the ones that do. And if some lay on my floor unfinished? Oh well! On to the next one. 🙂
Thanks for sharing Meghan and for your kind words! I think a lot of people go through what you described and have trouble getting back into books as adults. I’m also glad to hear that other book club members are just as delinquent me! Haha!!
Happy to share your post! I look forward to reading more from you 🙂
GREAT blog, Emily! I wish every parent could read this and comply! It’s so great that you shared your struggle with reading I think that is immensely helpful as well. You’re a great mom I’m proud ofyou!!!
Thank you!!!
Often we don’t enjoy what we are not good at doing. Did you ever get a diagnosis of dyslexia? I worked for many years with students with reading challenges, particularly dyslexia. I always make sure they have a chance to hear great books or enjoy graphic novels while they are arduously working through decoding.
Your post is very interesting to me, and it struck a few chords. I am a lifelong voracious reader, a former English teacher, and a librarian. Both of my children grew up in libraries and surrounded by books at home, yet neither one were great readers as kids. They loved to be read TO, but my daughter was very SLOW and my son said once, “I want to WANT to read, but I don’t want to.” It was hard for me to be surrounded by their friends who would come to the house and read their books while they did other things. I used to joke that my babies were swapped at the hospital. I am not a bad Mom – honest! – but I was frustrated that I was doing everything you’re supposed to do to raise readers and I clearly wasn’t raising readers. My daughter is now 32, and it gives me great pleasure to report to me that she finally became a reader ON HER OWN. Yes, I planted the seeds long ago, but as an adult she finally figured out by herself that she likes suspense/thrillers, not the historical fiction, realistic fiction, and family sagas that I have been feeding her for 20 years because that’s what I like. She now reports to me that she went and got her own library card in her new town, she buys a book if it is the next in the series and the library doesn’t have it available because she can’t wait
, and she isn’t watching television anymore. She has become hooked, and nothing could make me happier.
I absolutely love this. My daughter is 6, and she has such a love for reading that I nurture and encourage. Something I did not have at that age. It is just so amazing to witness as these little humans grow. Less electronics, more reading and imagination and passions. I’m so happy you also get to experience this with your little.