Encouraging the Reluctant Reader

A Re-post from Our Old Location

<rant> Batten down the hatches folks. This is a blog post that has been brewing for forty years now, and no that's not a typo or an exaggeration. I have dealt with the American educational system since the fall of nineteen eighty-two. It's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be polite. I can almost guarantee a huge amount of butthurt from ninety-plus percent of the educators in this country if they read this post.

Guess what?

I don't give a rat's ass. The field upon which I grow my fucks is barren and I shan't be buying any to give you. Seriously, this is the type of thing that should have been said years ago by young men and parents' groups alike. Why young men? Because "reluctant readers" is a coded phrase used by educators. It means boys. There is a real challenge getting boys and young men to pick up a book. This then leads to men that won't read because they never have. Teachers in this country blame Attention Deficit Disorder. They blame television. They blame video games. The list of things that teachers in this country blame for the fact that boys won't read is long and doubtless all of those things contribute to the problem.  But none of these things, individually or as a group, are the primary cause of the fact that boys will not read unless forced.

The primary source of the problem, the main reason that these kids won't lift up a book, the cause of low reading comprehension scores in reading, and the problems in math and science that are propagated by problems created when a non-proficient reader can't comprehend the words written in their textbooks are caused primarily by the teachers in this country. A child cannot learn chemistry if they don't read well enough to understand their chemistry book. Try doing math homework if you can't puzzle out the examples in the math text. The selfsame people that will tell you how hard they work to teach their kids to love to read are flat-out doing it wrong. Most of that is institutional, and some of it is quite frankly gender related.

Yeah, I said it.

First, let's start with institutional: 

English Literature was the most feared class at Hazel Park High School when I was a student there. Why? Because the teacher (who shall remain nameless for her own protection) gave the same speech at the beginning of every class:

"This book is now your life. If you play a sport, quit the sport. This book is now your sport. If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, break up with them. This book is now your boyfriend or girlfriend. If you have a job, quit your job. This book is now your job."

She was, of course, referring to the textbook for the class. I'm sure, in her mind, she was trying to be fair and warn students of the work required in her class. Everyone I knew that took her class talked about how much work it was. From that point of view, it was probably fair. But, my friends, I ask you this:

How much excitement did you just get about reading that book? How badly do you want to pick that book up and learn everything in it, having just heard that speech? What reason did she have to believe that her students would actually be encouraged by what they had just heard? 

Anyone?

Bueller?

So you agree with me.

Listen, I was a smart kid who loved reading and probably could have pulled down a really good grade in that class. When my turn came, however, I already knew the speech. I took Mythology instead and spent a semester with Zeus and Osiris instead of Shakespeare and Lord Byron. No way was  I dealing with that crap. I had her for the American Lit my sophomore year (English Lit was for juniors at HPHS) and she tried to recruit me. I turned her down flat. I had no interest in that.

And I'm the guy who got his bachelors degree while working full time and taking care of his oldest kid while going to school, albeit at a later age.

And listen, I get the idea that it is absolutely necessary to have assigned readings, just like it's necessary to assign math problems and science experiments. I just don't see how force feeding a student to the extent above benefited them. Although, to be fair, this aspect of the problem isn't just about "problem readers" because the girls all hated it, too. Still, willingly and knowingly forcing that kind of an attitude on a teenager is a problem. But, let's face it, most students didn't like reading before that point anyway, especially the "problem readers." Why? Because the stuff they teach in school is boring, pointless and in no way encourages young males to want to consume it.

I'm gonna be beaten up by a herd of literature teachers for this, but here it is:

"Important literature" should only be taught during the high school years or later, and then only to students in college prep courses or actual colleges. This isn't because of some elitist push on my part. It's partially because the advanced students are the only ones likely to benefit from the lessons taught by deciphering those books. But also, it's because the system kills the interest of young men when it forces him to break down the feelings evoked by a book like Romeo and Juliet. The frustration evoked by trying to decode the language in Shakespeare's stories is just as bad for a lot of dudes. (And for the love of GOD please translate Shakespeare's work for use in high schools. If we can translate Don Quixote, which was written in Spanish, to English, we can translate Shakespeare into modern English. The stories are still relevant. The form of English  they were written in is not. The original language can be preserved and passed on for future generations and taught to students studying literature and history in colleges where it will be relevant.) 

If you want students to get better at reading, they need to practice. The only way to practice reading is by reading. Realistically speaking if, as a society, we want young men to have an interest in reading we have to give them things to read that they will find interesting. A lot of what is taught in American schools straight up sucks. It's boring. The students in your class who are bored and are asking "When am I ever going to use this in life?" are right. 

But here's the thing: What they could use in life is skill in reading. What a young man is not getting is skill in reading when he buys the Cliff's Notes version of The Scarlet Letter because he couldn't care less about some chick who nailed the wrong dude and had to wear a red A on her chest. And no, that's not his fault because of lack of empathy. It's the teachers fault for trying to ram boring bullshit down his throat.

Here's something very few teachers want to hear, but all of them need to accept: It's not the student's job to learn to love reading the crap you shovel in front of them. It's the teachers job to put interesting books and stories in front of the student to encourage their interest. If, as a primary or secondary school teacher, you are out there forcing things on your students because of their literary importance YOU ARE ENCOURAGING ILLITERACY. YOU ARE CRIPPLING YOUR STUDENTS ABILITY TO LEARN ALL OTHER SUBJECTS. YOUR INTENT IN DOING SO IS IRRELEVANT.

Let me make myself even more clear here: I am the owner of this blog. This is the three hundred and sixtieth post here. I started this blog because of my love of reading. I have continued it because of my love of both reading and writing. With the exception of two years of my education (and I'll get back to this in a minute) if I had been introduced to reading, and only read the crap I was fed in school, there is at least a seventy-five percent chance that I would be functionally illiterate at this point in my life.

Yes, I mean that literally. 

The system and the teachers that perpetuate it are the primary cause of the lack of reading skills in this country. They work hard. Most of them aren't happy about what's going on. But working harder using the wrong techniques isn't going to make things better. </rant>

And yes, I do understand that girls need to love reading, too. The facts are, however, that girls do much better on tests of reading ability than boys do, and it's not because of intelligence. It's because of interest.

"So," you're asking, "What's the solution, Jimbo? Do you have one or are you just talking to hear your head rattle?"

Yes, I have a solution. And please ignore the rattling coming from my head. It's one that will work wonders for the United States and pretty much any other country where kids think for themselves. I'm not saying it will work for every student, but it will work for a lot more than the current system does. I like to call it the Emlet System, because I point blank stole it from Mrs. Yvonne Emlet, whom it was my pleasure to study under for both my fourth and sixth grade years. She was an amazing teacher, as many of my former classmates have attested. I don't know if she'd call it a system, or even if she even intended it to be one, but it felt like one to me and (this is the most important part) it worked. And seriously, someone needs to give this woman an award. I can line up students of hers that will echo that sentiment if it helps. I've heard more than one declare Mrs. Emlet to be "the best teacher I ever had." 

And by the way, I go to church and a small group there with her now and I'm supposed to call her Yvonne. I usually do, but in her official capacity she'll always be Mrs. Emlet to me. 

Anyway...

Mrs. Emlet had this thing where she would assign stuff that was fun to read. Some of it was actually "literature" I suppose. We read Tom Sawyer, but it wasn't until years later that I even realized that he was an "important author" who wrote "classics." I just wanted to be the guy who tricked his buddy into painting the fence so he could go fishing. I read Where the Red Fern Grows in her class. Johnny Tremaine, The Battle Off Midway Island, Across Five Aprils, and a couple of other books whose titles I can't remember were things that I consumed and loved. I've re-read most of them since and I need to find out the title of at least one of the books I can't remember because I want to re-read it. Several of the books she assigned were things that I later bought for my daughters. That didn't always work as well. Girls tend to like things that boys don't. There really are differences between the genders. Lesson learned and applied here. 

I'll be honest here. I'm not necessarily sure how well Old Yeller would appeal to a young man in 2023. The system will still work though. It just needs some tweaking. It probably depends on region as well. I loved Where the Red Fern Grows because it had a lot of hunting and fishing in it and I grew up fishing and hiking. I couldn't hunt until later because of age restrictions, but it was something I had an interest in anyway, probably even more than the other stuff because I wanted to hunt and couldn't. In some communities that might still appeal. In others, maybe not. 

So what will work? 

Comic books at lower grades will work great. Everything from graphic novels like Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Marvel or DC and their superheroes. There are also novels published by both Marvel and DC. Somewhere out there, someone is rolling their eyes and making testosterone jokes, but the testosterone is the point. Boys like exciting stuff. Superheroes are big right now and their primary consumers are male.

Detective novels are good. The Hardy Boys immediately come to mind, and I'm thinking that Nancy Drew might just feed the excitement requirement for boys and get that female demographic interested because Nancy is a girl.

And yes, boys will read books with a female main character if it's a well written adventure. The keys are excitement and a fast paced plot with some action. 

If there is a teacher out there stuck on "The Classics" I recommend authors like Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain. I already mentioned Tom Sawyer. Huck Finn was another good book. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court was as fun as it was humorous. I read Treasure Island and Kidnapped before I found I was supposed to. Redwall is popular among kids, too. Non-fiction works, but only if it's written for the age group and is something of interest to your students.

I guess maybe I wasn't "smart as paint" the way I thought I was.

And, well, harnessing other interests can help get kids interested in reading. Like...

(Buckle up kids. It's going to get ugly)

The novels on this list are all video game tie-ins. I've read a couple Halo novels and the old Everquest novel series, as well as a World of Warcraft novel or two. They're good books. They should be pretty easy reads starting at about eighth grade for most kids (I could have read them earlier than that, but I could read before I started school, so I'm probably an outlier here.)

The Young Adult genre didn't exist until J.K. Rowling forced it into existence with Harry Potter, so I didn't get a chance to read any of that until later, but there are plenty of good books written specifically for tweens and kids in their early teens that didn't exist when I was that age.

Most of the books reviewed on this blog would work for a high school student. Anything with sexual themes would be marked, but there's something I want to mention here as well:

I get the logistical problems with what I'm suggesting. There's only so much money in the book budget, and there are only so many copies available via interlibrary loan or whatever your state's version of MelCat is. 

If you teach students who tend to have cell phones, there is at least a partial solution:

Things that are out of copyright are usually available on Project Gutenberg for free. I just checked and Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson are both available, legally, as free ebooks that the kids can read on the phones that they already own. 

Alternatively, if your district issues computers (my daughters go to a school that checks out Chrome Books to their students) they can read the same books on their computers that they could on their phones. 

Baen Books also has a Free Library full of ebooks containing works of derring-do and they publish top-notch Science Fiction and Fantasy. Granted, this is meant more as a marketing tool than a charitable donation, but the books are the books.

I find myself wondering if publishers make charitable donations for this kind of thing, but I have no knowledge either way. It can't hurt to ask. The worst case scenario is the publisher saying no and nothing changing. 

The bottom line is that where there's a will there's a way and nothing is going to improve until there are changes made in the system. To all the educators out there: Please think about what you just read. You are the people that can implement changes that will save your students and this country. If you're saddled with district curriculum requirements, then put together a coalition and show up at school board meetings loaded for bear. If you care as much about your students as you say you do, it will be worth your time.

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