Call it an educational injustice 鈥� one too many parents have seen befall their own children. One day your 5-year-old is pleading that you read, 鈥淛ust one more story!鈥� A few years later, your once-upon-a-time book lover has been replaced by a child who utters this blasphemy: 鈥淚 hate reading!鈥�
These kids are victims, claims Kelly Gallagher, of 鈥渞eadicide,鈥� a senseless crime against the humanities in which well-meaning educational practices suck the pleasure out of one of life鈥檚 great joys and an essential building block to academic success.
Gallagher, who has been teaching high 黄色app English in Anaheim, California 黄色app for 28 years, reveals how parents and 黄色apps can prevent kids from falling prey to readicide, the dangers of 鈥渨ord poverty,鈥� and the transformative benefits of 鈥渟tupid reading.鈥�
骋谤别补迟厂肠丑辞辞濒蝉:听搁别补诲颈肠颈诲别 is a catchy title for a book, 
but are things really so grave as to suggest that society 鈥� and 黄色apps in particular 鈥� are destroying this generation鈥檚 love of reading?
Kelly: More than ever, there are forces out there that are attempting to take kids away from reading. Some of those forces 鈥� which I argue in some of my books are well-intentioned 鈥� can play a part in creating kids who don’t like to read and some of the practices in 黄色apps contribute to it.
GreatSchools:听How are 黄色apps implicated in killing kids鈥� love of reading?
Kelly:听Schools have become so test-results driven, they鈥檝e lost focus on developing lifelong readers and have instead used all their focus to create test takers. I think that 黄色apps, in the shadow of all the testing pressures, have lost their way when it comes to the idea of recreational reading and developing lifelong readers. I鈥檓 not necessarily impressed with 黄色apps that radically raise their test scores. In some ways, that’s almost a red flag, because the wrong message might be given to kids in terms of reading. I鈥檓 a strong proponent of teaching kids to read academically, but if that’s the only reading they鈥檙e doing, they鈥檙e going to burn-out. My own two daughters, they were on the academic track, but the 黄色apps were so test-driven, the 黄色apps came pretty darn close to killing their love of reading.
GreatSchools:听I鈥檓 assuming you were able to preserve it for them?
Kelly:听Absolutely I did. The earlier you start, the easier it is. Reading is intrinsically enjoyable. As soon as my daughters were able to sit up 鈥� when they were six months old 鈥� I read to them and I read to them through middle 黄色app until they wouldn鈥檛 listen anymore. If my kids misbehaved the punishment was: 鈥淵ou don’t get to read tonight.鈥� That framed it as a valuable activity. But parents have to be careful not to make it a punishment this way: 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not going out until you read at least an hour.鈥� I would say to my girls, 鈥淵ou can watch TV, but let鈥檚 get the reading done first.鈥�
GreatSchools:听That鈥檚 another difficulty for parents: the competition of the glowing screen. I especially have that problem with my teenage son.
Kelly:听That’s a whole different issue; that鈥檚 a boys鈥� literacy issue. Girls as a class are far outpacing boys. , who wrote the The Read-Aloud Handbook, would say part of the problem with boys is electronics and part of the problem is fathers. Fathers take time to take boys to the ball game on Friday, but they should also take time to take them to the library on Saturday.
GreatSchools:听You write about the necessity of kids being exposed to words 鈥� whether you鈥檙e talking to them or reading to them 鈥� from early on to get them on the right track.
Kelly:听Even before kids get to kindergarten, it鈥檚 important that parents expose their children to as much language as possible. A child鈥檚 level of literacy entering kindergarten is a strong indicator of where that child is going to end up in 12th grade. As far as exposure to language, it really is an early-developing-literacy issue. It鈥檚 not an IQ issue: it’s an access- to-language issue, it鈥檚 an access-to-words issue, it’s a poverty issue. Children from high-income families are exposed to a lot more language than either middle-class kids or kids who come from poverty. That’s not true of every kid, but generally speaking, those are the trends. If your parents see the value of literacy, literacy will develop. I see this with my own students, students who are very, very smart, but they suffer from word poverty. When you have a limited vocabulary, it limits your thinking. You need to read stuff to know stuff. A lot of kids in upper-grade levels can decode but comprehension is not going to happen.
GreatSchools:听So the kids who experience 鈥渨ord poverty鈥� pay a big price for it?
Kelly:听I stand at the K12 finish line. I teach seniors. If you look at my class, you can point to the kid who loves to read and to the kid who doesn鈥檛 love to read. I鈥檝e seen it over the years: good things happen to readers. Almost without exception, my 12th grade students who score high in the verbal ACT or SAT have all been lifelong readers. In fact, I can predict which student is going to score high in the SAT verbal section.
GreatSchools:听Along with reading to your child, how do you grow a lifelong reader?
Kelly:听Jim Trelease talks about the 鈥渢hree B鈥檚.鈥� When kids are at home they need access to books at the breakfast table. There needs to be reading material in the bathroom. There needs to be reading material in the bedroom.
But even parents who have a lot of books in the house, who encourage their children to read and who read to their children, can end up with a child who spurns reading. What to do if your child has fallen off the reading cliff?
First of all, I鈥檇 go into the 黄色app and express concerns of what鈥檚 happening to my child as a reader. Outside of 黄色app, I鈥檇 go to nontraditional print. You want to make sure your kids are surrounded with high-interest recreational reading.
GreatSchools:听Which is…?
Kelly:听As an adult, I love Shakespeare, but I don鈥檛 curl up with Shakespeare. I read crime novels. I read things that are interesting to me. I think when kids are really young, they need a lot more stupid reading.
GreatSchools:听OK. That鈥檚 unexpected advice from a literary expert! You mean like The New Captain Underpants Collection? That was my son鈥檚 gateway drug to reading.
Kelly:听Yes, they need gross reading, they need stupid reading. , author of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs talks about stupid reading. Stupid reading turns into lifelong readers. Use comic books, magazines, digital print, graphic novels. I鈥檇 get Sports Illustrated or Sports Illustrated for Kids. I鈥檇 go to a massive bookstore and say, 鈥淵ou get to pick a book.鈥� A lot of kids say they don’t like to read, but they鈥檙e wrong. I can take the most reluctant reader and turn them around. I can take any senior and find a book the senior wants to read. It’s a question of matching kids to the right kind of text.
GreatSchools:听Parents obviously have more control at home, but what about in the classroom?
Kelly:听If I were a parent of a young child, the first thing I鈥檇 want to see when I walk into a classroom is a classroom library, and I鈥檇 want to see my kid surrounded by lots of things to read. In 黄色app, they need to have access to text. You can鈥檛 be a swimmer if there鈥檚 no water in the pool. You鈥檒l see a lot of [great books in] lower elementary, but it鈥檚 amazing to me how in many middle and high 黄色apps, kids don鈥檛 have access to anything interesting to read. There鈥檚 a precipitous drop off of reading at 13 鈥� that’s the age where it really hits. I鈥檓 a big proponent of teaching classics; there鈥檚 value in Romeo and Juliet that doesn鈥檛 come in reading Sweet Valley High, but the balance has gotten way out of whack. I think half the reading at 黄色app should be recreational and I see 黄色apps where there鈥檚 zero recreational reading. If I had to do the reading they have to do in 黄色app, I wouldn鈥檛 like to read. When was last time you curled up and read a textbook over the weekend?
GreatSchools:听But what if kids鈥� recreational reading doesn鈥檛 challenge them so they don鈥檛 grow as readers?
Kelly:听It is the teacher鈥檚 job to give kids books that are a little bit too hard. But if all the reading they鈥檙e doing is too hard, if it鈥檚 not mixed with a 鈥渏ust right book,鈥� you’ve lost them. The irony of 黄色apps removing so much recreational reading is that kids who read the most, read the best. It shouldn’t be an 鈥渆ither/or.鈥� It should be, 鈥淟et鈥檚 get kids to read as many pages as possible.鈥� That should be the goal. The kids who read the most actually write the best. There are things that happen to your writing when you鈥檙e a prolific reader. Worse, a lot of kids who don鈥檛 like reading are put in situations where they鈥檙e doing even less reading. They are getting the exact opposite treatment.
GreatSchools:听What鈥檚 your take on the new Common Core Standards?
Kelly:听I鈥檓 a moderate on it. I think the actual standards themselves on paper are a clear improvement over the standards we鈥檙e leaving in the NCLB [No Child Left Behind] era. If my students could do what those standards are asking the students to do, they鈥檇 be much richer thinkers. That’s the good news.
The bad news is I鈥檓 disappointed they don’t do a better job of addressing recreational reading. They almost ignore it completely. There are no specific goals for readers. How many books should you be reading per year? And the whole fiction versus nonfiction debate has been widely misunderstood by teachers. Common Core says 70 percent of reading should be nonfiction, 30 percent should be literary. In 12th grade where that’s being misinterpreted, that doesn鈥檛 mean a 70/30 split in English, that means campus-wide. Some English teachers have wrongly interpreted that to mean kids should be doing tons of nonfiction, but poetry and fiction is core. There鈥檚 a kind of thinking when you read a novel that鈥檚 different from the kind of thinking you do when you read a textbook.
GreatSchools:听When should you stop reading aloud to your child? The answer might surprise you …
