EXPERT ADVICE

I hate reading.

Sound familiar? If you’re the parent of a middle school student, weaned on MTV and now agog over Nintendo, it does.

But as my beloved father, who often described the books in his study as “close friends,” would say: Impossible! What a child hates is not the reading, but what is being read.

As educators and parents, the challenge we face is one of exposing our children to a wide variety of genres and themes, ranging from classic to contemporary novels, autobiographies, poems, teenage and sport magazines, newspapers, instructional manuals, plays and screenplays. The trick, of course, is to match a child’s interest with the material. Does your child like to shoot hoops? Read Sports Illustrated with them. Do your children like to tell jokes? Check out Shel Silverstein’s poetry books together and put your favorite poems on the refrigerator. Are your progeny couch potatoes? Shut off the set, take them by the hand to the Hollywood Book and Poster store to buy them their favorite teleplays. Act out the parts.

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In the classroom at Paul Revere Middle School, I try to encourage such pleasure reading by starting out each period with 15 minutes of silent reading. Although I do rule out such things as People magazine and Popular Mechanics, I let students choose from my growing collection of topical and popular teenage fare. The more popular titles are “The Face on the Milk Carton” by Caroline Cooney; “Silver” by Norma Fox Mazer; “The Duplicate” by William Sleater; and “Down a Dark Hall” by Lois Duncan.

Sometimes I play New Age music, which I have found to be a wonderful antidote for “ants in the pants.” I also impose minimal structure by asking each student to log the number of pages read and to write down the last thing they remember before closing the book.

In addition to traditional book reports, I ask students to make a verbal presentation to the class and then hand in an index card listing their selected book’s title, author, number of pages, a brief summary, their favorite quote and a rating of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most compelling. Outside reading is also required, with students expected to complete 500 to 1,000 pages over a semester.

I’ve also found my reading initiative has been strengthened incredibly by classroom size reduction. In previous years, I would try to stoke the fires of reading interest among 35 to 40 students. But now that I have only 23 students at a time, no one can “disappear.” Each student feels more invested in his reading success, which is the key to all academic success.

All the vocabulary tests in the world can’t compete with getting a student to buy into independent reading. Although the majority of my eighth-grade students read at or above grade level--some are at college level--I still have a few dozen pupils who are struggling along on fourth- or fifth-grade texts. This is a wake-up call to me and to all teachers who assign books these students can’t--or won’t--read. We simply must give students material they can read for pleasure with a minimum of pain.

When I see a student’s eyes drift from a book and settle on the Venetian blinds, I know there’s a problem. It’s up to me--and all of us--to 911 another book selection before he has time to say . . .

“I hate reading.”