Show Children It’s Fun to Read; Scores Will Rise

The news last month that California’s fourth-graders scored near the bottom in a national test on reading proficiency for the 10th year in a row is grim indeed. In the midst of crippling educational budget cuts, we can’t throw more money, tests, textbooks or programs at the problem. As the mother of two elementary-age children who are strong readers, I propose a solution: Throw books instead.

Throw library cards at the students, and throw used-book exchange parties in the school parking lot. Drop fliers all over the neighborhood inviting retired folks to come on over to read a few stories, and invite the parents who don’t speak English to sit in and soak up the sounds.

Take pictures of principals and teachers caught reading and plaster them in the school hallways and in the weekly newsletter to prove that, given a few spare minutes in their busy lives, they choose to open a book.

Reading for pleasure is cheap, easy, equally available to immigrant students from all nations (who can start with books on tape if their parents don’t read) and staggeringly effective at inspiring more reading -- and it’s fun.

The Department of Education report on our dismal test scores, punctuated by embarrassing comparisons with other states and stoic commentary from officials, neglected to breathe one word about the lost joy.

Not only do we seem to be educating kids who aren’t performing well on standardized reading tests, we seem to be teaching them that reading is little more than a tool, a means to an end, a skill like multiplication tables that simply has to be mastered before you can move on.

I have not seen the tests the fourth-graders failed so miserably, but I have seen the worksheets sent home in my kids’ backpacks that are meant to prepare them for the tests. These worksheets feature snippets of lifeless text and questions whose answers are so straightforward that you can’t possibly bring any creativity, individuality or imagination to the task.

There is absolutely nothing in the test preparation that shows how reading can provide solace, escape, amusement, bliss or the thrill of knowing you’re understood. There is nothing to indicate that reading is fun.

The officials concerned about our kid’s reading scores need to take a good hard look at all the kids reading “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” this summer and remember that pure pleasure is a perfect motivator for performance.

I’d bet good money that any one of those kids with her nose in the 870-page blockbuster could answer incredibly nuanced questions about point of view, metaphor, character development and author intent, and they would be able to do it freely, with enthusiasm. Why? Simply because they love reading the book.