Taking All the Fun Out of It

My third-grade daughter normally has to keep a reading log (and you know how I feel about that!) as well as write 1-2 paragraphs per week about the books she is reading, which are due on Mondays.  But the last two weeks, she had to do neither, in order to lessen the workload on the days surrounding the NYS ELA tests (another topic about which I have a lot to say).  I've been sick with what was first the flu and then pneumonia (that, plus our move into a still-being-renovated apartment account for my online absence lately), and this weekend her sister and dad were sick too.  We couldn't entertain her much.  My husband was worried that she was bored.  But I knew better.

She was thrilled.  Thrilled to have time to read just for fun.  She read two books in their entirety and started another, and possibly finished another one in there.  I read to her.  She went to the library and checked out thirteen books (nowhere near her record of 27!), ranging from classics (Daddy-Long-Legs) to junk (every balanced diet - reading or otherwise - needs some junk).

She read and she read and she read.  And she was so happy.

Sure, there's something to be said for reading deeply and analyzing what you are reading.  But there's also a lot to be said for just reading for pleasure.  Reading to be taken out of yourself.  Reading to get absorbed in a story, in someone else's life, in the rhythm of the words.  And I know that even this type of reading has all sorts of educational benefits: my daughter's vocabulary astounds me.  She never opens a dictionary.  She has learned from context.  (That's why the best SAT prep is not vocab lists but reading.)  But even if reading for pleasure had no educational value, who cares?  There's nothing wrong with reading solely for pleasure.  That's right.  There's nothing wrong with reading solely for pleasure.

With high-stakes tests and new curricula and the Common Core, reading for pleasure has all but disappeared.  The teachers no longer have time to let the children read independently, just for fun.  They no longer have time to read aloud to the class books of their own choosing.  What a loss.

Yes, some learning is boring and repetitive, of necessity (think times tables).  But if you take the fun out of reading, children aren't going to want to read any more.  I hope my daughter always finds joy in reading.  And I hope she is granted the gift of time in which to do it.

The Final Tally

So my daughter diligently kept a reading log throughout the summer, in order to be inducted into her school's Reading Hall of Fame.  While I am opposed to reading logs, this one was merely a list of every book she read - she didn't have to count pages or minutes - and it is kind of nice to see what books she read this summer.  I have been keeping a similar list for myself using the NYPL's "completed" shelf feature.  In any case, the final tally, after 75 days of vacation is..............(drum roll)............. 85 books!  They vary widely in terms of length and difficulty but still, what a difference a year makes!  I'm kvelling.

"I'm Starting to Hate Reading These Books!"

Yup, that's what my daughter said last night about the school books she brings home every night to read and record in her reading log.   Not words any parent, especially a bookworm, wants to hear!

I don't think she hates reading in general.  And I don't think she hates the books she's bringing home.  It's more the fact that reading them is an obligation and that she has limited choice in what to read which makes the whole thing a chore rather than a pleasure.  I did tell her she could choose something else to read and we'd record it in the reading log, but rules-following-first-child that she is, she refused.

On the upside, she actually enjoys reading many of these books once we sit down with them.  They always get a smiley face rather than a sad one on the reading log!  It's the idea of having to read them rather than actually reading them that she hates.

That means to me that so far this is not a problem.  But I hope it doesn't become one.  Any advice?

Reading Is Not a Sport

My older daughter, a kindergartener, has to keep a reading log.  Or, rather, I do.  She is not physically capable of writing down the title of the book, the author, whom she read with (or who read to her) and what we discussed in the tiny boxes provided.  So the fact that her homework is actually my homework is one reason I hate reading logs.

But the more important reason I hate them is that counting pages takes the joy out of reading just as counting calories takes the joy out of eating. 

And counting pages (which some schools, but luckily not ours, require) misses the point.  As my sister said at age 5, returning the book the teacher had given her in response to her request for more difficult books, "This book isn't harder; it's just longer."  The length of a book is utterly unrelated to the difficulty of its vocabulary or complexity of its plot or its emotional resonance.  It is unrelated to everything except the question of whether you should get the hardcover or the paperback (or, these days, the e-book) and whether it's too heavy to carry on the subway (for the Kindle- and Nook-less among us).

To mix my metaphors, reading is not a sport.  It's not about how many pages you read or how fast you read them. 

Reading is supposed to be fun.  Or informative.  Or both.  And reading IS fun, when you don't feel like it is being spooned to you like medicine rather than dessert that you eagerly gulp down yourself.

So, teachers, I beg of you: no more reading logs!