Writing With Kids

This morning a friend said she’s pulling her daughter out of her fourth grade reading class. Serena is struggling with reading (according to the teacher), but is working her way through the Harry Potter books at home. It’s her attitude, says the teacher. She’s not motivated, so she’s not learning. My friend’s plan is to take Serena to a tutoring business near them where Serena will learn grammar and how to write an organized paragraph. I try to take a big breath when I hear words like those, but this is a good friend of mine, and out came my “NO!!” before I could inhale.

Many years ago, the Carnegie “Why Johnny Can’t Read” report shook the nation’s educational system. Some years later, we discovered that it wasn’t that Johnny Couldn’t Read, but that Johnny had stopped reading.  Johnny actually had about a third grade reading level. What do we do to students to take the fun out of reading? Well, we break it apart into bite-sized skills, thinking that will give them the building blocks they need. We give them stilted, vocabulary-controlled pieces void of anything interesting to a kid. We ask them to underline, circle, write words, do worksheets, and not read ahead of anyone else, and we call this Reading.

My son, who refused to consider reading through first and most of second grade, then jumped from readers to novels. He read nonstop for a couple years when he attended the small arts-based school I created. When he moved into a more traditional school and a reading program that required pages of accompanying work, his outside-of-class reading diminished greatly. Balance is always the key. Even during my staunch “whole language” period decades ago, I knew the importance of understanding phonics. However, to take whole classes through phonics taught in isolation is not the best way to learn it. What if we determine which skills each child has not mastered, and then work on just the ones they need? What if students were allowed to choose their own reading materials? What if we trust them enough to stop controlling every move they make?

So, here’s my plan. I take Serena and her mom to the library with me each week. We find books at Serena’s level that appeal to her. I teach Mom how to model traits of a good reader — in a book that’s at Serena’s “listening” level, not her reading level — and we let Serena fly on her own before subjecting her to even more of the same. This is a kid who works hard at activities she loves. This is a kid who loves Story. This is a kid who will read nonstop once she finds the books she loves. I’m betting on it with my time and energy.

Sometimes it’s a matter of handing them building blocks, and sometimes, you have to spark a little passion first. Wish me luck…