We farewelled a great lady from our family last month. As family members and friends reflected on her life and legacy, one common thread emerged. In the trail of her walk through life, she left a legacy of readers. And as far as legacies go, I think this might be one worth appreciating, because making people into readers is not an insignificant task.
We know that reading is not a natural behaviour. It is learnt. As a teacher, I have heard a great deal about this. There are continual debates and policies about how reading should be taught. There are many theories and programs. But this post is not about teaching reading. It’s about something more nuanced…making people into readers.
A reader is a personality trait. It defines many parts of you. Being a reader is being someone who collects books and stories, who uses them as lifelines through hard times, who relishes them and finds joy, sadness, empathy and anger, just from words on a page. Being a reader changes your feelings, worldview, and priorities…and often your bank account!
Making people into such readers is not nearly as simple as running a program or learning a series of steps. It is a matter of the heart. To make a reader, you need to be a matchmaker of sorts; you need to form a connection between a person and a book so that they can fall in love with reading.
Unsurprisingly, the family member we farewelled had worked in a library and seen the transformation of many people into readers. She valued reading, and this was clear from the way she shared and loved books with everyone around her. In her later years, as her sight deteriorated, she listened to countless audiobooks. Even when she could no longer drive, she mailed books to her grandchildren and friends. It seemed that being a reader was not only something she valued and loved, but a love she passed on to anyone she came in contact with.
I have had the pleasure of listening to several reading researchers speak over the last few years. A standout to me was Dr Melly Green, who analysed a variety of reading models in her research, noting that none accounted for inspiring a love of reading into their models. Melly Green advocates for the focus of Reading For Enjoyment (RfE) to take a more significant stand in our classrooms. Read more on that here. Melly Green’s work also makes me think about Peter Afflerbach’s research, which demonstrates the significant impact motivation and engagement have on reading attainment. See his book Teaching Readers Not Reading for more on this.
This all makes logical sense. The more we enjoy reading, the more we read, the better we become at reading. Just like any learnt skill in life, the more we like doing it, the more we do it, the better we become (and the opposite is also true). Just look at my illustrious ballroom dancing career! That’s right…there isn’t one! Because I didn’t like it so I stopped dancing. Spoiler! I found out that I would never be Fran from Strictly Ballroom the hard way!
At this point you might be thinking one of two things:
1, Who is Fran? My response to this is, please educate yourself on THE greatest Australian movie ever made.
2. Why would someone who has such a keen interest in grammar write a whole blog post on reading? Well, fair point, but did you realise how closely reading and writing development are linked? Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking, in their book The Balancing Act, highlight this through a systematic review of research. Wyse and Hacking conclude that 19 out of 20 studies found a positive effect that teaching reading can improve writing.
I have seen it countless times as a teacher and consultant. When students read, they need to continually interpret grammar, which in turn helps them construct texts. It is much easier to show students grammar structures in books when they are already enjoying reading them and familiar with the content, but perhaps not completely aware of the structures. It is this theory that most Systemic Functional Linguistics researchers (true grammar nerds) use when working in education. It’s called the Teaching and Learning Cycle. This cycle describes the process in which we read and interpret texts to decode grammatical messages (breaking them down). The cycle then empowers students to use these grammatical structures with greater control to write texts (building them back together).
So, the first step in making writers is to make readers. As one of my teaching students commented in a tutorial this week, “I love reading, but I don’t know why I love reading.” I agree, reflecting on your journey as a reader to engage future readers is a big challenge! So stick with me for the next blog while I share some ways we can create readers.
In the meantime, take a moment to consider who made you a reader? Who put that book into your hands? Who lit a passion for reading in your heart? Whoever you think of, can I suggest you send them a message now and thank them? They did so much more for you than they will ever know.
This post is dedicated to Gran Carey, may she rest in peace with a book in her hands and many stories in her heart.