essay about genuine love for reading

Friday-September-20-2024

Why Read? The importance of instilling a love of reading early.

Definitionally, literacy is the ability to “read, write, spell, listen, and speak.”

Carol Anne St. George, EdD, an associate professor and literacy expert at the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education, wants kids to fall in love with reading .

“It helps grow their vocabulary and their understanding about the world,” she says. “The closeness of snuggling up with a favorite book leads to an increase in self-confidence and imagination, and helps children gain a wealth of knowledge from the books you share. And it only takes 15 minutes a day of reading together to nurture this growth.”

Reading is necessary for learning, so instilling a love of reading at an early age is the key that unlocks the door to lifelong learning. Reading aloud presents books as sources of pleasant, entertaining, and exciting formative experiences for children to remember. Children who value books are more motivated to read on their own and will likely continue to hold that value for the rest of their lives.

Instilling a love of reading early gives a child a head start on expanding their vocabulary and building independence and self-confidence. It helps children learn to make sense not only of the world around them but also people, building social-emotional skills and of course, imagination.

“Reading exposes us to other styles, other voices, other forms, and other genres of writing. Importantly, it exposes us to writing that’s better than our own and helps us to improve,” says author and writing teacher, Roz Morris. “Reading—the good and the bad—inspires you.”

Not only that, but reading is a critical foundation for developing logic and problem-solving skills. Cognitive development is “the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood” (HealthofChildren.com).

Why Focus on Summer?

Summer vacation makes up about one-quarter of the calendar year. This is a time when students face different opportunities based on the social and economic status of their families. An analysis of summer learning (Cooper, Nye, et al., 1996) found that “all students lost mathematics and reading knowledge over the summer…This evidence also indicated that losses were larger for low-income students, particularly in reading.” Summer reading has emerged as a key component of state legislation aimed at promoting student literacy.

The Horizons at Warner program is committed to maintaining and improving student literacy with our kids every summer they return. Nationwide, each affiliate of Horizons National administers reading assessments to students during the first and last weeks of program. Pre-assessment allows our teachers to customize the learning experience on a student-need basis, and post-assessment reinforces this by not only revealing student progress in each area, but by giving insight into how we can improve program design in the future.

Research demonstrates that if a child is not reading at grade level by third grade, their ability to meet future academic success and graduate on time is diminished. Teachers know that up to third grade children are learning to read. After third grade, students are reading to learn. According to St. George, it is impossible to be successful in science, social studies, and even mathematics without a strong foundation in reading and literacy.

On average, we see an improvement by 1 to 3 reading levels in our students here at Horizons at Warner. Keeping true to our mission, these levels will account for all and more of the percentage of summer learning loss that we know our students would face without this kind of academic intervention, and leave our students five to six months ahead of where they would have been without Horizons.

Reading TO children

According to Jim Trelease, author of the best-seller, The Read-Aloud Handbook: “Every time we read to a child, we’re sending a ‘pleasure’ message to the child’s brain… You could even call it a commercial, conditioning the child to associate books and print with pleasure” (ReadAloud.org)

Developing a connection between “pleasure” and reading is crucial. Learning is the minimum requirement for success in every field of life.

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A Teacher’s Guide to Foster a Love of Reading and Writing

Fostering a love for reading and writing in students is one of the most rewarding goals a literacy teacher can achieve. Now, more than ever, it is important to help your students discover the joy of storytelling, the power of self-expression through writing, and the magic of words. Below you will find practical and creative ideas to inspire students not only to improve their literacy skills but to develop a genuine love for reading and writing. The tips below will help make the classroom a vibrant place where reading and writing come alive.

Get to Know Your Students as Individuals

Understanding your students’ individual reading and writing interests is crucial.

• Student Favorites: You can start by conducting informal reading and writing inventories to gauge your students’ current preferences. This could be through one-on-one interviews or simple surveys asking about their favorite books, genres, and writing topics.
• Value Student Interest: Incorporate ways for students to showcase their interests. For example, in reading, let them share their favorite books or authors with the class. In writing, teach students to write about topics they’re passionate about, which can provide insights into their personal experiences and preferences. This approach makes students feel valued and understood.
• Share Your Favorites: Your enthusiasm and passion for literacy can greatly influence your students. When students see that their teachers enjoy the act of reading and writing, they will see how fulfilling it can be. Discuss your favorite books and authors and share personal stories about your reading journey. Share your writing – current and past. When I was in fourth grade, my teacher periodically showed us her planning pages and drafts with revisions she was working on as a graduate student. She was proud of the work she was doing and showed us that even as an adult she used the same process for writing that she was teaching us to use. Children can often think that writing is magical – something that someone just knows how to do. By sharing your writing, you can show students that the writing process is used by all writers and writing may be challenging at times but ultimately rewarding. 

Create Joyful Literacy Experiences

Your classroom can be a place where students have joyful literacy experiences that ignite a love for reading and writing.

• Choice: Students need to make some real choices for themselves. In the literacy classroom, children need the opportunity to choose what they will read and write. Think about the choices students have in your classroom. Are the majority of students’ reading and writing experiences decided for them or assigned? Do they have opportunities to develop their tastes in reading and writing? Consider how it feels if most of what you read and write was decided for you. Would you find it enjoyable?
• Book Recommendations: I don’t know if you have discovered the joys of BookTok or book bloggers on YouTube, but I have. It has reenergized my reading life! I have a “To Be Read” (TBR) cart and an active Goodreads account where I can share my thoughts and reactions to books I am reading. I look forward to hearing what other people are saying about books, and I enjoy knowing what my friends are reading.  I can then determine if that sounds like a good fit for me. I decide for myself what may be worth my time reading. Being a part of this reading community, I have learned more about myself –  especially what types of books I like to read and why.

You can help create this rich culture of reading, talking, and writing about texts by teaching children how to give “Book Talks” or write book recommendations for their peers. You can also teach children to keep a list of books they would like to read based on recommendations. So, when it is time for your students to select a new book, they will move into it with a sense of excitement and joy!

• Writer’s Notebook : The writer’s notebook is a place of freedom and joy for a writer.   This is a safe place for writers to be creative and vulnerable. Students are free to take risks and write about things they know and love. Students can sketch and write, or tape pictures and special artifacts and write. A writer’s notebook is a place for students to write about anything meaningful to them. Keep writer’s notebook entries fresh by allowing time for students to showcase an entry to the class. My colleague, Linda Murphy, used a writer’s notebook gallery walk where students selected an entry and laid their notebook open on their desk. Students walked around the room and read their classmates’ chosen entry. Reading one another’s entries may inspire students to write more in their writer’s notebooks.
• Share : Prioritize sharing in your literacy classroom. There are many ways for students to share their thinking. Students can share their authentic thoughts about the books you are reading to them and books they are reading independently. Students can also share their opinions and reactions with their peers. Students can share their writing with an audience to receive feedback, to get validation, and to experience the true purpose of writing – to share a message that is meaningful to them!Ask yourself:  Do students regularly share their thoughts during read alouds, minilessons, and at the end of independent reading and writing? Scheduling time for share can help foster a love for reading and writing.

Ignite a Life-Long Love for Reading and Writing

As a literacy teacher, you have the exciting opportunity to ignite a lifelong love of reading and writing in your students. Embrace the challenges and joys of teaching literacy and remember that your dedication and enthusiasm will make a lasting impact on your students’ lives. Happy teaching!

If you are a new teacher and want to learn more about practical ways to teach literacy effectively and thrive in the beginning years of your career, join my colleague, Heather Rodman, and I for the New Teacher Academy on October 2 nd where you will experience four full days of professional learning and participate in monthly, hour-long problem-solving sessions to provide you with ongoing, just-in-time support you need to address the daily instructional and logistical challenges you face. Click here to find out more.

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If you have any questions, please contact the Center.

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Mailing Address Lesley University 29 Everett Street Cambridge, MA 02138

A Love of Reading Makes All the Difference

For parents, it’s a joy to see your child’s face light up when you read her favorite book aloud. Or to see your child so immersed in a novel that he loses all track of time.

We know it’s a wonderful thing to love reading. It’s also crucial to your child’s success—it’s at the core of his or her education, right along with building strong skills.

So, why is having a love of reading so important for academic success? And what are the personal rewards?

A Big Academic Boost

Children who love reading perform better in school overall. It’s simple—the more kids like to read, the more they do it, and the better they become at reading. And when reading is fun and easy, kids like it even more. It’s a positive cycle, and it pays off in some really important ways:

• Your child will build better skills. He or she will have stronger reading comprehension, and better writing and spelling skills. Kids who do a lot of reading for pleasure get higher test scores. They even get a boost in math!
• Your child will have more confidence and motivation. Sometimes reading is hard, but kids who love to read know that there’s a payoff to sticking with it. The flipside is that without a love of reading, the struggle is just too frustrating, and kids can feel like giving up.

If your child loves to read—and does a lot of it—he or she will have a real advantage when it comes to school.

Meaningful Personal Rewards

It’s not just about academic success, though. There some really significant personal rewards that come from having a love of reading.

• Children who love to read get to feel the joy of being lost in a good book. It’s like the real world falls away. Your child is inside the story and gets to experience the adventures right along with the characters. In fact, to your child, it feels like he or she is the main character. This is a really pleasurable and rewarding experience, and it can actually be life-changing.
• Reading shapes the way children understand the world. When your child is lost in a book, he or she can live in another time in history, or visit a faraway place and live a completely different life. Maybe your child meets a character and thinks, “This person is just like me,” or, “Wow, I’ve never looked at things this way before.” Reading becomes a meaningful experience that really expand your child’s horizons.
• Getting absorbed in books shapes who your child is . Really great books deal with things that kids relate to, like growing up, facing fears, and navigating friendships. When readers identify with a character who’s going through these things, they enter the character’s mind and they get to think and feel in new ways. It gives children a deeper understanding of other people, and of themselves. Reading is deeply formative experience that shows your child the kind of person he or she wants to be.

Simple Ways to Help Your Child Fall in Love with Books

Loving books and getting lost in stories is a powerful experience, and it has such a profound impact. It’s exactly what we want for our kids. So, what are some simple things you can do to help your child get there?

• Read aloud to your child a lot when he or she is young. This is the number-one thing parents can do to help their kids fall in love with books. Snuggling up with a parent and listening to stories is a wonderful experience that shapes your child in really positive ways.
• Help your child find good books to read. Books that really pull your child into the story will get him or her excited about reading. You can help your child figure out what those books are. Some kids like realistic or historical fiction, while others prefer fantasy, adventure, or mysteries. Whatever your child likes is great—just make sure he or she reads, reads, reads!
• Make reading a part of your family’s everyday life. Encourage your child to read, and let your child see you read. Have conversations about the books that everyone in the family is reading. Make sure there are lots of books around the house. All of these things send your child a clear message that reading is important—and fun!

Getting lost in books, and having that experience over and over again, will make your child a reader. Reading for pleasure will become part of who your child is, a core part of his or her identity. Your child will always be able to look to books for knowledge, pleasure, and inspiration. A love of reading will enrich your child’s life now and long into the future.

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8 Ways to Build a Love for Reading in Your Students

I LOVE to read. Like finish a book in one night LOVE to read. Like wake up on a Saturday and read two hours in bed LOVE to read. Like cozy up on the couch and go on a mental vacation LOVE to read. I’ve always had this natural love to read. When I was growing up I would go every other week with my Aunt Clemmie (great aunt) to get her hair done. I grew up in Alabama, so getting her hair done meant the color, the blow dry, the curls. The big hair. She got her hair done in JCPenney with a nice lady named Shirley. I LOVED going with her because JCPenney was in the mall. Know what else was in the mall? Walden Books. I would sit and wait for her to get her hair done. While she got her hair done, I read and waited patiently like the good little reader I was. When she was all finished, we would head to Walden books. While most girls my age longed for clothes and toys and other *crap,* I was happy with a book. We didn’t have a lot of money for all that other nonsense anyway. A book could take me places and create a peace in me like nothing else could.

So I couldn’t wait to go to Walden books every other Thursday. I would scan the lower shelf to get the newest Babysitters Club or Sweet Valley Twins. The glossy cover with pages that had not yet been turned. The smell of a brand new book with its crisp pages beats that new car smell any day in my book! (*pun intended*)

I tell you this story to paint a picture of how much I love to read and always have. It comes naturally to me. But not to everybody. Every adult and every child may not love to read as much as I do. I’ve slowly come to terms with that. However, my goal is to open the doors for my students to see how beautiful it can be. I don’t really remember my mother reading to me every night. (That doesn’t mean she didn’t.) But I do know that she read. A lot of self help books. (As have I). So I don’t specifically remember anyone teaching me to love reading, but just because I don’t remember doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. But, it was part of my natural environment.  Like my mother, people around me read.

More often than not, our students come to us without having a home environment where people read or read to them.  This leaves a lot on the shoulders of teachers, but it also leaves a lot of opportunity.  So HOW do we do that? I’ve always said in times of frustration that I can’t teach students motivation. While there’s some truth to that, I’ve also been wrong. I can’t explicitly teach someone how to be motivated and it magically happens, but I CAN guide the way. Which is my job anyway.

At Open House and Parent Teacher conferences, I tell parents about all the technicalities, rules, procedures, data, testing, etc. yada yada yada…. but one of the ways I try to win them over (I want them on my side after all!) is by appealing to their emotions and letting them know my WHY for teaching, my WHY for doing what I do. I tell them that while all the testing and data is important, my biggest goal for their child is to ENJOY reading. Something that comes with such pleasure should not cause so much pain. So while many kids struggle with reading and it is not the most enjoyable task, my job is to help them also see the love and joy that reading can bring. So I bring you my most effective, tried and true, REAL strategies that you can implement today! Or tomorrow. Or whenever you see fit.

1//   Don’t Ever Ditch Your Read Aloud.  (Like EVER.) #swiftie

I am about to admit some things that I am not proud of and that take a lot of bravery to admit, but need to be said.  You might have found yourself in the same situation in the past or will someday in the future.  So consider this a cautionary tale or a story you can completely identify with.  Either way, it has taught me to be even more tuned in with my core beliefs and values as a teacher.

I have always sat on my high horse with my teacher read aloud.  I always knew the best books or sought out other teachers who knew the best books or found the newest best book to share with others.  I preached about how it was the best part of my day.  I used it to teach my mini lessons. I used it to build relationships with students, introduce them to new authors or series, and every other thing that a purposeful read aloud should do.  I knew all the benefits and this is why I did it.  This is why most of my kids enjoyed reading.  Even if they didn’t LOVE it independently, they LOVED it when I read to them.

Until last year.

Last year I moved to a new city and of course new school.  I love the school I am at, teachers I work with, my students, etc.  It’s all butterflies and daydreams.  BUT, my ELA block is very different from what I am used to doing.  Not bad different. Just different.  (explain more) I love my school and job so much that I want to do what I am supposed to even if I find it hard or not quite what I want to do.   I have embraced the change and want to “fit it all in.”  Well, guess what the first thing to drop this year was? My Read Aloud.  Unintentionally.  I didn’t mean to go days without reading. Or spend MONTHS in the same book, but it keeps happening.  Meanwhile, I have become the AR dictator, questioning kids about their points.  Are they not reading each night?  Where is their reading log? Insert all the things kids dislike about reading.

I caught on to my problem early on in the year.  I was not cultivating that classroom environment I hoped to.  This built some humility, was good for my character, etc.  But I have to make time for my read aloud.

If you are struggling with education policy and meeting the demands of teaching, you need to watch this:

Shut Up! And Let Me Teach: Ending the Assault on Teacher Autonomy | Chandra Shaw Tedx

Listen to your gut.  Do what you know is right. Don’t ditch your read aloud.  

2// create a reading community with reading partnerships and book clubs. .

As an adult, I always want to share my recent read with my friends or other people who have read the same book.  We are part of this “club” where we have shared a similar experience.(plot)  We know the same people. (characters)  We’ve been the same places. (setting)  We’ve had the same problems. (conflict) And we’ve learned some lessons along the way. (theme)  The elements of the story have built a bridge between us no matter what our real lives are like.  So we may have little in common, but we’ve got that book we can talk about.  People have told stories for all of time to teach life lessons or share experiences.  Teaching students how to talk about reading and the things they have learned allows them to develop social skills and interact with others in a positive way.

3//  Book Teaser Tuesday

This is a strategy from Jan Richardson’s book The Next Steps in Guided Reading.  She suggests using a Book Teaser to introduce your students to new books they might not normally pick out on their own.  I try to do this every Tuesday.  I simply take about 5-10 minutes to introduce 2-3 books I noticed none of my students have read.  I introduce the book, tell them why I thought they might like it and then read the blurb on the back.  You can expect all of your students to want to read the books, so be ready to do a drawing or have some way to decide who will be able to read the book.  🙂 We’re taking a trick from business and marketing by creating a sense of urgency.

I keep these books in a special basket called Book Teaser Tuesday in my classroom library.

4//  Teacher-Know-How Book Recommendations

I like to have a Secret Library of Recommendations.   Aka-my closet.  I always keep my favorite books that I have read aloud in the past or books that I especially love and have read in a special spot in my classroom.  At one point it was a huge cabinet.  Today, it is a closet.  We have especially large closets in our classrooms. Like half the size of the rest of the room.  I have a couple of bookshelves that I keep class sets of books and my special books that I give readers upon request or for special reasons.  Let me give you a couple of scenarios of how this looks.

Keep ‘ em Coming Back For More!

I have a boxed set of the Percy Jackson series that I keep in the closet because it is a hardback set (=very expensive) and you are not reading the Percy Jackson series in my 4th grade classroom unless a) you start with Book One, b) I know you are capable of understanding the book.  Last year, I bought a class set of Percy Jackson because I LOVE the series and it builds knowledge of Greek mythology and allusions that are part of the 4th grade standards.  After I read the first book, my students were fighting to be the first to read the second book. Like a good teacher, I taught them how to take turns and some even found the book on their own accord.  Here’s where it gets good.  Just last week, one of students from last year who is now a 5th grader informed me she would be by later that week to pick up the second book so that she could read it.  At some point between May of last year and November of this year, she could have picked it up from the school library, public library, bookstore, or even borrowed it from her current teacher. But she knew that book was sitting in my closet, waiting to be read.  So she came to my room this past week to get the book and is reading it now.  That is the power of the closet.

Building Confidence with Struggling Readers

This “strategy” is for readers of all ability levels.  I used to teach 3rd grade for a long time, so I have a lot of lower level books that I don’t want the majority of my students reading, unless that is their ability level.  Just to be clear, I have a wide range of levels in my classroom library.  Just because they are sitting in 4th grade, that doesn’t mean they can read at a 4th grade level.  So, I have a huge bin of extra books that are appropriate for 3rd graders.  These were perfect for two students that I had last year.  There were English Language Learners that read at a 3rd grade level and needed to be motivated to read.  One of the best ways to do this is to get them hooked on a series.  So, I partnered them up with the same book from The Bailey School Kids <<link>> series.  The next thing I know one of my students has a Ziploc bag full of this series in his desk. J. That’s when we had the talk about one book at a time.

5// Use books as a reward.  Class Dojo-100 points

I love Class Dojo . It has been a game changer in my classroom.  In a digital world, it is an extremely effective tool for classroom management.  I am constantly looking for ways to use it more effectively.  This is the first year that I have most of my parents using the app to check their students’ behavior as well as message me.  At the end of each marking period, students receive rewards based on their points.  When students receive 100 points, they earn a free book.  I hand them the Scholastic Books Catalog and let them circle their book of choice.  They LOVE it, especially when their book comes in and they are getting the jealous stares from their classmates.

If you are interested in more Class Dojo resources check out this Free Class Dojo resource from The Learning Effect

I also LOVE this resource from Kristina Zucchino that uses coupons for Reading Based Rewards.  I use these for students who don’t quite make the 100 points, but use the other benchmark numbers (25, 50, 75).

Reading Based Rewards from Kristina Zucchino

6// Make Reading Homework Fun

When I first began using AR, I couldn’t stand to hear myself hounding my students about their points. Way to kill the love for reading!  I still have to catch myself and ask questions about what they are reading, help them find books, take them to the library, etc.  I do have them on a schedule for their points, but I try to celebrate their achievements rather than nag.  If they are not making their points, there’s another issue going on that hounding them won’t fix.  I don’t want them to read just so they “won’t get in trouble.”

While my students have an AR goal they have to meet every marking period.  (AR=Accelerated Reader), students also have a monthly Reading Tic-Tac-Toe Response that helps them engage with their book and do something FUN with the book that is also standards-based.  Plus, they have a choice. They only have to do 3 of the activities for the whole month, but they can do more for extra credit.  This along with reading for 30 minutes each night is their only Reading homework.  I thoroughly enjoy seeing what they come up with every month.  This is a great way to give your students a creative outlet.  You can also encourage your students to create their own way to respond to their reading.

7// Read picture books to your students.

Picture books are not just for little kids and do not equal easy books.  I love to use picture books as a mentor text, to teach certain skills, or character education.  Keep a basket of on grade level picture books in your classroom library.  Use picture books as anchor texts throughout the year.  I have used Sandwich Swap by Queen Rania in my own classroom in grades 3-5 throughout the whole year to teach various skills in both Reading and Writing.  Having anchor books like this that your students are familiar with the story give you a permanent accessible reference point for your students when teaching deeper, harder skills.

8//  Give them access to books of their choice.

If you use Scholastic Book Club in your classroom, you know how excited your kids can get about those catalogs. Take your students to the library once a week, every other week, once a month.  Teach them how to find books outside of your classroom.

I could give you all the tips in the world, but when it comes down to it—your attitude, values, and beliefs ultimately create your classroom community.  If you share enjoyment and give your students reading experiences where they feel happy and excited about reading, you truly can teach your kids to love reading.

I hope you found these tips useful to cultivating a classroom or readers! Share YOUR ideas on how you build a LOVE for Reading in your own classroom in the comments section below.

Happy Reading!

Essays About Reading: 5 Examples And Topic Ideas

As a writer, you love to read and talk to others about reading books. Check out some examples of essays about reading and topic ideas for your essay.

Many people fall in love with good books at an early age, as experiencing the joy of reading can help transport a child’s imagination to new places. Reading isn’t just for fun, of course—the importance of reading has been shown time and again in educational research studies.

If you love to sit down with a good book, you likely want to share your love of reading with others. Reading can offer a new perspective and transport readers to different worlds, whether you’re into autobiographies, books about positive thinking, or stories that share life lessons.

When explaining your love of reading to others, it’s important to let your passion shine through in your writing. Try not to take a negative view of people who don’t enjoy reading, as reading and writing skills are tougher for some people than others.

Talk about the positive effects of reading and how it’s positively benefitted your life. Offer helpful tips on how people can learn to enjoy reading, even if it’s something that they’ve struggled with for a long time. Remember, your goal when writing essays about reading is to make others interested in exploring the world of books as a source of knowledge and entertainment.

Now, let’s explore some popular essays on reading to help get you inspired and some topics that you can use as a starting point for your essay about how books have positively impacted your life.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers

Examples Of Essays About Reading

• 1. The Book That Changed My Life By The New York Times
• 2. I Read 150+ Books in 2 Years. Here’s How It Changed My Life By Anangsha Alammyan
• 3. How My Diagnosis Improved My College Experience By Blair Kenney

4. How ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’ Saved Me By Isaac Fitzgerald

5. catcher in the rye: that time a banned book changed my life by pat kelly, topic ideas for essays about reading, 1. how can a high school student improve their reading skills, 2. what’s the best piece of literature ever written, 3. how reading books from authors of varied backgrounds can provide a different perspective, 4. challenging your point of view: how reading essays you disagree with can provide a new perspective.

1.  The Book That Changed My Life  By  The New York Times

“My error the first time around was to read “Middlemarch” as one would a typical novel. But “Middlemarch” isn’t really about plot and dialogue. It’s all about character, as mediated through the wise and compassionate (but sharply astute) voice of the omniscient narrator. The book shows us that we cannot live without other people and that we cannot live with other people unless we recognize their flaws and foibles in ourselves.”  The New York Times

In this collection of reader essays, people share the books that have shaped how they see the world and live their lives. Talking about a life-changing piece of literature can offer a new perspective to people who tend to shy away from reading and can encourage others to pick up your favorite book.

2.  I Read 150+ Books in 2 Years. Here’s How It Changed My Life  By Anangsha Alammyan

“Consistent reading helps you develop your  analytical thinking skills  over time. It stimulates your brain and allows you to think in new ways. When you are  actively engaged  in what you’re reading, you would be able to ask better questions, look at things from a different perspective, identify patterns and make connections.” Anangsha Alammyan

Alammyan shares how she got away from habits that weren’t serving her life (such as scrolling on social media) and instead turned her attention to focus on reading. She shares how she changed her schedule and time management processes to allow herself to devote more time to reading, and she also shares the many ways that she benefited from spending more time on her Kindle and less time on her phone.

3.  How My Diagnosis Improved My College Experience  By Blair Kenney

“When my learning specialist convinced me that I was an intelligent person with a reading disorder, I gradually stopped hiding from what I was most afraid of—the belief that I was a person of mediocre intelligence with overambitious goals for herself. As I slowly let go of this fear, I became much more aware of my learning issues. For the first time, I felt that I could dig below the surface of my unhappiness in school without being ashamed of what I might find.” Blair Kenney

Reading does not come easily to everyone, and dyslexia can make it especially difficult for a person to process words. In this essay, Kenney shares her experience of being diagnosed with dyslexia during her sophomore year of college at Yale. She gave herself more patience, grew in her confidence, and developed techniques that worked to improve her reading and processing skills.

“I took that book home to finish reading it. I’d sit somewhat uncomfortably in a tree or against a stone wall or, more often than not, in my sparsely decorated bedroom with the door closed as my mother had hushed arguments with my father on the phone. There were many things in the book that went over my head during my first time reading it. But a land left with neither Rhyme nor Reason, as I listened to my parents fight, that I understood.” Isaac Fitzgerald

Books can transport a reader to another world. In this essay, Fitzgerald explains how Norton Juster’s novel allowed him to escape a difficult time in his childhood through the magic of his imagination. Writing about a book that had a significant impact on your childhood can help you form an instant connection with your reader, as many people hold a childhood literature favorite near and dear to their hearts.

“From the first paragraph my mind was blown wide open. It not only changed my whole perspective on what literature could be, it changed the way I looked at myself in relation to the world. This was heavy stuff. Of the countless books I had read up to this point, even the ones written in first person, none of them felt like they were speaking directly to me. Not really anyway.” Pat Kelly

Many readers have had the experience of feeling like a book was written specifically for them, and in this essay, Kelly shares that experience with J.D. Salinger’s classic American novel. Writing about a book that felt like it was written specifically for you can give you the chance to share what was happening in your life when you read the book and the lasting impact that the book had on you as a person.

There are several topic options to choose from when you’re writing about reading. You may want to write about how literature you love has changed your life or how others can develop their reading skills to derive similar pleasure from reading.

Middle and high school students who struggle with reading can feel discouraged when, despite their best efforts, their skills do not improve. Research the latest educational techniques for boosting reading skills in high school students (the research often changes) and offer concrete tips (such as using active reading skills) to help students grow.

It’s an excellent persuasive essay topic; it’s fun to write about the piece of literature you believe to be the greatest of all time. Of course, much of this topic is a matter of opinion, and it’s impossible to prove that one piece of literature is “better” than another. Write your essay about how the piece of literature you consider the best positive affected your life and discuss how it’s impacted the world of literature in general.

The world is full of many perspectives and points of view, and it can be hard to imagine the world through someone else’s eyes. Reading books by authors of different gender, race, or socioeconomic status can help open your eyes to the challenges and issues others face. Explain how reading books by authors with different backgrounds has changed your worldview in your essay.

It’s fun to read the information that reinforces viewpoints that you already have, but doing so doesn’t contribute to expanding your mind and helping you see the world from a different perspective. Explain how pushing oneself to see a different point of view can help you better understand your perspective and help open your eyes to ideas you may not have considered.

Tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead.

If you’re stuck picking your next essay topic, check out our round-up of essay topics about education .

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10 Tips to Instill a Love of Reading in Students

• Janessa Fletcher
• October 16, 2020
• No Comments

One of the main goals we have as teachers is to use Tips to Instill a Love of Reading in Students. We make them do read-a-longs, give them reading material we think is best, and drill into them the need to read. What we want as teachers are for our students to fall in love with reading.

I can’t promise your students will be perfect readers, or that they will be passionate about it. However, I can give you 10 amazing tips to instill a love of reading in your students.

Tip #1 ~ Show Them Your Passion for Reading

Whether we like it or not, children look up to us. As teachers, we are role models. If you want your students to have a love of reading, you have to show them your love for it as well. They aren’t going to believe reading is fun, exciting, and adventurous if they don’t see you with a book in your hand. So make sure they catch you reading in your downtime and your passion for books. They will see your enthusiasm, and get excited as well!

#2 ~ Make Reading Fun 

Reading should be fun, especially for a kid. Don’t be afraid to breathe life into their reading. When you’re doing a read-a-loud try to create voices for different characters. Maybe utilize puppets, or imagery to give visuals to the story. How about acting out the story? You could have students act out the characters and the scenes to make it more interesting. Reading can be a fun activity, even for ‘boring educational’ reads. It’s up to you as the teacher to breathe life into reading.

Tip #3 ~ Let Them Create Their Narrative

Another way to make reading fun, and to bring us back to the importance of imagination, is to let them create their narrative. For my little ones that can’t read it means ignoring the words on the page, and letting them tell me what’s happening in the story based on the illustrations. For older children, you could print off a paragraph or two from a story, and make them write what happens next. This is a great way to instill reading comprehension, to make them think about what they read, and form an idea of what could happen next. It’s also a great way to combine reading and writing in a fun way. Anytime they are using their imaginations, and having fun will create a positive experience with reading.

#4 ~ Allow Them to Explore Their Passions

If you notice a student has a love for a topic, help them find a book at the library on said topic. When a kid has a passion for something they want to learn as much as they can about that topic. They will search on google, youtube, and scour the internet, but their first instinct may not be to pick up a book. Show them that books can be an amazing resource to learn more about something they are passionate about, and it will also show that you care enough to notice.

#5 ~ Surround Them With Books

Have books laid out on the tables, on the floor, in baskets around the room, on shelves, and on windowsills. Create the perfect environment for reading. One of the ways I do this is to create little reading nooks in different places. I love to set the mood for reading with floor pillows, illustrations from books on the walls, cozy blankets, and tents. Create a space where a student would want to curl up with a good book and get lost in the pages. Having book options spread out all around the room invites them to take a peek, maybe open the front page, read the first paragraph, and then lose themselves in the pages. 

Tip # 6 ~ Give Them Freedom

We all have a favorite genre, give them the freedom to find theirs. Let them read a comic book, graphic novel, fantasy, adventure, or biography. Don’t steer them away from a book, just because it’s not what you want them to read. Instead, let them have the freedom to decide. They will be more inclined to keep reading and explore more books. If you have a mandatory read, then have a free reading period where they can have time to read a book of their choice. Nothing turns a child off from reading, then being forced to always read books they aren’t interested in. Give them the freedom to choose, it shows respect, and that you care about their interests.

#7 ~ Nurture Their Imagination

One of my favorite activities after reading a book is letting a student’s imagination run wild! My all-time favorite way to do this is to break out the paper, pens, markers, crayons, and have them illustrate the story. This makes them recall what they read, use their minds to visualize the story and fill in the gaps with their imagination. Most books are born from an author’s imagination, it’s important to nurture and let a child’s imagination thrive. You never know when you could be teaching a future author or illustrator.

Tip #8 ~ Failure Is Not an Option

Failure is one of a child’s greatest fears. Fear of not being good enough, making a mistake, being called out, and feeling inadequate or made fun of. When you are trying to get a child to read, make sure you are doing it in a way that makes them feel confident. When you have a student that is struggling to read, the worst thing to do is immediately point out the flaws. Instead, point out the things they did well, then tie in how they could improve. Don’t let failure be an option. Instead, let it be viewed as a positive learning experience. 

#9 ~ Include Them

I love to give my students the feeling of respect, and that their opinions matter. I find that they in turn respect me a lot more. When it comes to read-alouds, book reports, and all the ‘non’ fun things that come reading, always try to involve them more. Have your students write down a book they would like to read, put it in a jar, and pull one out for each new read-aloud. Maybe pull out a few options and have the kid’s vote on their favorite. Pick out three and have each kid decide which one they want to do a book report on. Try our Free Caterpillar Book Report Printable .   Involve them in decisions. They will be more interested in reading and participating if they know they are involved in the process. 

Tip #10 ~ Create A Positive Experience

The last tip is probably the most important one to instill a love of reading in your students. Create a positive reading experience for your students. Reading is meant to inform, but it’s also meant to be an escape. It’s meant to take us on new adventures, inspire us, and fill us with dreams. As Teachers, we are meant to educate, but we should always strive to do it in a positive uplifting way. Teachers have such an influence on the lives of their students, who they will become, and how they view themselves. If you want to instill a love of reading, then you have to be willing to do the work to make reading a positive experience for your students. 

Now that you have learned 10 new tips on instilling a love of reading in your students,  you’re on your way to becoming a more efficient reading teacher! 

Have more tips on how to instill a love of reading in your students? We would love to hear them down in the comments! ❤️

~ Written by: Brittany Coleman

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Look Into Education

How teachers can inspire the love of reading.

May 19th, 2021

Teachers of any subject can spark the love of reading in their students.

Reading benefits physical and mental health. By starting their love of reading young, children and youth are establishing benefits that can last a lifetime. Educators hold important positions in students’ lives and can encourage reading and its positive effects.

How Reading Can Change Minds

Research shows that reading can improve emotional and cognitive intelligence by triggering responses in the brain. Neuroscientists propose that reading can increase functional connectivity in the areas responsible for vision and spoken language. This is the brain’s way of filtering the vast amounts of visual information we encounter.

Children stand to especially benefit from reading. In addition to strengthening brain connections, here are more ways reading positively affects children:

• Reading improves concentration and develops focus.
• Reading teaches children about the world around them. They learn about people, places, and things outside of their own experience.
• Reading improves vocabulary and language skills. By reading, children subconsciously learn how to use words and structure sentences.
• Reading develops imagination. As we read, we imagine how a character feels or a place looks. Young children bring this knowledge into their play.
• Reading helps children develop empathy.
• Reading is fun and can beat boredom.
• Reading promotes better achievement in school.
• Children who read a lot get better at it.

Ways to Encourage Students to Read

Be a Role Model

In order to teach the love of reading, teachers should themselves read and recognize its impact. Most of all, readers can share their reading experiences. Reading a new book? Tell students about it and what you have learned and enjoyed about the book. Another tip is to read passages so students can discover the details that interest you.

Make it Social

Reading can also be a way to socialize. Book clubs and reading groups give students a chance to interact with each other. These gatherings also enhance their comprehension and makes reading more enjoyable.

Other interactive ideas include a “read-a-thon” that combines reading with activities and charitable giving. Field trips to a local library or bookstore can also be fun and allow students to explore, touch, and see thousands of printed books in person.

Celebrate Writers

Invite an author to speak to the class—whether in-person or virtually. This gives students a chance to hear directly from an author and explore the mind of a writer. Another way to celebrate writers is to dedicate a day or event to a specific author or book.

It is easier for students to develop reading skills when they enjoy reading. Teachers are therefore at the forefront of building a love of reading that can last a lifetime.

Explore the Online Master of Education (MEd) in Reading Instruction

The Master of Education (MEd) in Reading Instruction program is designed for K-12 teachers who want to strengthen their knowledge and instructional skills to effectively teach reading. Graduates of the program can become leaders in their schools and districts, supporting literacy initiatives and curriculum development.

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DEVELOPING GENUINE LOVE FOR READING 1

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DR. MARVIN W LIDAWAN

Foundations of good reading among children are the same regardless of their gender, background or special learning needs.In other words, all children use the same processes in learning to read. Some children may be slow readers while others may be fast absorbers but all of them can ultimately master the same basic skills for fluency and comprehension. The three main interrelated goals for reading are: fluency, comprehension and motivation. Fluency is one's ability to identify words accurately and read text fluently with good expressions. It is achieved through reading made-easy books about familiar subjects. Children are enhanced in phrasing gaining more meanings through the texts they read. Comprehension is to understand, reflect on and learn from text. This includes: prior knowledge, experiences, language skills and higher-level thinking. The third is motivation to read which is tantamount to oil which lubricates the engine to move. Motivational factor is crucial to start with the process. Books, poems, pictures, charts and other resources could be ideal that catch the interests of early readers. Intensive research about early reading in Ontario Canada (2003) showed that reading concepts are the knowledge and skills that children should be equipped with in order to read with fluency and comprehension: oral language, prior knowledge and experience, concepts about the print,phonemic awareness, letter-sound relationship, vocabulary for reading, semantics, syntax and pragmatics; metacognition and comprehension strategies and higher-order thinking skills. These factors are not dependent from each other but rather support and build on each aspect for successful implementation. Oral language could be elucidated through experience; children accumulate vocabularies, semantic knowledge which is the awareness of the structure and syntactic knowledge. It has been proven that children who are proficient in oral knowledge have solid beginning for reading. On the other hand, prior knowledge and experience illustrates variety of experiences that will allow the children to admire concepts found from the texts. The anticipation of contents leads to easier decoding of the texts and deeper understanding of its meanings. It is the world of understanding that children bring to school.Researches on the early stages of learning indicate that children begin to make sense of their environment at a very early

Sara Santos

Marilyn J Adams

Angela Sinaga

VDM publisher

Antar Abdellah

Perspectives on School-Based Issues

Gola Mendoza

Lauren Stephenson

Reading, a critical element of literacy, is essential in today’s constantly changing world since reading competence is foundational, not only for school based learning, but also for children’s behavioral and psychological wellbeing, further education and training, occupational success, productive and fulfilling participation in economic activity, as well as for a country’s social and economic future (National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, 2005). Continuously improving computer based technologies and global communications means that competence in complex multiliteracies is now more than ever essential for success.

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7 Creative Ways to Foster a Love of Reading in Your Students

By Helly Douglas

Getting your students to read can be challenging enough. For many children, it’s something that’s only done in school. So how can you help them learn that reading is enjoyable?

Making reading a priority can have a huge impact on future success . The more students do it, the easier it becomes and more enjoyable they’ll find it. That means embedding reading not only in your classroom but across the school.

Here are seven simple ideas for promoting reading in your school.

1. Be a reading role model

2. encourage parental involvement, 3. help them find books they’ll love, 4. raise the profile of reading, 5. teach them to read fluently, 6. make reading enjoyable, 7. reading doesn’t have to mean books.

If children don’t see anyone reading at home, they’re unlikely to try it themselves. You must be the reading role model they need to show them how enjoyable it can be. That means putting reading centre stage in your classroom.

Do the students know what you’re reading? Display your current book on your classroom door and include it in your email signature. Talk about books you’ve read and keep a list on display for them to see.

When do your students see you reading? Introduce ‘stop and read’ time where everyone puts down their pencils and picks up a book – you included. Students are never too old to listen to a story. Choose punchy relevant texts that will keep them engaged to use as whole class readers.

Countless research shows the benefits of parents reading with children. Parental involvement has more impact than other factors such as social class or family size. The earlier you can get parents involved, the greater effect they can have.

Running parent sessions to talk about reading lets you share the benefits. Don’t assume which parents are reading at home and which aren’t. Model how to read together to remove the fear of doing it wrong. Working together with parents will help them see that reading is everyone’s responsibility.

Most schools use social media as an informal way to communicate. It’s perfect for promoting reading. Share book lists, create challenges, add photos of staff reading, and encourage parents to share what they’re reading at home. Use a loan system and promote your local library for families who don’t have access to books.

What books do your students experience? Many only read the set texts on your curriculum. Create recommended reading lists for different year groups and encourage students to add their ideas. You could create book reviews or use a class blog to share new stories. Suggest alternative authors to broaden their reading if they always stick to a favourite writer.

Watch out for new releases by popular authors and share them with your class. Find books that are driven by relevant issues they’re experiencing. You could even record videos of you reading extracts of stories to promote them to parents.

Reading should be central in your school. Create events that get everyone reading and add them to the yearly calendar. Make class displays or add a section on your school website to showcase these events.

You could include:

• Read-a-thons
• Competitions
• Games and challenges

You might be tempted to offer incentives to get students reading. But what impression are you giving? They learn that reading is something you do to earn a reward rather than for fun. It’s something to be avoided unless explicitly linked back to the act of reading, like earning a book voucher by reading daily all term.

If your students can’t decode fluently, reading will always feel like a chore. Look at how you teach it across your school. How do they learn those essential phonemic skills? What interventions are in place to support those who struggle before it becomes a problem?

Develop a robust system to find and support students who struggle with reading as early as possible. For those with reading difficulties, use dyslexia-friendly books with coloured pages, clear fonts, and larger print to make it easier for them.

When you read for pleasure at home, do you sit at a dining table? It’s more likely you find somewhere comfortable to read. Perhaps you have a favourite spot on the sofa, in the garden, or curled up in bed.

Sitting at desks in the classroom for long periods of time isn’t comfortable. Your students start to fidget and squirm. The solution is making reading both comfy and exciting. Use bright cushions, create reading corners, or let them make dens under their tables.

Reading doesn’t just mean books. There are plenty of other formats your students can access, including eBooks and audio books. Getting them hooked on listening to good stories can lead to reading print in the future.

Stock your classroom or library with a range of texts including comics, magazines, and non-fiction books. Some students may hate reading novels but love non-fiction. Having a range of texts available means you can help every student find something they’ll love.

Final thoughts

Reading needs to be central to the school day, not an add-on or special event. Embedding reading has huge benefits for all students, both academically and socially. If you work with older students, this means using it across all subject areas. Improved reading leads to better results for everyone.

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Helly Douglas

Helly Douglas is a UK writer and teacher, specialising in education, children, and parenting. She loves making the complex seem simple through blogs, articles, and curriculum content. You can check out her work at hellydouglas.com or connect on Twitter @hellydouglas. When she’s not writing, you will find her in a classroom, being a mum or battling against the wilderness of her garden—the garden is winning!

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12 Books to Help You Love Reading Again

Focusing on anything, let alone a book, has been hard lately. These are the titles that reignited our love for literature.

Reading is hard right now. The pandemic has pushed our already scattered attention spans to a crisis point. But even before 2020, stressors such as political chaos and the allure of our phones made it harder and harder to find the time and focus to get lost in a book. Even when we’re not living through a distracting moment, we will inevitably have personal fallow periods when reading as a habit and a respite just doesn’t happen.

Certain writing is able to grab us and shake us out of these ruts—by presenting a breakneck adventure we feel compelled to see through; by gently opening us back up to the thrill of a good story; by allowing us to spend time in the mind of a fictional character. When they appear to us at the right moment and in the right way, these books can act as a bridge that leads us back to the rewards of literature. Below, our staff members have compiled 12 books that rekindled our love for reading after a dry spell.

Heartburn , by Nora Ephron

After I had my twins in the summer of 2020, when my brain was as sludgy as risotto and I couldn’t imagine finishing a CNN chyron, let alone a novel, my very brilliant friend Annalisa recommended Heartburn as a “gateway” back into reading. I finished it in a few days, sucking up the chapters like air or a cocktail. The book is a lightly (very lightly) fictionalized version of Ephron’s own devastating marital crisis, when she discovered that her husband, the former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, was having an affair with a mutual friend while Ephron was pregnant with their second child. Somehow, it’s hysterical. Ephron’s tone throughout is part stand-up comic, part beloved friend sending a bitchy, meandering email. In one paragraph, her thoughts turn from despair to suicidal ideation to the habits of “neurasthenic,” poetic sad girls to this take on that famous genre: “Show me a woman who cries when the trees lose their leaves in autumn and I’ll show you a real asshole.” Did I mention that recipes are folded into the text? An actually perfect novel. — Sophie Gilbert

The Plot , by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Recently, during a particularly grim stretch of months, I was desperate to get lost in a book. I kept searching for something that would echo what I was feeling: serious reflections on sickness, grief and loss, the world ending. But I couldn’t finish anything. Getting to the last page always seemed like hiking up a mountain; it would be worthwhile, even beautiful, but also exhausting. When I read The Plot , I realized I’d been picking the wrong material. The title of Korelitz’s twisty thriller feels like a wink to the reader. It is, in fact, a plot-driven book about the power of a good plot. (Things kick off when a writer steals a dynamite story line from a dead person.) That’s not to say the book is only action; it plays with meaty questions about artistic ownership, gender, and creative identity. But Korelitz leans into the drama and the fun. Sometimes, when you want a book to take you away, you have to choose one that doesn’t hit home. — Faith Hill

Intimations , by Zadie Smith

Reading about the pandemic may sound like a terrible idea for someone trying to move past the misery of the pandemic. But Smith’s Intimations , a collection of essays written during and about the isolation and anxiety of 2020, serves less as a bleak reminder of our social-distancing era and more as comforting evidence that even one of the most clear-eyed authors struggled to shape her thoughts. Some passages come off like first drafts, but that moved me: Smith seemed as reluctant as I was to contend directly with the virus’s toll, as torn as I felt about attempting to turn my dread into sourdough. Absorbing her musings, especially about writing, reassured me; her prose was as beautifully structured as ever , but she wasn’t forcing herself to find answers. At barely more than 100 pages long, Intimations is a literary compass, compact and unassuming, but essential to finding a way forward. — Shirley Li

Read: The literature of the pandemic is already here

Turtle Diary , by Russell Hoban

Turtle Diary doesn’t move very fast. It doesn’t have any real dramatic tension, either: The book’s two melancholy and otherwise unconnected narrators, William and Neaera, encounter no obstacles in their shared quest to release three sea turtles living at the London Zoo back into the ocean. The zookeeper is an eager accomplice. Their journey across England, their charges tucked in the back of a rented van, is eventless. The turtles slip easily into the water and swim away. This is not a book that screams Don’t put me down! And yet, after I had spent more than a year with my attention frayed by the dual demands of editing stories about the pandemic and caring for my baby—after I had spent many months too distracted to think about books—I kept reading because of Turtle Diary ’s calm, its quiet interiority. However undramatic, the turtles’ release is a transformative moment for both William and Neaera, and afterward, they feel more at ease in the world and with themselves. Only a book could capture the intimacy of a shift like that, and offer the pleasure of sharing in it. — Sarah Laskow

In the Dream House , by Carmen Maria Machado

To borrow the architectural metaphor that animates In the Dream House , this isn’t a memoir you read so much as one that you wander through, room by room. I toured it, so to speak, in less than a day, trying to wean my brain off social media and reacquaint it with the slow, analog pleasures of following a single narrative for an extended period. To tell a difficult story about domestic abuse within a lesbian relationship, Machado resorts to an unconventional, fragmented structure . A mesmerizing narrator, she weaves personal narrative with intelligent and often darkly funny interrogations of literary and pop-cultural tropes. Chapters are short and given intriguing titles such as “Dream House as Schrödinger’s Cat” and “Dream House as Noir.” (The chapter “Dream House as Famous Last Words” is simply the sentence “‘We can fuck,’ she says, ‘but we can’t fall in love.’”) The effect is accumulative and devastating, and the memoir’s many pieces add up to an inventive reckoning with cultural silence. — Lenika Cruz

Read: The shadow pandemic

Goodbye, Vitamin , by Rachel Khong

After Ruth’s fiancé breaks up with her, she quits her job, returns home, and helps care for her father, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. It sounds like a bummer of a premise, but Goodbye, Vitamin is actually one of the most life-affirming books I’ve ever read. When I’m in a reading rut, it’s usually because of stress, which leaves me unable to focus on a dense narrative. This novel is the perfect antidote: It’s a short read, and most scenes are less than a page long; many are just a couple of lines. It’s a story told in small everyday moments, and the knowledge that Ruth has limited time left with her father imbues each with meaning. Its comforts are deeper than escapism; by showing, never telling, it demonstrates that all the moments of our stupid little lives, even the hard and mundane ones, add up to something profound. But it’s really funny too! Khong expertly balances the silly and the sublime until the last page—even now, years after I first read it, thinking of the book’s final lines can make me cry. — Julie Beck

All About Love: New Visions , by bell hooks

In the blustering December days following the death of the Black feminist titan bell hooks , the first wave of the Omicron variant rapidly overtook New York City. Under such foreboding conditions, I rarely seek out nonfiction that isn’t explicitly work-related. But in reading so many moving tributes to hooks , I was compelled to revisit All About Love: New Visions , a brisk, personal read. Interspersing cultural analysis with anecdotes from her own life, hooks ponders what love could look like in action. “When we choose to love we choose to move against fear—against alienation and separation,” she writes. It’s at once an incisive critique of elevating romantic connections above all other kinds and a guide to employing what hooks calls a “love ethic” as a communal balm. This is the kind of nonfiction that feels like an invitation. All About Love holds the same enthralling power over me now as it did when I first encountered it as a college freshman. When I arrived at its final pages again, I was comforted by the thought that more awaited me—in the rest of hooks’s Love Song to the Nation trilogy , in her broader oeuvre, and in the other nonfiction it guided me back to. — Hannah Giorgis

Trio , by William Boyd

During the Trump era, I stopped reading books. Maybe this is understandable. The human brain is no more designed for a sustained assault on its attention than the human body is designed for metabolizing Froot Loops, and that’s essentially what Donald Trump’s presidency required: the unremitting ingestion of Twitter’s neon birdseed. Yet still I was alarmed. For two-plus years, I’d been a daily book critic at The New York Times . How on earth did I lose the skill to stay with a novel? Two things got me reading again: the election of a dull, steady, Twitter-indifferent president, which gave me the permission I needed to lose myself in fiction, and the arrival of a galley of Trio . It takes place in Brighton during the swinging ’60s, and though its scope is less ambitious than some of Boyd’s cradle-to-grave pseudo-biographies, it’s great fun nonetheless, focusing on a trio of characters (an actor, a writer, and a film producer) involved in the desperate and occasionally redeeming project of making art. I was instantly transported by their excesses, frailties, and deceptions. Boyd, an expert conjurer of worlds, writes with his customary energy and wit. Plus, one of his minor devils has the unimprovable name of Janet Headstone. Who could resist? — Jennifer Senior

Read: The exquisite pain of reading in quarantine

Piranesi , by Susanna Clarke

I read Clarke’s jewel of a novel during our first pandemic winter. At a time when creative virtuosity was the last thing on most of our minds, Piranesi floored me with its imaginative heft. A man called Piranesi lives in a house with many rooms that is sometimes flooded by the sea. He can’t remember how he got there, but he occupies his time by mapping its cavernous, statuary-filled halls. He fishes for food and makes coverings for his feet. (He wonders, at one point, whether he can knit socks from seaweed. He decides he cannot.) He also catalogs and gives names to the few people he knows or eventually discovers exist: the Other, the Prophet, 16. The reveal—why Piranesi is in the house, who his compatriots are, why his memory is so hazy—is wildly inventive. Clarke explores grand themes (consciousness, hubris) with tenderness and contrasts brilliantly austere environs with her protagonist’s warm curiosity, which registers like a beating heart. Reading along, I felt the pleasure of trusting a master storyteller; gently, slowly, she illuminated the dark until I was, like Piranesi himself, standing in the bright light of the world outside the house. — Jane Yong Kim

The Three-Body Problem , by Liu Cixin

After numbing my early-pandemic terror by getting lost in video games, I became immersed in a story that was, in part, about gaming through the apocalypse. Liu’s sci-fi landmark, The Three-Body Problem , opens with scenes from China’s Cultural Revolution in the ’60s and then traverses decades in which aliens seem to be messing with Earthly affairs, leading humankind’s brightest minds to treat their everyday reality as a puzzle to be solved. One character becomes mesmerized by a multiplayer virtual world that seems to hold clues about the mounting glitchiness of meatspace. Other characters devote themselves to quests—for hidden knowledge, for interstellar connection, for the reform of our species—with the kind of fervency that blots out all other pursuits. Devouring the book felt like completing a series of mind-bending challenges on the way to some unimaginable final level. But Liu’s exact prose and restless, point-of-view-switching narrative style paid off the obsession in a way that no game could. — Spencer Kornhaber

Read: What happens if China makes first contact?

The Thief , by Megan Whalen Turner

I felt like a ragged cuticle in 2020—exposed, inflamed, sensitive. Everything was overstimulating, even books. As the year dragged on, I decided that if reading was impossible, I’d try rereading. I began with Turner’s 1996 novel, which I’d loved in middle school but mostly forgotten. Set in a preindustrial Hellenistic world with a vividly imagined history and mythology, the book’s titular pickpocket, Gen, is a charming scoundrel who’s sprung from jail and drafted for a mysterious mission. The reasons why he travels across the country, and what his companions need a thief for, trickle out slowly alongside intrigue and banter. Turner’s story is heavy on politics and reality, which makes its mysterious supernatural implications irresistible. And when I reached the crucial, climactic twist that gives the entire journey a new meaning, the revelation of a character’s true identity and my giddy original discovery of it more than a decade ago rushed back. I immediately picked up its sequel, just as I had the first time around, and read all the way through the five other books in the series—ending with the serendipitously released 2020 conclusion, Return of the Thief . — Emma Sarappo

The Diary of a Young Girl , by Anne Frank

Early in the pandemic, I noticed that my daughters, who were 10 and 7 then, had stopped reading. Once the snow-day giddiness of those early weeks faded and some semblance of routine returned, they seemed incapable of losing themselves in books. I couldn’t blame them; my reading time was mostly spent refreshing websites that gave the numbers of the infected and dead. And then, one evening, I picked up Anne Frank’s diary. The choice was maybe morbid (and it’s possible they weren’t quite ready for it), but I sat on the floor in their room and began reading a few entries to them before bed. I’d forgotten how the diary starts with Anne in freedom, all earnestness and schoolgirl obsession. The girls loved it. And then Anne’s life begins to contract. What menaced her was so much more dangerous and deadly than COVID; they understood that. But they also couldn’t help relating: Anne peeks out the window of her attic to catch a glimpse of sky and rooftop. At one point, she wonders, “When will we be allowed to breathe fresh air again?” They kept asking for one more entry, and I kept wanting to slow down. Reading was giving them pleasure again, but I knew, as they didn’t yet, how her story ended. — Gal Beckerman

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Read With Me: 5 Tips to Foster a Love for Reading

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"Read along with me: the best is yet to be." - Lisa Dabbs (adapted from Robert Browning)

When I first became a teacher, I was excited to begin sharing the love of reading with my students. I grew up loving to read and couldn't wait to open up the children's literary book club pick that my Dad had on monthly order for me.

The time I spent with books transformed my life and sparked my imagination. I wanted to create a similar experience for my students, but I found that it was sometimes a challenge due to their home life circumstances. In the end, though, it was well worth the effort.

Fostering the love of reading in your class may take a little work, but there are plenty of resources available to support you in this effort. Here are five suggestions that can help you get started with leading the "love for reading" charge.

1. Read Aloud

Read-aloud time was one of the favorite things in my class. My students loved the chance to sit together on the carpet or at their desks and listen to their teacher read. It was one of the best times of the day for me. I loved to read in different voices and "ham it up," depending on the book we were reading. It gave my students a chance to see me in a different light and connect with me in a down-to-earth way. Don't neglect this opportunity to bring reading alive in the classroom. Remember that it's OK to read fave books many times during the year, and to include chapter books and poetry as well. If reading aloud is not your thing, seek out colleagues, administrators, parents and web friends who can support you. Skype an Author is also a great way to build excitement around the read-aloud time.

2. Visit the Library -- Weekly

When was the last time you stepped into your local library to check out the haps? When was the last time you did this with your class? It's true that many school libraries have been shut down, but why not consider planning a library field trip? It's an amazing opportunity to get books into the hands of your kids -- for free! Get colleagues, parents and school admin to support you. Your local librarian can be an excellent resource, so be sure to tap him or her for support. While you're there, don't forget to sign everyone up for a library card!

3. Develop a Classroom Library

Did you know that research says we should have at least 1,200 books in our classroom libraries to support our students' literacy? Do you have a classroom library? If not, I urge you to develop one. To share the love of reading with our students, we need to have a variety of books that are easily accessible for them to read. How do we accomplish this feat? By enlisting the support of parents, friends and family who will make a commitment to support your goal of developing and sustaining a classroom library. Ask them to donate books or sponsor your class with resources that can be used to purchase books. Also, be sure to collaborate with colleagues on creative ways to fund your libraries.

4. Start a Book Club

The idea of a book club can be so exciting for our kids. Many students will benefit from the fun interaction that a book club can provide. Book talks with friends makes the idea of reading that much more enjoyable. The whole social nature of book clubs can be a very positive activity for kids who may still feel that reading is boring. For a resource on how to get a book club rolling, check out Elizabeth's blog post about how she engages her students in reading.

5. Write Stories

Writing stories can be overwhelming for kids. At the beginning, let's make this easy and fun. Try the idea of adapting a current storyline of a favorite book ( Brown Bear, Brown Bear comes to mind) and having students turn that into "their" story. Early grades especially can benefit from this strategy to support a student's writing until they are ready to write (with your guidance) on their own. Consider integrating apps, such as StoryBird and FlipSnack , that allow for a collaborative writing experience.

More Suggestions to Keep On Reading

Here are three more resources that you might want to check out:

• Read with Me: My Book List : Create a Pinterest board with your classroom.
• What Should I Read Next? : Type in your favorite book, and this website will list 20 others similar to it.
• Ten Ways to Cultivate a Love of Reading in Students : My fellow Edutopia blogger Elena Aguilar provides more great tips.

The five tips I've shared today are probably not new to you, but they are a way to help you stay on course with nurturing a love of reading in your classroom. Do you have suggestions of your own? I'd love to have you share them in the comments.

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What Teenagers Are Saying About Parents Paying Their Children to Read

Can bribes instill a lifelong love of reading? Teens weigh in on a recent guest essay.

By The Learning Network

Should parents pay their children to read?

That’s the question we asked teenagers this past week in response to a guest essay from a mother who did just that. “This summer, I paid my 12-year-old daughter $100 to read a book,” the author Mireille Silcoff wrote. “It worked so well, I’d suggest that other parents of reluctant readers open their wallets and bribe their kids to read, too.”

We wanted to know what students thought about this parenting hack. Could offering children money to finish a book instill a lifelong love a reading, as Ms. Silcoff hoped it would for her own daughter? We’ve rounded up a range of opinions below.

Thank you to those who joined the conversation on our writing prompts this week, including students from Cumberland Polytechnic High School in Fayetteville, N.C. ; Lakeland Union High School in Minocqua, Wis.; and Perris High School in Perris, Calif.

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.

The majority of teenagers said, no, parents should not pay their children to read. Money can’t buy a love of books, they argued.

You cannot pay someone to enjoy a book. Reading is something that engages your mind, starts up your imagination to imagine a world you never have before. Doing that for a mere twenty dollars isn’t something I would ever consider. Some people love reading like I do, and some people hate it. You should never pay someone to do something that doesn’t interest them.

— Makena, Hanover-Horton High School

When I was a kid, I will admit my parents did pay me to read. The one problem is that I wasn’t reading for the right reasons. Many years later I still am a reader but the dollar-per-book rate my parents offered isn’t why. Looking back on my reading journey, I now see real-life examples of the benefits reading has brought to my daily life. I have random facts, statistics, and vocabulary floating around in my head and when I randomly blurt out a random historical fact, I find myself thinking, I must have read that somewhere. Paying children to read does not mean they will comprehend the book’s story, feel the emotions, or picture the scenery the author describes … Overall, reading is still a part of my everyday life but that love was something I had to discover on my own.

— Lily, Glenbard West

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