"Take A Look," You Said. "It's In A BOOK," You Said.

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Freethinker's Day
Birthday - President William McKinley (25th President)
Anniversary - Seeing Eye (guide dogs)
Admission Day (Kansas)

 

When I was in school, developing one’s reading skills was, to put it mildly, encouraged. From first grade onward, we were greeted everywhere with posters of celebrities holding books—everyone from Alec Baldwin to Xena: Warrior Princess was there to inform us reading was a very useful skill.  Our teachers demanded constant book reports, and every week we would have Library Time. Scholastic ran rampant through our schools like a horde of Vikings through a thatched village, leaving in its wake catalogs, a weird little newspaper, and periodic book fairs. Reading made you smart, everyone told us.  It is cool to read!  For god’s sake, put down those video games and—are you listening?  Please? Animorphs has a plot and cuddly animals and everything! Goosebumps is scary! Well, you like that Power Rangers show, can you at least read a novelization of the episodes?  Okay, just read the blurb under this photo of the rabbit.  Anything? Dammit, kids these days are dumb as blocks.

 

And then there was Read-Aloud Class Time.

 

Now, to understand why I hated Read-Aloud Time so much, you have to understand that all this seemed a little redundant to me, because I was that reading kid. The one in the corner reading while the rest of the class harassed the substitute teacher. The one with the book under my desk during the instructional videos. The one who found a corner of the playground and read through recess.  The one who spent the recesses of sixth grade shelving books in the school library, and then settling down with a book.* To me, book reports were an unnecessary nuisance, taking up time that I could have spent reading another book.

 

And Read-Aloud Time was a nightmare.

 

You may have had something similar in your school.  It went like this: each student had a copy of their Reading Comprehension Book, full of sometimes great and sometimes deadly boring stories designed to impart some literary goodness while honing our sharp skills, and with questions at the end like “Why do you think Reynolds waited until Mom had her back turned before he stole all the cookies she had baked for Mrs. Cratchit?”** That was simple enough—it was yet another of those incomprehensible school things people made you do, and it wasn’t very hard.

 

But the catch to Read-Aloud Time was that you got these books out, and then everyone in the class took turns reading the story aloud.

 

Were you a fast reader in school? Do you remember—do you have any idea—how mind numbingly boring that was?  I didn’t mind that others weren’t as fast readers as I was, but reading aloud forced everyone to go at the pace of the slow readers.  And I frankly would get bored and lose track of the story.

 

So I read ahead. I would often finish the story while the rest of the class was on page two.  I would have understood it all, and it wouldn’t have been at the interminable pace we went at.  But the whole time I was reading, while one of the eight or so Ryans in the class was struggling over the word “through,” I lived in fear. Because I never knew when the teacher would call on me to read the next paragraph.

 

Oh, I tried to pay attention. I kept my finger on the page everyone was on, and frequently paused to listen and see which paragraph they were on.  But inevitably, at some point during Read-Aloud Time, the following conversation would occur:

 

Teacher: Amelia, will you read next?

Amelia: … Uh, hang on.

Amelia: … *goes back to the page they were on*

Teacher: Perhaps somebody who has been paying attention would like to help Amelia out? (Optional) Amelia, I’m going to put your name on the board.

 

And she would, punishing me by embarrassment for “not paying attention” when I was simply reading fast. I tried a few times to protest that I’d been reading ahead, but that got me no sympathy at all. My teacher simply told me to try to stay with the rest of the class, and reiterated that I should pay attention.

 

I could never quite get over that last part.

 

What did I learn in school? I learned that grownups are hypocrites.  And jerks. And they don’t actually value good behavior or reading skills, because when I would finish an assignment before everyone else, I quickly learned that sitting back quietly and pulling out my book would be rewarded with the teacher finding me more busywork while the rest of the class finished the assignment. I got in trouble for being fast.***  And I once wound up in the school psychiatrist’s office because my teachers decided I read too much.

 

And I couldn’t do anything about it, because they knew what was best for me.

 

Something about the injustice of it keeps the anger quietly festering in me until this day.  It’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder how kids stay sane with grownups running the world.

 

 

*It was a legitimate excuse to get out of recess.  I spent years trying to convince my teachers that it was freaking cold and slushy outside and I wanted to stay inside and read, and nobody would let me until I found that the nice librarian didn’t know it was The Rules that I had to go out and get fresh air and socialize with the kids, and let me shelve the books or put contact paper on the new ones and then read until the bell rang. Once again, we see that reading was apparently not as valued as everyone said it was.

 

**If it were a math story problem about cookies it would have also involved two people named Ahmed and Yoshimi.

 

***I’m a pretty fast reader, but I’d just like to point out here that I’m definitely not on par with gondolinchick01, the Human Scanner.  She looks at a page and she’s read it. It’s creepy. I bet she had some run-ins when she was still in public school.

Comments

[alexvdl.livejournal.com]

My stepdad likes to tell the story of how we (Mom, Stepdad, sisters, and I) were at a bookstore, and some lady came up to him and asked "Your kids are reading! That's so wonderful! How do you get them to do that?"

My stepdad looked around and saw us all ensconced in chairs at the bookstore, reading books that didn't belong to us. He turned back to the lady, rolled his eyes and said "Get'em to read? Lady, how do I get'em to stop?"

I was definitely constantly getting in trouble for reading during class. All the damn time. Which is funny, because as often as that happened, never once did my mother ban me from books. Which I'm okay with. But, seriously. It got to the point where my teachers wouldn't even argue about it. That might've had something to do with the fact that when they called me about it, and forced me to stop I was obnoxious as hell until they finally let me go back to reading.

I always found that if you raised your hand for every single question that the teacher asked, the teacher would eventually get annoyed and say something to the effect of "Anyone besides Alex, please?" That was usually the point where I would pull the book back out.

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

Step one) Purchase books

Step two) Read books to child while child is still a captive audience

Step three - and this is the important one) PUT THE BOOKS WHERE THE CHILD CAN REACH THEM. PERIODICALLY ADD MORE BOOKS, BUT NEVER TAKE ANY AWAY.

Step four) ???

Step five) PROFIT

At least, that was how my mom did it.

[alexvdl.livejournal.com]

Did she make a lot of profit?

Also, my parents sorta read to me, but it was more the fact that they were always reading. ALWAYS. Ya know? All I've ever wanted to do was make my father proud, even then I guess.

Besides, reading is so much better than working.

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

Well, I was reading at collegiate level by the time I entered high school. You be the judge.

[alexvdl.livejournal.com]

*L* Second grade I was collegiate. Third grade I was off the charts.

As for the second, GUILTY!

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

Smartypants.

Honestly, I'm not sure I was ever actually tested, aside from those darn standardized tests. So this is mostly wild-ass-guessing. I do know that my Mad Reading Skillz were enough to get me AP-tracked despite the fact that I have yet to get above a C in any math class. I'm so unbalanced it isn't even funny.

Results are further skewed by the fact that I read what I damn well pleased, "challenging myself" be damned.

What second?

[alexvdl.livejournal.com]

About judging you. What's the point in reading what they want you to read just because they believe it's great literature.

I would've taken AP classes but my... efficiency... precluded me from doing anything resembling school work.

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

Ah.

I ran screaming from the AP track on the principle that I didn't wanna and they couldn't make me. My mother is considered rather a black sheep of the family for many reasons, among which are how she handled my being Rather Clever. Instead of shoving me in the pressure-cooker, set to Genius Harvard Scholar, she pretty much let me do my own thing. Which led to some Epic Battles over grades and schoolwork, but did give me a very strong sense of self.

Most schoolwork in k-12 isn't worth doing, honestly. I ever have kids (not likely), it's private or homeschooling.

[jalendavi-lady.livejournal.com]

Dad read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to me in Kindergarten.

The shelf was right at kid eye-level.

I spent the rest of elementary school carefully judging my reading skills so as to figure out when I would be ready for The Attempt.

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

THE SYSTEM WORKS.

[okelay.livejournal.com]

but how do you profit? books are expensive. the only profit I ever got was charging my classmates to help them with their reports,essays,etc,tell them about the book we had to read but that only I had actually read and things like that.

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

The intangible benefits of knowledge

[okelay.livejournal.com]

speaking of, have you seen dollhouse? in the first ep, a girl wants so see some reality, she says she's done her homework and her dad says "then your should be rewarded. with knowledge" I thought it was cool. and so is being basically a walking encyclopedia/dictionary

[jalendavi-lady.livejournal.com]

What was really infuriating was that Mom followed it with Narnia in the first grade. By the time she was finished, i was at my reading level. My teacher was reading The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe to us in class, and she started trading off with me for some of the chapters.

Second Grade Teacher, some half year later: "JLady, about this reading log. There is no way you read all of the Chronicles of Narnia in one morning three Saturdays ago."

Me: "Have you seen how thin they are?"

But really, I spent that Saturday morning sprawled in my usual Saturday morning spot in the living room, six paperbacks strewn around me, the seventh in my hands, flipping between books to check continuity issues. (Because the good cartoon specials always came on Nickelodeon Saturday afternoon.)

[thehappyberry.livejournal.com]

The Attempt is always the scary time. I join others here in being at a post high school level from somewhere in early elementary school. The problem is the reading level is there, you can get all the big words, but world experience needed for comprehension just isn't there. I still remember trying to read Wuthering Heights in 5th grade and just not getting it.

[okelay.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's pretty much it. My mum loves to read and she was always reading to us. my sister however, is not a great reader, but slowly I've been convincing her, giving her interesting and short books, sometimes showing her the movies first,etc. so Mum read to my sister to help her do homework (she's a year older than me) and I'd be sitting there, looking at the books, wondering how to get them to tell me the stories I knew they had hidden inside. I'd pick them up and try to make sense of them. they looked like gibberish of course. the next year I learned how to read and I never stopped. my parents and sometimes siblings had to cut off the power to get me to go to sleep. at first it worked. then I just got a flashlight.

[conuly]

No, no, no. You don't put the books where they can reach them. You carefully hide the books, and insist that they promise to behave before you let them take them! Often take books down and read them in front of your kid... uh, for the kid's own good, of course... and then, when asked to read to the child, sigh dramatically and insist that, in fact, it's better when read alone if only the child could do so.

Also? If you want a kid to read fast, you have to do as my parents did: Steal their books. OMG, that was so FRUSTRATING. You put your book down. You go pee. You come back - and the book is gone! Your mother has it, and she won't give it back! "I just got to the good part honey, I thought you were done with it!"

But I do read very fast now.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I don't like the idea of making books into a controlled (and controlling) substance. If the kid is a real reader, this will only seem unjust, and reading without "permission" will become a moral dilemma, like you don't deserve to read. If the kid is not a reader, they'll never ask for 'em anyway. And harping on them for not reading themselves when they show an interest in a book, not to mention stealing books the kids are reading, also seems to reinforce the guilt factor that the kid is failing at reading. It seems like it would be very discouraging to never be good enough at something you do because you love to do it.

Obviously, this isn't always how it turns out--clearly you enjoy reading--but it seems a very risky way to do it.

... Also, the theft would never work round these parts--I always take the book into the bathroom with me. ;)

[conuly]

You have to wink a lot, did I mention?

We use this for all sorts of things, like "Well, I don't know honey. I *guess* I could let you sweep the floor. Maybe. If you're behaving...." and that sort of thing.

As for the better when read alone, you only do that with things the child actually, you know, *can* read alone. Then they're proving you wrong.

My mother didn't steal books because I couldn't read, btw - I was reading at 3! - she stole them because she wanted to read them. BECAUSE SHE IS MEAN.

I got back at her. Now I steal *her* books!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

AHA. The crucial piece of information I was missing there! I do feel that's rather bad if it's not playful. Kids get a lot of messages adults don't mean to send, so I was worried. I have a few other sad memories of the "She reads too much stop her" variety. But I stand corrected on your own family's attitude!

My family has a few multiple copies of books just so we could all read them at the same time without a battle.

[conuly]

I do feel that's rather bad if it's not playful.

Yeah, we're not bullying the babies. It doesn't even work, you know. If it did... I still wouldn't want to do it! (The winking is also how we all do Santa and the Tooth Fairy, btw. Good thing, too - the older niece, we realize years after starting that policy, is just the sort to feel incredibly tricked and betrayed if she found out the truth in the conventional way.)

My family has a few multiple copies of books just so we could all read them at the same time without a battle.

Your family is sensible. All we have multiple copies of are Roget's Thesaurus. I ask you, why would *any* family need more copies of that book than they have members?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Heh heh. I got the "Anyone BESIDES Amelia?" question quite a few times, too. I'd always feel triumphant after that.

My mom never tried to stop me. She threatened to once, during fifth grade (also the year of the school psychologist), but never carried it out.

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

I still get the "Anyone BESIDES Anabel?" and I'm in college. *sadface*

[alexvdl.livejournal.com]

You only had to hit up the school shrink for one year? Damnit. Damn my parents and their love of psychotherapy!