I’m amazed at the persistence of the book in spite of dramatic advances in information technology over the past fifty years. The book—a 1500-year-old invention—not only survives, but thrives. The computer revolution has changed how we buy books (thanks, Amazon), but the fact is we still buy books, rather than disks, tapes, MP3 downloads or whatever this flavor-of-the-month’s info format may be.

           Tech companies hope to lure readers away from paper-paged books in favor of their sleek electronic readers (reminiscent of the old Marlene Dietrich films in which she’d try to steal the hardworking men from their loving wives). I’m sure the manufacturer has great hopes—and the newest e-book is admittedly better than past attempts to replace pages with bytes—better because this one looks like a book (imagine Dietrich without the mascara). Maybe this electronic hardware will persuade us to jilt the book, but I doubt it.

           Why do books persist? Part of the draw is that the book is a highly evolved technology. Books fit into a complex functional niche particularly well, making them especially hard to displace. One aspect of this functionality is portability. There are coffee-table books that may weigh several pounds, but most books are small and light: small enough to allow a woman to slip the latest Barbara Kingsolver into her purse or for a soldier to carry a Bible in his camouflaged blouse on an Iraqi battlefield. While I can read a book on my PDA, Blackberries make for poor reading experiences, because of glaring screens, small print, and short lines.

           Books are also remarkably versatile; they fit well into the nooks and crannies of our lives. I can comfortably read a book on the beach, in bed, or on an airplane. Books are ready to go when we are; there is no waiting for them to boot. On long trips, I worry about computer batteries, but in books I trust.

           Reading any kind of book—paper or electronic—is rewarding because of the author’s ideas and language. But books offer additional aesthetic pleasures. Book reading is not just a visual experience, it is a tactile one. We describe exciting reads as “page turners” and talk about “closing the book” for a reason.

           Many years ago, I was reading Charlotte’s Web to my daughter. We scrunched into an over-stuffed armchair, the only sound, the sound of my voice speaking E.B. White’s spare diction. Erin sat in my lap in her fleece nightgown, and I held the book in both hands, encircling her warmth in my arms. I can still feel the flannel against my arms, the heft of the book, and the soft textured paper under my fingers. When I read of Charlotte’s death, Erin burst into tears. Someday fathers may read e-books to their children in the same way; but, of course, it won’t be in the same way.

Here is one of my most controversial columns as President of the International Reading Association. It upset a lot of people, but it is important that everyone understands that encouraging kids to read effectively isn't as easy as first thought.

Does he really think kids shouldn’t read?

I’m a new president. And some might wonder about my ability to represent IRA. So, let me begin this first column of my presidency with an appraisal of the IRA mission.

IRA has three purposes: (1) to improve the quality of reading instruction, (2) to encourage reading and an interest in reading, and (3) to promote reading proficiency. My career has focused on purposes 1 and 3, so no should be concerned in those areas.

But many IRA members emphasize encouraging a love of reading. They care about literacy levels, but they care even more about creating a culture of literacy.

What’s the problem? To many, I’m the guy who says it doesn’t matter if kids read! (Who would make an idiot like that president of IRA?)

I’ve never said it doesn’t matter if kids read. While being “misquoted” is an easy out, I don’t want to get off the hook that easily, as I’ve said enough things like that. For instance, I’ve said research doesn’t show that encouraging reading improves reading, and that sustained silent reading (SSR) is probably not such a good idea.

If love of reading is why you joined IRA, what might you expect from my presidency?

        · Bans against “Children’s Choices?”

        · Increased IRA emphasis on watching television?

        · Lots of frowning?

No one need fear these possibilities. I love reading, and I, too, want to live in a society in which readers and print are free to associate and in which they associate frequently.

I first learned of SSR when I was a new teacher. It sounded great. Stock your room with books and magazines, and provide time when kids can read without being bothered by teaching. I tracked down carpet for the library corner, and lots of books. I don’t think my kids ever missed a day of SSR.

So what went wrong? I read the research. What got me wondering was that the studies often didn’t find a benefit, but claimed one any way. Researchers would divide kids between SSR and “normal instruction,” find that the groups learned equally well, and would then conclude that since reading is as effective as teaching, SSR must be a good idea.

But what is “normal instruction”? Often, it turned out that the kids were assigned random worksheets. What a terrible definition of teaching! Assigning random worksheets is dopey and that it did as well as reading made me wonder.

The issue isn’t whether it is good to practice. It is whether we can get kids to read more—and to read enough to improve their reading ability.

I was on the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) and we looked into this. There were few published studies on encouraging reading, and even fewer rigorously implemented ones, or that had positive results. Only one study even bothered to find out how much the kids were reading—and it found SSR led to less reading (Summers & McClelland, 1982). Yikes! The panel concluded judiciously that we needed more evidence. We simply don’t know how to get kids to read more (Kamil, 2006; Yoon & Won, 2001).

There is research on motivation, but those studies don’t tell how to motivate kids. Motivating kids to read is more complicated than teaching them to read. Lots of instructional approaches improve achievement, but what about motivation? What stimulates one person may not work for another. Providing an on-your-own reading time may be a boon for one kid and a bust for another (“Boring!”). It is even more complicated than that, as what excites us at one moment might not work later. I love reading about baseball, but I think I’ll skip the new expose on Barry Bonds.

That we hope to expand the literacy franchise means we are dedicated to educational opportunity for all. Such efforts are a service to our society—in the same way the work of nurses, businessmen, plumbers, and accountants are a service. That we are committed to literacy as a source of pleasure serves society in less obvious ways, as it is more about the kind of society we hope to create.

One goal is a public responsibility, while the other is a personal aspiration. That is a critical distinction. It means the larger community expects, or even requires, us to teach well, but the stimulating desire part is our game, not theirs.

No teacher should be deflected from meeting the responsibility to teach. To teach reading well, we must jealously safeguard instructional time (since it belongs to the kids and the community) and follow the research carefully. To encourage reading, we have to invest ourselves as individuals, and follow our hearts.

Ultimately, the difference comes down to freedom of choice. No one has the right to refuse to become literate: “Other people can read for me, thank you very much. I just don’t want that kind of responsibility.” The implications would be too grave to allow a youngster to opt out. But choices about what to love must belong to the individual.

Teachers are institutional beings…they work for schools, governments, and societies. Teachers must carry out their responsibilities to the best of their abilities. But what about personal goals like encouraging reading? There are dangers—to an individual and to a democracy—when public institutions and public instruments try to dictate personal taste and individual choice. Institutionalizing efforts to encourage reading may even be self defeating—as students may resist to protect their individual autonomy.

As president, I will continue to work on public initiatives to improve reading instruction and achievement. As for encouraging reading, my role will be to cheer on all who have made it their personal quest to invite kids to a life of reading—a personal invitation I hope they can extend successfully to their students.

References 

Kamil, M. (2006, April). A quasi-experimental test of recreation reading: Data from a two-year study.  Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Summers, E.G., and McClelland, J.V. (1982). A field-based evaluation of sustained silent reading (SSR) in intermediate grades. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 28, 100–112.

Yoon, J., and Won, J. (2001, December). Three decades of sustained silent reading: A meta-analysis of its’ effects on reading attitude and reading comprehension. Paper presented at the National Reading Conference, San Antonio, TX.

http:Although I certainly agree with NEA on the importance of reading--especially extended reading of challenging and worthwhile text, and I suspect that NEA is right students and adults are doing less of such reading these days, I do have some disagreements with them.

          One concern is that I think their measurement of amount of reading is likely flawed. People are notoriously bad at reporting how they spend their time, unless they provide the information right then. Ask folks how much they read this morning and they'll give you a better answer than if you ask how often do you read or how much did you read last week. Also, in past studies, it is apparent that there are a wide range of interpretations of what it means to read for fun. For example, in one study, men said they never read at all, because they thought only fiction reading counted (though they read work materials and magazines about hunting, automobiles and other factual topics).

          My second and more important concern (the first matters, but let's face it, I'm quibbling) has to do with what the problem is and what the solution is. The NEA report seems to indicate that if students just read more they would read better, and lots of school teachers and professors would agree with that conclusion: this is the kids' problem and they can solve it themselves. Unfortunately, far too many of our kids can't read well enough that they would choose to read. Recent research is showing that the impact of reading on achievement is more complicated than was once thought; practice is a great idea, but not all kinds and amounts of practice serve to improve reading. For instance, I have no doubt that kids do a lot of IMing these days, but reading your buddy's 14 syllable message probably doesn't provide the same intellectual challenge--or payoff--that reading a demanding chemistry book could have. The solution isn't making reading into more of a duty, but making sure that more kids can engage it successfully. One interpretation of the problem would flood classrooms, homes, and communities with books; the other would improve the schools. Let's face it, this second approach is harder and more expensive, but it is the one that will more likely pay off eventually.

          It is ironic that the young people born during the past 25 years have had the benefits of more programs and school and community efforts to get them to read than any before it. Books have become more accessible, schools provide time for pleasure reading, pediatricians give books to parents, television networks encourage reading, book clubs have grown, instructional programs use library books rather than textbooks, and dozens of other efforts have been made.

          The outcomes of those efforts have been ably summarized in the NEA report--a generation that, in spite of lots of encouragement to read, chooses to read even less than those who received less institutional encouragement. Perhaps our efforts to make kids love reading have robbed kids of the sense that reading is a choice.

          In our zeal to make kids love reading, we have transformed reading into a duty; something that is good for you--like eating your vegetables--not something that is dangerous, fascinating, sexy, and individual. Think of the child with comic book and flashlight under the covers late at night sneaking a delectable, but unauthorized read. I almost expect to hear that schools are now assigning such reading (even sending home the flashlights), but that kind of authorization would only drain it of its joy.

          No wonder kids aren't reading as much as before.

        I'm frequently asked about reading to children. Obviously reading to kids is a good idea, though this is one of those satisfying times when the research literature actually supports the good idea. Research clearly shows that reading to children improves their oral language development (at this stage the evidence that it contributes directly to the improvement of reading skills is pretty sparse).

        Turn on the news and there is a PSA encouraging parents to read to their kids. You take your child in for a check up and the pediatrician gifts you with a book and encourages you to read (check out Reach Out and Read to find out more about this wonderful idea). Your child has trouble at school, and you guessed it, the teacher tells you to read to him if you want to help.

Maybe we oversell the idea of reading to kids, but I tend to think we mis-sell it.

1. We too rarely make it clear that book reading is only part of this equation. Reading to kids pays off, but it pays off best when there is a lot of talk between parent and child about the book, about its vocabulary and its connection to the child's life. Children sometime lead this talk with their questions and comments and sometimes the parents do with their questions and explanations.
2. We act like reading anything to kids will have a positive impact... doubtful. Some books will  entice kids and engage their minds and hearts... and some will bore them or interest them    momentarily without leaving any residue behind. When my kids were young I read to them all the time, but I didn't usually read the hot picture books that are so ubiquitous at book sharing time. I read classics--demanding, grown up, lots of pages... Books like Alice in Wonderland, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Catcher in the Rye, Black Boy, The Odyssey, The Hobbit, Charlotte's Web, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Gulliver's Travels, The Wind in the Willows. Don't be afraid to challenge your kids with something that will stick to their ribs. If you pick wrong, you can always bail out and pick something better suited to your child's needs.
3. We encourage reading to kids when sometimes we want the kids reading to us. Studies show that when children start to read (kindergarten, first grade, second grade) it is very powerful to have them reading aloud to you. I'm always surprised that at those levels the teachers are pushing reading to kids when the parents could be even more helpful by listening.
4. We rarely talk about what age kids should be read to. I started with mine the day they were born. You don't need to start that early, but it won't hurt (and mine seemed to take to it). Too many parents don't read to the kids until they get to school, losing a lot of opportunity. However, I also know plenty of parents who stop reading to kids when they start to learn to read themselves. Big mistake. I read to my kids from birth all the way up to 8th grade.
5. We push the idea that reading to kids improves their language (and maybe their reading too), but  there is a lot more to it in my opinion. I see it as a great way of expressing love. My kids and I were able to connect around books; the books I read to them made a difference in their lives--in what they have chosen to do for their work lives, in what they care about, in what they know about. I suspect that when they read a really wonderful passage of something, they even think of me (a nice return on a small, and easily made, investment).
6. We act like reading to kids is about reading stories. Of course, sometimes that is exactly what it is about. But each kid is unique and they like lots of different things. For one child, there would be nothing better than a good storybook, and for another a book about computers or science or baseball would more likely fill the bill. My youngest complained that I always picked the books. I told her she could make the next choice. She didn't really believe me, but looked hard at the bookcase, and asked if I would read In the Shadow Man, a book about the study of chimpanzees by Jane Goodall. Not exactly the kind of book one thinks of reading to a six-year old, but she fell in love with Jane Goodall (and is still a big fan), and found her own interest in science that day--now she is a bioengineer.

Reading hasn’t necessarily disappeared, but it certainly has changed, and technology is the culprit in either scenario. One image of this is the familiar one… the new technologies are diverting kids’ recreational time from reading. According to that view, kids use to read a lot, but now they are diverted by I-PODs, computers and the like. This new argument really picks up where the previous one left off: in that version, it was television that stole kids’ reading time (and, truth be told, the television argument was the replacement for the one about radio preventing reading).

However, the Sun-Times story suggests an alternative and far more complicated picture. According to their interviews, young people may be trading their book reading for computer time, but most of that time in front of a screen appears to be spent reading. Not surprisingly, when students are asked about their pleasure reading, they don’t even think of the time they are working with text on a computer. Unlike television and radio, computer time does not necessarily reduce the amount of reading… perhaps it even extends it. You don’t have to read to watch “Heroes,” but it is hard to find out what you want to in Facebook without reading. That means kids may be reading no less than in the recent past (though given how busy we all are with so many things, it wouldn't surprise me that reading--even computer reading--could be down a bit, just like exercise, eating with the family, or getting sufficient sleep time may be down).

Information technology sure complicates the reading picture. It is the increase of technology in the workplace that has been such an impetus to increasing the demand for skilled workers; workers who can read well enough to do all that is needed on a computer screen. Increasingly, policemen, nurses, factory workers, truck drivers, tradesmen, farmers, and mechanics need to have literacy skills beyond anything required a generation ago. So technology is increasing the demand for reading skills at the same time it is steering kids away from traditional forms of reading.

In my view, technology is demanding that we increase our instructional efforts to ensure that more kids leave our schools prepared to participate fully in the social life of the community. And, while I suspect that the "reading practice" they get from working on a website is every bit as good as the practice in a book if the point is making sure kids can respond to print in a skilled fashion, I doubt that computer reading is supporting the same level of intellectual energy and depth that more traditional reading can. There is value in having to deal with the extended arguments that books often provide. Historically, when literacy shifted from the reading of brief messages (graffiti, signs carved into buildings, tablets with royal inventories) to the reading of extended philosophical treatises, histories, and stories, human culture--and maybe even the human mind--were changed. Now we may be shifting our reading time back to those kinds of short messages.

Our goal shouldn't be just to push more reading practice--or even to get kids off the computer and into books--but to steer their attention to the reading and use of complex texts wherever they may be and whatever form they may take. I do not fear kids reading on computers, I fear that too much of that reading time is superficial (just like a lot of reading time in books is superficial). Kids need to understand that the brain and the heart are a lot a like; if you want a healthy heart you have to get off your butt, and if you want a healthy brain you need to do some heavy lifting. That means reading and writing more extended works that are hard to understand, talking with others--including IM’ing--about what you read, and trying to use what you read to accomplish other goals

I have a son who had a hard time in Kindergarten and 1st grade. He didn't know his alphabet when he left Kindergarten he went to summer school for 6 weeks in the summer. When he started 1st grade this year he only knew a few of his letters and numbers. In the past few months with extra help from his teachers, at home, I hired a private tutor and bought a computer online program Head Sprout he now knows all of his letters and their sounds so, he now can put words together to read. The School wants to start Reading Recovery with him. He is a level 3. I guess the rest of the class is at a level 10. Will that reading program benefit him? Is there more I can do at home? I am very concerned about my son I want to do whatever I can to help him.

Here is my response:

Dear Concerned Mother:           

No program with any integrity can guarantee educational success. However, Reading Recovery is a good approach that has helped many children, and so there is a real possibility that it could help. A colleague and I published a critical analysis of the research on Reading Recovery (Shanahan, T. and Barr, R. (1995). Reading Recovery: An independent evaluation of the effects of an early instructional intervention for at-risk learners. Reading Research Quarterly, 30, 958-997). In that review, we determined that Reading Recovery was effective—though perhaps not as helpful as it proponents sometimes claim. There is a more recent analysis of some of the Reading Recovery research on the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse.  

They, too, concluded that Reading Recovery can help.

So, given that research, if I were in your place, I would not hesitate to have my child placed in Reading Recovery. However, let me add a caveat to that. Although Reading Recovery is meant to be individually tailored to a child’s needs, there still has been a tendency for it to ignore phonics instruction or to downplay such instruction. This is unfortunate because perhaps 85% of children who are struggling with reading at this age level will have decoding problems. One study has even shown that adding a more direct version of phonics instruction to Reading Recovery can speed children’s learning gains (Iverson and Tunmer, 1993). So, I would not hesitate as a parent to approve a Reading Recovery placement, but I would hedge my bets by giving some additional phonics help at home (there are also research studies indicating faster Reading Recovery progress when parents provide additional help).

I don’t know the program that you mentioned, and it might be a good one for continued work in this area. There are some others that I think highly of and that I suspect you could make work at home, too. One is something called Ladders to Literacy and the other is Earobics. Both of these are computer based and are designed for youngster’s your child’s age. They are both well-designed and should support sound continued decoding progress for the next year or two. If you do purchase something like that (or if the program you have purchased has lessons that will take your child through the vowel variations, etc.), I would suggest that you work with him on it, rather than just shunting him off to the computer. Better progress is almost sure to result.

There is a book that you might want to read: Sally Shaywitz's Overcoming Dyslexia

One final caveat about Reading Recovery. Although it has been successful, it (like any other program) cannot ensure your son’s long-term success. In other words, even if the above regimen catches him up this year, you will need to continue to be vigilant during coming years, making sure that sufficient attention is given to his reading so that he continues to succeed (reading problems are rarely “fixed” in that sense). Once he can really read stories and books, it would be helpful for you to listen to his reading and to guide his practice in rereading until he can do a really good job with a text.

Learning problems are rarely "cured," but they can often be overcome. Good luck to you.

            But the research is pretty clear that oral reading practice, when done appropriately, not only makes kids sound better, but comprehend better, too—including on silent reading tests. One reason that oral reading can do more for silent reading than silent reading, is that often when students are asked to read silently, they may not even be reading, or their reading might be flawed and labored but who would know it if it was done silently? Oral reading makes reading more physical and less mental, so it is easier to keep on task and to notice miscues and deal with them.

          Of course, if we are going to teach oral reading (in order to make kids better comprehenders) it is reasonable to monitor their progress. That’s where oral reading tests, like DIBELS come in. Teachers can listen to kids read, and get a pretty good idea of their progress and pick out who may need more help. Sadly, I’m starting to see teachers doing silly things like asking kids to read as fast as they can so that they can get good DIBELS scores. The problem with that is that kids are supposed to read faster as a result of becoming more skilled at decoding and interpreting text, not because they are hurrying. I have no doubt that fluency instruction can have a powerful impact on reading comprehension. I also have no doubt that hurrying kids through texts is bad idea that won’t lead to that kind of learning. By all means use DIBELS (and DIBELS-like) oral reading tests. But make sure they are tests of reading--rather than hurrying.

           My skepticism about the NEA report is two-fold: first, I doubt that we are really reading less than in the past, and second, I don’t believe that the reason we’re not doing better in literacy attainment is due to our lack of pleasure reading. I do believe that Americans, while not reading less, are certainly reading differently and I suspect that is really what NEA has tapped into. American kids aren’t really reading less well than the last generation, so this supposed drop in reading practice is not the culprit (since there was no murder, there can be no murderer). I don’t even think more reading practice is the key to helping our kids to read better than those in previous generations; that will take more and better teaching from the schools.

          The shift in American’s taste for reading is interesting, and indeed it should be threatening to the fiction writing community. Publisher association industry studies have tracked the reading habits of American adults for decades. These studies in aggregate reveal that at one time the chief focus of pleasure reading was the novel—for both men and women. By the 1950s, men’s tastes had shifted, perhaps because of the war and the greater economic opportunities available, but surveys started to show a much bigger interest in popular science, biography, history, automobiles, and so on. Women’s tastes have made the same shift, but only recently (during the past decade or so), and now even children seem to prefer fact to story, a new development.

          There is all kinds of evidence supporting this shift, beyond these industry surveys. For instance, think how popular memoirs have become. I’m not speaking here of traditional autobiographies, such as those written by politicians and movie stars. Instead, I have in mind books like Angela’s Ashes and A Boy’s Life. In an earlier era, these writers would have proudly claimed these works as fictional inventions, but now they clamor to have readers believe them to be fact-based narratives. Fifty years ago, an author would have been proud to have written a book from their own imagination; now authors hope readers will believe what they have written is just an act of memory.

          Young readers are reading, but they are reading on the Internet, they are reading books about cooking and dieting, and true life accounts of sports heroes, and television personalities. The NEA is confusing the shift to that kind of reading as being a shift away from reading altogether.

           As a reading professor and former president of the International Reading Association, I’m really just as happy if someone reads a biography of Benjamin Franklin as I am if they read the latest Booker Prize recipient. However, if I were a novelist, I’d still be concerned, since these studies are showing a lessening of interest in novels. My disagreement with NEA matters in such a case, as I would guess that different strategies will be needed to pull non-readers into reading versus those that would be used to try to get informational text readers to shift over to literary reading. If I were a literary publisher, I would be working on the latter problem and not the former one.