The Power of Reading

Stephen Krashen's book The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research is one of those books that has ended up with scribbles crawling all over its pages and sections that have been so heavily underlined that they leave a little dent on the next couple of pages. I often find myself reading it while nodding furiously and/or mumbling agreement. In other words, this is a book I very strongly agree with.

Simply put, Krashen makes the case for Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) and how this is the key to language education. Allowing children the freedom to choose what they want to read and allowing them the space to simply enjoy the act (i.e. no book reviews, no questions, no stress) is the best way to grow intrinsically motivated readers. Being a reader, as the research shows, brings with it a whole host of benefits such as improved reading comprehension, spelling, control of grammar and writing style. Krashen writes,

"FVR is one of the most powerful tools we have in language education, and... is the missing ingredient in first language "language arts" as well as intermediate second and foreign language instruction. It will not, by itself, produce the highest levels of competence; rather, it provides a foundation so that higher levels of proficiency may be reached. When FVR is missing, these advanced levels are extremely difficult to attain."

It saddens me how often I hear "I don't read, I never have" or "I don't have time to read" because the benefits are so vast. I feel desperate to try and change these statements because the world of reading is so wonderful and the benefits so far reaching. But it goes further; not only is it good for us,it is pleasurable, it is how we make sense of the world around us, how we survive and ultimately it is our attraction to stories that makes us fully human.

Krashen goes as far as to say that reading is the only way that we become "good readers, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammatical competence, and the only way we become good spellers." In an educational context then, reading for pleasure, that all-consuming moment of being fully drenched by a story, should be elevated not to a convenient add-on "when there is time", but to its central place at the heart of the curriculum.

Book quotes

A long weekend. An overcast morning. Coffee. The perfect time for a bit of reading... Here are some of my favourite book quotes to inspire you too!

The sad story of the teacher who doesn't read

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Teacher X arrives in her classroom on Monday morning in a breathless huff (she'd just spilled some of her take-away cappuccino on her pants while navigating her way out of the crowded forecourt of the BP garage). "Never mind," she thinks as she turns, smiling, to face the neat rows of desks and expectant little faces. Her huff dissipates at the sight of the children in various states of alertness, awaiting her lesson.

Teacher X gathers them all on the carpet. She can't wait to get them going on the project of turning waste materials into zoo animals which she'd proudly devised over the weekend. But first, it's reading time. She settles herself on the chair (still aware of that pesky stain and angles her legs towards the blackboard somewhat self-consciously) and begins reading. Her new nail extensions fumble a little with the dog-eared pages of the library book and point distastefully at the grubby pages so that the children read a few words aloud. The bunch of little wriggly legs and hands in front of her give off a restless, irritable energy. "I can't really blame them," she thinks somewhat cynically, "the book isn't exactly riveting." After all, she could well remember being forced to read all kinds of boring things at school and suddenly their behaviour prickles more at her sympathies than her sense of irritation. Then she sighs to herself and admonishes them a bit too sharply, "Children, stop it! Reading is important." 

Finally, with a sense of relief she tries not to betray in the lightness of her intonation skipping over the final words, she concludes, "The End. Was't that wonderful, children? Did you enjoy it?" She gazes at the up-turned faces, pleased with herself and thinking how rewarding the art activity would seem now. 
"It was boring!" The comment catches her by surprise. "There's always one," she thinks as she sweetens her voice to respond, "But why, my dear? It was a lovely story!"
"I don't like reading. It's boring."
That sets off a chorus of agreement from around her feet.
"Well, Miss X, do you like reading?"

The point of that little story is that there is unfortunately too often a gaping contradiction between what teachers say and what they actually do. Reading for pleasure falls into that gap. While almost all teachers (and student teachers) would agree that reading is important and that children should be encouraged to read, few are true reading role models themselves. This may be due to a lack of time or simply that they do not enjoy reading, which then raises the question, can you teach others a love of reading when it is something you don't have yourself?

I'm not the only one who has wondered this. In their study of student teachers' reading habits and attitudes, Applegate and Applegate ask, "But what if a significant number of the teachers of the future had no love of reading themselves? As teacher educators specialising in the teaching of reading and literacy, we were stunned to find that so many of our students had no use for reading other than as an academic obligation." Almost half of their sample were found to be unenthusiastic readers (i.e. readers who weren't intrinsically motivated to read).

This is worrying as we then are in danger of entering a recursive reading relationship, where teachers who don't read (and are, as a result, unable to recommend relevant and interesting books to children) create children who aren't interested in books and reading either. In Jo Bower and Susan Davis' article on Why teachers should read more children's books, they remind us how magical it is when a teacher can inspire a love of reading in children. As a result they impress that, "Creating a culture of reading should be on all schools' list of priorities and to do this, teachers should have access to new and varied children's literature. Sitting down with a good book is a pleasure, with gains to be made in all aspects of literacy alongside teacher and pupil wellbeing."

While I'm sure that many people who don't like reading are able to carry out the requirement s of their jobs perfectly well, I have always believed that teachers and reading go hand-in-hand. A bit like tea and biscuits. Or peanuts and raisins. Knowledge and books and, well, teachers, so in order to be a really good teacher you have to read. Ann Powell-Brown, reflecting on her first year of teaching and her experiences of teachers who could, but didn't read books, recalls, "The thing that bothered me was that we had all chosen to be teachers, and I couldn't figure out how anyone could expect children to love reading and writing when they had no teacher who was a role model in their classroom."

It's that which bothers me too. It's one thing to, like Teacher X, tell children that books are fun and enjoyable, but what is a lot more effective and meaningful is to be in a position to show them this.

Back to normal

Things are quiet; there's much to do. We're finding our feet again. There's the click-clack of the typewriter as the kid indulges her imagination and finds fun in the world of alphabets. There's the fresh smell of coffee as I write the usual lists of things to-do. There's a little backpack packed and ready, small and cheerful, but somehow heavy with the weight of first separations. She laughs and smiles her usual squishy baby-smiles; little fat fingers reaching and exploring the world. I don't want to let her go, but work and life and the way of things must be.

Flux and stasis

Returning home to familiar things in stasis, hung still in time, as if I'd never been away... their familiarity offers a quiet welcome back. Travel-tired, little ones napping, I sip at a cup of tea before I start unpacking, before I start undoing weeks of flux, of almost constant change, of daily adventures. I contemplate returning to a state of rest, of everyday normality, regular bedtimes and routines, returning to work, being fixed once again. And in the back of my mind the flux of night trains, and solitary stations, and echoing museums and little, accidentally-discovered cafes and walks through old towns and fairy-tale forests, and the bitter-sweet hellos and goodbyes of family and friends recede slowly into memory.

Bon Voyage

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Plans have been plotted, family and dear friends notified, favours called in, last minute arrangements made, patience brewed, suitcases carefully packed, a strong sense of adventure summoned... and so, with two little ones in tow, the adventure begins.

Writing and motherhood 2

So how have writers who are mothers done it? How have they so successfully combined the solitary act of writing with the all-consuming role of mothering? During my thinking about the topic of writing and motherhood (read the first part here), I came across some interesting articles online about mothers as writers (or writers as mothers, perhaps?).

Back in 2013, Lauren Sandler caused quite a stir by suggesting that the answer to that question was to only have one child. This was based on research she had been doing on a book about only children, which resulted in her noticing that many famous female writers had only one child (Joan Didion, Elizabeth Hardwick, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker to name a few). Sandler began her article with an anecdote about Susan Sontag:

"'She was not a mom,' writes Sigrid Nunez of Susan Sontag in Sempre Susan. 'Every once in a while, noticing how dirty [her son] David's glasses were, she'd pluck them from his face and wash them at the kitchen sink. I remember thinking it was the only momish thing I ever saw her do.' Did Sontag need to be more 'momish'? And if she had been - or if she had more children to drop off with the in-laws or the babysitters - would she have been the same writer? Would we have the legacy of her provocative ideas, in criticism and fiction? The grey-streaked eminence of Sontag aside, how do the rest of us mortals negotiate the balance between selfhood and motherhood? Is stopping at one child the answer, or at least the beginning of one?"

That sparked the online furor, because, of course there are many successful writers who have more than one child. Zadie Smith hit back (she has two children) by pointing out the obvious, namely that it is an issue of time and available child care. Author and mother of four, Kate Baldwin, entered the debate and stated,

"What I discovered as I had more children was that writing and motherhood are at odds with one another. Not because writers are inherently bad parents, but because writing and mothering require many of the same critical resources." 

Besides the obvious one of time, these resources she refers to include the idea that writing and motherhood are equally possessive. She says that writers become possessed by their subject matter, leading to their being mentally "elsewhere". Intensity and obsession are therefore such a shared resource. She writes, "As mothers, we may have children but our children possess us. If you have multiple children you will be possessed by each and every one of them, in different ways at different times. When your children cast their spells over you with their chubby wrists and their dimpled smiles, it's not your creativity but your writing that will take a hit. Not because you are a bad writer, but because being possessed is one of the deepest pleasures of motherhood."

And yes, there is something all-consuming about the endless cycle that goes along with caring for babies and little children. Feed. Clean-up. Nap. Change. Wash. Play. Repeat. The intensity of it can make one feel possessed. This also means it's understandable that for some mothers creative pursuits come second - not everyone can afford child care or has a partner who is able to take enough of the load off to give the time needed. Mothering is the more immediate need and if it isn't, then the implication is that one is a bad mother. (As if there is only one way to be a mother, but I guess that's another story.)

Perhaps this all represents a somewhat pointless debate - it is impossible to say that there is a "solution", that one child or no child or many children allow a writer to do their best work. But in the tricky limitations of the everyday, these abstract debates do matter, they become real obstacles that need creativity and drive to tackle. The ideas that go with this debate may not be what we want them to be or how we might like to imagine the world, but they force us into a difficult negotiation between the abstract and the concrete. Would I have more time for my job, would I write more if I didn't have children? Yes, I would. Would I go back and choose not to have children if I could? No, never.