9-minute read

I have never loved exercise. I know it’s good for me, but I’ve always found typical ways of moving in the world, from opening jars to walking downstairs to taking out contact lenses, difficult. If I had been born today, I most definitely would have benefited from physical and occupational therapy in school. But since that didn’t exist when I was a kid, I was deemed ‘not athletic’ and left to be picked last for dodge ball and told to find a sport or exercise I could enjoy once I left mandated physical education requirements. (Junior year of high school – not that I was counting the days.)

As a young adult and into adulthood I went through many phases trying to make moving my body a part of my regular life as I was advised by teachers, friends, and media: taking walks, swimming, joining a recreational softball league, Zumba, ping pong, going dancing at clubs… I knew that staying active was important for my health and mental well-being. But just doing it because it was good for me, and not because I liked it, meant I only managed to exercise when it occurred to me – so in fits and starts. And I never developed the growth or maintenance trajectory that brings about all those much-vaunted benefits. I knew if I enjoyed something I would prioritize it. And the more I engaged in it the more dividends I would reap. But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find a physical activity that fit my criteria: low impact, time flexible, mostly solo, adaptable to my physical abilities, able to be done from home, nonjudgmental, and most importantly to me, fun.

At some point I just accepted that exercise was always going to be a chore for me. While I would do the minimum for health purposes, I was never going to be able to feel successful or good at it. I accepted that I just wasn’t cut out for anything sporty. That was for other people. And with that acceptance of this identity, I also had to let go of any of the benefits that could have come through finding a physical activity that ticked off all my boxes, but wouldn’t because I was not going to have regular and consistent engagement.

I will admit that I held, and I know many educators still hold, that same idea when it comes to loving to read. We all know that research shows that reading a lot is incredibly good for you. When students read a lot there is evidence it increases academic achievement, language development, knowledge growth, writing skills, and more. (Check here, here and here for just a sampling.)

But those benefits only come when someone is reading a volume of texts, regularly and consistently. And that sort of regularity does not come from mandates, required reading lists or prizes for number of books read or passed quizzes. It comes from a desire to read for the sake of reading.

However, for a while in my career, I did subscribe to the idea that some people were just not Readers. I would say, out loud, ‘not everyone is meant to be a voracious reader’. I am not alone in having made this claim. I know many educators, and even parents and caregivers, who believe that being a reader is just another preference. I don’t know why I, knowing as I did then and now, the countless benefits of reading regularly, somehow was ok with the idea that some students just wouldn’t.

I didn’t look too deeply into why someone didn’t become a voracious reader other than accepting the belief that some people aren’t built that way– like some people don’t like olives.  And with that convenient assumption, I committed what I think is the deadliest sin for educators – I stopped being curious.

Then I taught two students, who made me realize I needed to get curious again. I gave out my annual ‘getting to know you’ survey and asked what kind of reader they are. I believed then and still do now, that knowing how students view themselves in connection to school matters. In all my years of giving out the survey, most of the responses were predictable. Kids professed to like funny books or a popular series or authors. They almost all claimed to like reading – which is not surprising considering the culture we tried to build in the school. I knew the sameness of the responses probably meant I should revise my survey, but I just never got around to it. And, rather conveniently, these generic responses confirmed my assumptions. But these two students changed my thinking.

‘Evan’ wrote, “I want to be a big reader. But I am not good at it and I’m too old to get good. So, I only read when I have to.”

‘Stephen’ wrote, “I don’t like to read. There are never things I want to read in the library – like books about motorcycles or horror.”

Those two comments made me question my acceptance that there were just some kids who liked reading and some who didn’t. It kickstarted a study for me into what gets in the way of students loving reading, starting with Evan and Stephen and carrying through years later to my own two children.

Once I realized that students, heck everyone, can love reading and reap the benefits from it, I knew I had to figure out a way to make that process replicable for me. I work through this same process whenever I encounter a student, or even a non-reading adult, who doesn’t see themselves as a reader.

Phase 1: Identify Obstacles to Reading

First, I let go of the convenient assumption that liking reading is just like enjoying other things. I play a little game of what if it isn’t just a preference? What else could it be? I then examine what other obstacles could exist for a student.

Based off what I saw in my own classroom and countless other classrooms I have visited since, many students who avoid reading, or only do the required reading, have one or more of these characteristics:

• They are not proficient with foundational skills they need to be successful readers (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension). Often these students had strong social or coping skills that made their reading difficulties harder to detect. Sometimes these were older students who had an inexperienced teacher in a pivotal reading year or simply didn’t teach the component they most needed. And because of the emphasis in many schools on grade level standardized tests, interventions often focused on raising those test scores rather than say, phonemic awareness to the advanced level.

• They could not find books written by or about people whose identities they shared. While Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop has taught many of us that students need books that are mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors, it is also true that for many students there are a lot more window books than mirror books available to them in school and classroom libraries. It can be very hard to see yourself as part of a reading community when you see few books on the shelf that mirror your social identity markers such as culture, race, ethnicity, religion, disability, family structure, or socio-economics.

• The things they are most interested in (topics, genres, formats) are either not available or seen as junk reading by adults in their lives. Students know, often from watching our faces or scanning the bookshelves, what teachers and librarians and grown-ups in general think are good books. But, just as sometimes I might like to dig into a nice People magazine article on Sister Wives or stay up all night reading a gory horror novel, I know not to bring it up when I am trying to make a professional impression, students know there are certain topics, genres and formats that will win them smiles and which ones will not. Even if they don’t get that obvious judgement, often the bulk of the texts available to them in school libraries are of the educational nonfiction and quality literary fiction variety, so it can be difficult for them to find their most wanted texts in the places that are most accessible to them.

• They are social people and reading is often a quiet and solo activity with not much opportunity to connect with peers. We have all taught a student who is a social processor. They talk through movies and announcements. They do play by plays of our lessons before we even start talking. (Ms. - I see you got the new links set-up. Group work today?) We move them around the classroom, so they won’t talk as much, but they talk to everyone. For many students like this, sitting alone with a book for any length of time without interacting with another human is torture.

 Phase 2: Remove or Reduce Obstacles to Reading

If you know or even suspect that some of these things, or perhaps other obstacles, exist for students, spend some time addressing those needs before moving on to the next phase. All these things require work to fix from people who serve the student who is not reading voraciously, and are not things the student can address on their own. To address them requires:

• Annual or another regularly scheduled assessments given for phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and comprehension – without assuming that those have been done before they got to this grade, or that the student ability hasn’t changed. Yes, even in middle school and high school.

• An audit of books available in the classroom or school library to make sure there are a range of identities represented in the authors, topics, and characters as well as an audit of genres, formats, languages. Then following up with book ordering to fill any gaps (because kids who do not see themselves as readers are about as likely to go to the public library as people who don’t see themselves as athletic are going to go to the gym.)

• A review of what reading time looks like in classrooms. Are there ways to make it more accessible for different kinds of kids? Perhaps including some flexible seating, optional times to talk with a partner about a book, book club opportunities, use of school approved social media to discuss books, headphones or sound machines who prefer a quieter reading environment, access to audio books…

When whatever obstacles the student is facing with reading are addressed, whether the ones mentioned above, or different ones that have been identified, it is time to move onto the next phase. To be clear – in some cases that list of things to do might take days or weeks or, with things like foundational skills, months. But it is important that those things get addressed before moving on to the next phase. Because the idea of expecting a student to fall in love with reading when they can’t read well or the books available to them are ones they do not like or the way we expect them to interact with books doesn’t match with their person, is a flawed one.

Phase 3: Curate Texts and Give Time – Generously

 Assuming the biggest obstacles have been removed, and that you have a student who can read with enough proficiency that there can be pleasure found in it, it’s time to be a world class book curator. Often students, or even adult non-readers, are intimidated by tons of books. Many people, myself included, do better with something we don’t have a lot of good experiences with, when things are curated just for them, and managed choices are offered. If I know a student loves superheroes and graphic novels for example, I might gather a good handful of examples, with different lengths, tones, styles, as well as a few related books, such as prose novels that feature superheroes and perhaps a picture book or poetry collection or a biography on Stan Lee. For a student who loves wrestling, I might gather some biographies on wrestlers, a how-to book or two, but also at least one or two fiction stories that might have wrestling, or some sort of related topics involved (like competition).

There are tons of resources out there with great advice for matchmaking kids to books. I have favorite go-to people and resources such as the fantastic Donalyn Miller, the fine folx at the Nerdy Book Club, and my own local library - Brooklyn Public - has a fantastic book matching service, something your public library might offer as well. And there are many more resources to explore. If you are not sure what books to invest in or how to find a good book for a particular student – go to the experts.

Another aspect of this equation that I had a glimpse of as a classroom teacher but understood on a whole new level as a parent of two kids during pandemic lockdowns, is the sheer number of books needed to keep a kid reading with the volume needed to turn it into a habit. Considering that a student who reads at a 4th grade level could be reading from 70 – 140 words per minute (Rasinski & Padak 2005, Hasbrouck & Tindal 2017) – and books at that grade level can range from 100-300 words per page, with page counts from 80-250 pages, a student who reads a typical book at that level, for just 30 minutes a day, could be going through 1-3 books per week. I knew in my own classroom I would often complain that my kids ‘ate’ books when I looked at the empty shelves that had once been filled to bursting. But then, in my home library, when my own two kids, started reading only from my home library I saw that in living room terms – 1-3 novels a week for my middle schooler and 5-10 picture book and early chapter books for my elementary age kid, meant that my ‘huge’ personal library suddenly felt very thin. And when my own two kids had read their way through everything they liked? They did what many of our students do – they stopped reading.

Knowing the sheer volume necessary for students to develop a reading habit means that we need to create systems that support keeping up with that volume: book swaps with other teachers, weekly public interlibrary loans, monthly shipments from book donation sites like FirstBook, RIF, and others.

 Phase 4: Enjoy – but Stay Curious

It was only after watching endless social media posts and speaking with my teacher friends about how they keep fit that I came across the answer to my physical fitness quandary. I balked at first. It was expensive. I would have to save up for it. It had an elitist reputation. But all the people who told me how much they loved it were teachers. They were friends. If they managed it financially and if they really liked it (including one friend who had a similar non-exercise disposition to me) I might like it to. So, I ended up taking the plunge. When I saw the particular brand of high end at home exercise bike offered a 90-day trial I saved money for months and then decided to see if I could become someone who likes to exercise, as opposed to has to.

I hated it at first.

I couldn’t figure out how to get my feet clipped in and out of the pedals. I didn’t like the first couple of instructors I tried. But, as friends chimed in, giving me tips for dealing with the shoe situation and suggesting instructors and games I would enjoy, I was surprised to find I really liked exercise for the first time in my life. I was choosing to jump on the bike over scrolling on my phone. I was planning my days around when I could fit in workouts. And little by little I started to become someone who exercises regularly – and reaps the benefits from it – because I do it regularly because I want to, not because I have to.

It was when I realized, after a year, that I could no longer identify as someone who hates to exercise, that yes my health and mindset were connected, but it was only after all the obstacles were removed that it became possible to make those things really merge. And, most importantly, something I had spent much of my life believing about myself – literal decades of belief – turned out not to be true at all. I am someone who likes exercise - when it’s the right kind for me.

Our students, even and especially our most vulnerable readers, need to become voracious readers if they are to reap the plethora of benefits that come from it – and not just the small side benefits that come from assigned reading. But for that to happen, we must become believers ourselves, much like my Peloton loving friends were believers that theirs was the right path, that it is possible for students to become lifelong readers if we remove the obstacles and provide the texts and time they need.