Gloom-and-doom headlines about how low American children’s reading scores have sunk dishearten me. Many of my students view reading as an onerous chore when they should be seeing it as a fun activity that inspires the imagination and leads to hours of creative play.
I raised my children, who are now in their twenties, to be readers partly by not subscribing to cable television until they were teenagers. At four, my son, who is two years older than my daughter, decided that he was Winnie the Pooh, my daughter was Piglet, and I was Rabbit. Around the same time, I taught them a poem about having a picnic out under the trees, and we reenacted it in a local park. We all still know the poem by heart.
My son was reading slightly below grade level in first grade, until his dad gave him a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He skipped right over all those great picture books for older elementary school children and dived into fantasy without ever looking back. His sister followed in his footsteps, and over the years, I invested in expensive sticks (aka magic wands), as well as many, many books. When the fifth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , was published, both children (and many of their friends) reread the first four in advance of the publication date. When the book arrived, they abandoned all other activities and simply read until they finished, even when it meant staying up long past bedtime until their eyes closed. They attended our town’s celebratory event at the public library as Harry and Hermione and got their pictures in the paper. My son won the treasure hunt by finding the golden snitch, which he still has.
Other stories also fueled their play. When my son, who lived on six foods for most of his childhood, discovered Brian Jacques’ Redwall series at about age ten, he requested “Redwall picnics” consisting of food the characters in the books ate--including food he normally refused. When both children devoured the first Percy Jackson series, I took them and two friends hiking with all their wooden weaponry in tow so that they could pretend they were training at Camp Half-Blood.
Today, books and stories continue to play a major role in both of their lives. My daughter writes poetry, and my son spent his downtime while on deployment writing a novel about a young woman who breaks a cultural taboo against women fighting. He also customized a Harry Potter Lego set for his sister's twenty-fifth birthday.
Shared reading experiences do more than promote literacy. When my children’s interests diverged during their adolescence and their relationship became strained, shared stories provided them with a path back together. After all, how could Pooh and Piglet, Harry and Hermione, or Percy and Annabeth ever really split up?
Elizabeth Breau, Ph.D. (she/her), is an award-winning writing coach and private English tutor. Her book, History According to SAT: A Content Guide to SAT Reading and Writing, won a silver medal in the teen category from the Nonfiction Authors Association. You can reach her at historyaccordingtosat.com.
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