Reading and Language Impairment

 I was talking to my sister Cati, another book nerd like me, about The Book Whisperer. We were brainstorming ideas of what I could do to get my students excited about reading. Her 11 year old son Jack (yep, another reader) was listening to our conversation and told us about the time his class walked into an empty room. They found a paper by Anonymous that said “I hate to read. I don’t like Language Arts.  Why do I have to read? I hate to read. I don’t like Language Arts. Why do I have to read?” Just those three sentences repeated again and again for the length of the page. Sigh. Poor kid.

With so much focus on testing comprehension and regurgitating facts we are vacuuming out all the joy and companionship found in stories.

Recently when I was doing activities to go with the book Dragons Love Tacos I read the story aloud for two consecutive sessions with one group. On the third session, I said “this time you get to tell me the story”. My sweet little 8 year old student sadly shook her head “but I can’t read.” My objective was to have her do a story retell, but I wanted her to have a positive experience with reading even more. We held the book together, I read aloud and she moved her finger under the words. She felt empowered.

Books are so rich with language, I love using them to stimulate language and build vocabulary. Working with books can take a little more time and thought. And while it can be more difficult to get measureable results when talking about books; the conversational back and forth is so much more naturally occurring than worksheets and drill.

Since I have been reading The Book Whisperer, I have been talking to my students about books.  I ask them what they are reading and I don’t roll my eyes if the say Pokemon. I ask them what their favorite books are and why. I am learning a lot.

Kids love a good story. If we can help our students and clients learn to equate reading and book time with entertainment and imagination, we are giving them a gift that will far outlast the short time we spend with them.