Creating a culture of reading among young people

The Library Science class I’m taking is talking this week about building a culture of readers. In her article for Knowledge Quest (2017, p. 24), Karen E. Smith asks: “How do we create a culture of readers without driving them away?”

Smith’s article, and that of Rebecca Webster for Teacher Librarian, both tout the benefits of students’ free-choice reading.

Smith raised concern that forcing children to read for a certain number of minutes, or from genres that did not interest them, may actually drive them away from reading. And Webster described her efforts to create an independent-reading program, “where students would be able to choose books they wanted to read at levels that they could access” (2017, p. 28), instead of being assigned a whole-class novel.

“We saw incredibly positive results in reading motivation, and after that first year, our Standards of Learning (SOL) test scores increased significantly” (Webster, 2017, p. 29). 

One difference I see in the two articles is that while Webster and her fellow teachers allowed students their free choice in books, Smith advocated allowing students to read other formats and venues as well. Through Smith’s discussions with a student panel, she learned that they love books, but that, depending on the student, they also enjoy reading online forums, Wikipedia entries, and fan fiction. 

“As one can see, kids today are not always thinking inside the box, and by box I am referring to the square of white paper holding words in a novel” (Smith, 2017, p. 26). She cites an observation by a student named Brad, that “a perfect reading culture is one in which ‘nobody cares what you are reading, as long as you ARE reading’” (Smith, 2017, p. 25).

Webster also described challenging students to read 40 books, but Smith holds a belief that we should want them to do reading challenges “for pleasure” and only if they are “so inclined” (2017, p. 24). The important thing, according to Smith, is that students should “enjoy the experience” (2017, p. 24).

I was interested in Smith’s insight that most students who were surveyed, gave credit to encouragement from a person, and not a program, for their becoming a reader. I could relate to these findings, as I credit my own development as a reader to my mother bringing me at least once a week to the local public library.

One of the things I do to promote a culture of reading, is to display brief write-ups of books that I am reading. I adapted a flier design created by another California library professional, and I shared it with my coworkers. I produced a video two years ago to promote the fliers (Parkhill, 2021), and I shared it with colleagues this week, to let them know that more fliers were available.

“When children see the adults around them using reading and writing in their everyday lives, they’re more likely to become readers and writers themselves” (PBS Kids, 2012).

References:
Parkhill, C.M. (2021, Sept. 9). Let’s build a community of readers [YouTube video]. https://youtu.be/QQee_17h2xo

PBS Kids. (2012, March 26). How to create a literate home: Young child and kindergartener. https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/how-to-create-a-literate-home-young-child-and-kindergartner

Smith, K.E. (2017). Today’s youth’s voice on how they view reading and what “counts.” Knowledge Quest, 46(2), 22-27.

Webster, R. (2017). Fostering a reading community: How librarians can support an independent reading program. Teacher Librarian, 45(2), 28-31.