Flashlight readers

When I was a kid I couldn't read. The letters and words were a jumble on the page. I'm sure looking back now that I must have had an undiagnosed learning disability. When I was in grade one, I resisted learning to read and write. I left my homework at school and lied to my parents about having homework. Eventually my teacher contacted my parents and I had mountains of catch up to do. To me, reading was hard and something of no value. I resisted learning because it was so hard and I didn't see any kind of a pay out in it for me.
I remember "reading" my take home reading books to my mom. She had four kids all under the age of five, and I was the oldest. Whenever I had to read to her she was always ironing, folding laundry, or doing something. She would listen and help me if needed. I never read. She might have thought I was reading because I made it sound like I was. I didn't make up stories and breeze through the books - I would have been caught. Instead I read and stumbled along. I pretended to sound out words and I fooled her night after night.
My resistance to reading continued on into grade five. I know it was grade five because I can remember having to do a report on vikings and trying to use an encyclopedia. I pretty much copied that report word for word because I couldn't read well enough to understand what the encyclopedia said. I see the same resistance in my own son, who is seven. He has an amazing memory and would rather memorize every word than read it. This leads to guessing based on the context of the story and the first and second letter of each word. He doesn't want to sound words out because to him that's not reading, and it's not fun.
Eventually I became a prolific reader. The summer before grade six my mom made me a deal. She said she'd pay me a dollar for every book I read. Now a days that would probably be more like ten dollars so it was a sweet deal for me. The first book I read was Ms. P. and Me. It was a thin chapter book with bigger print. I had to tell my mom the story and then she gave me a dollar. It wasn't all that painful because I liked the story and I liked retelling it to someone who seemed interested. The next book I read was Misty. I loved that book because I connected with the main character because she wanted a puppy so bad that she bought one and kept it at a neighbor's house. It was a pretty easy way to earn another dollar. And on it went all summer. I devoured one book after another telling my mother about the stories and earning a dollar a book. After a while I didn't even care about the dollar because I had developed a love for reading.
I eventually read my way to The Outsiders, which led to That Was Then, This is Now, and Tex. I started talking to my friends about books and swapping books with them. I received The Amityville Horror from Angie and would stay up late in the night reading and rereading that book because I loved the feeling of being scared stiff.
Katerine Paterson said,

“It is not enough to simply teach children to read;
we have to give them something worth reading.
Something that will stretch their imaginations-
something that will help them make sense of their own lives
and encourage them to reach out toward people
whose lives are quite different from their own.” 

Paterson is a also credited with saying that we need to create flashlight readers instead of stoplight readers.  When I first heard this it made me think of me, as a kid, reading in the middle of the night and hoping that my parents wouldn't catch me.

When I first became a teacher I loved to read childrens books just so that I could use them in the classroom. When creating thematic cross-curricular units, I always wanted a great story to bring it all together. A great book can help you wind curriculum connect together and get kids thinking on so many different levels. It can help open and build great discussion, and it helps us to see different perspectives and different view points. 

I remember one beautiful summer evening when my husband, who is also a teacher, stayed up in the loft of the cabin all night long. I called up and asked what he was doing, and he told me he was reading Loser by Jerry Spinelli. He read it in one sitting. After that kind of marathon reading I HAD to read it too. Another night he read Holes by Louis Sachar in an entire sitting. This made me have to read it as well. We used to spend a lot of time reading kids' books, sharing, discussing, and getting excited to read with our students. That was at least five years ago and I can tell you that we don't read kids books anymore - unless it is to our own children.

Many of you know what has changed. The curriculum now only allows for the reading of one novel study per year. The Ministry and divisions push leveled reading and the testing of reading. Reading has now become all about strategies and grade levels. In my 15 years as a teacher I have watched this shift happen and I find it deeply disturbing. At some point we have forgotten that reading should be enjoyable. We have become a system that is creating stoplight readers who don't ever become flashlight readers. 

As a teacher I feel my autonomy to make decisions based on my own expertise and experiences has been thwarted. I now read in small groups, small little guided reading books, at scheduled times. I spend hours and hours testing kids on their reading. But I don't see kids who love reading. I see kids who see it as a mechanical process - another boring task that has to be stroked off of the daily schedule.

I miss the days of reading great books, of developing a passion for books with kids. I used to catch kids and make them readers. I loved those days. We can have reading strategies out the wazoo, but if kids don't see value to reading, why would they read? I long for the days that the pendulum swings back and we decide that reading great books with kids, and building a love for reading is the "new direction." I hope for the sake of all children that we come around to seeing that we should be creating flashlight readers.