HOW TO GET YOUR CHILD TO READ THIS SUMMER!
Lord, I crack myself up. You know darn well I don’t know how to get your child to read over the summer! Heck, most of the time it is hard enough just to get them to read during the actual school year. Do you think that if I really knew this answer I would not be writing you from the hot confines of the computer lab at East? I would own the Bahamas. Bill Gates would be my gardener!
Actually, I did get sucked in myself on a recent Detroit News article entitled; How To Get Your Child to Read This Summer. So don’t feel so bad about getting fooled. It happens to the best and most desperate of us all. And like most articles with such promising titles, this author also failed to give up the magic potion.
I know that you think that being a teacher, I must obviously know how to “get kids to read.” I know that you think that the first word out of my own kids’ mouths was “library”. Where do you parents get these notions? The first words out of my own daughter, Andrea’s mouth was, “None of the other kids have to do it.” The first words out of my son, Adam’s mouth was, “All of the other kids get to do it.” What would make you people think that because I am a teacher that the Lord would give me a “get out of jail card” for free and collect $200!
The program that was used to “get me to read” was a program called “The Lap Program.” Yes it worked! Here it is for the nominal charge of…O.K. FREE! I know you would have paid a fortune and charged it on your Visa, too. When I was a little kid (and yes we had books) I would visit my Aunt Marie and Uncle Lee. Uncle Lee was a low key kind of guy and very religious. I mention this because the key to the success of this program was a saint’s amount of patience and time. Uncle Lee had a complete set of encyclopedias WITH colored pictures. I would pick a volume at random and get into his lap and he would read to me and answer questions from Aardvarks to Zebras. Often times, I think he would be making up his own words to relate the story to me. I didn’t care. This would go on for……………..hours! (Uncle Lee also developed circulation problems in his legs. I believe I was partly to blame.) Anyway, I learned to love the smell and touch of books from him. Of course, it was later that I learned of their power. It took me years to figure out how I was first “infected with the love of books. It was Uncle Lee and his “lap system”. So naturally I used this system with my own kids until I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming about the Cat in the Hat or Curious George.
Oh, no it didn’t end there. Now, I would make it a point of always finding my way into where they were playing and plopping my butt down to read the paper, read a book, read the mail, look at the colored inserts of all the Sears tools that I know I would never learn to use…. You have to model, model, and model. Did I say model? You have to walk the walk after you talk the talk. Unless you are prepared to change your lifestyle and model the love and respect of reading for your kids, save yourself some time and money and accept defeat now. I know that was harsh. Truth is often harsh. You wanted me save you with 1-800 phonics or 1-800- the Sylvan Learning center or hire-someone- else-to-do-this-for-me or link to quick and easy dot. Com. It won’t happen. Your kids will either accept and become non- readers or underachiever readers at best. I know, you didn’t want to hear that either.
So, if you are going to talk the talk be ready to read the read. And no I did not tell the kids we were going on vacation to Cedar Point and take them to the local library as a neato surprise. (The limited number of my students who said that their home did not receive daily a newspaper astonished me!) I was hooked on comic books before Shakespeare, you know. By the way, thanks, mom for throwing away all those first edition Superman comics along with my baseball cards. My bedroom was so much neater without them!!!
Well, I am sorry to suck you into reading this with that old bait and switch title. But deep down inside you sort of knew it would take that most valuable commodity we can give up- our time. Did I want to be doing other things? Well, DID I!!! No, I really wanted to read “Green Eggs and Ham” for the zillionth time. What do you think!
Ah, you say that your kids are way past such elementary reading and lord knows you aren’t planning on having another child. You think you are off the guilt hook because your kids are older and “mature” and certainly past reading redemption. WELL, it is never too late to be a role model for what you want your child to become. And if you don’t have time for that or if you don’t make time for it…as my Uncle Louie would say, "You get out of something, exactly what you put into it." I know that was sort to the point again. So you will get what you expect from your child so expect what you will get.
Secretly, don’t you wish all you had to do was close your eyes and say diet/exercise/stop smoking/make my kid love to read, diet/exercise/stop smoking/make my kid love to read, diet/exercise/stop smoking/make my kid love to read and click your heals together………………….I tried that once. I wish Cindy Crawford would call me, I wish I looked like Brad Pitt, I wish I could play basketball AND WAS SMART ENOUGH TO GUARD THE BEST 3 POINT SHOOTER ON PLANET EARTH-GEEEEEEZ PISTONS….but I digress. Oh, and read something in front of your kids-to your kids- with your kids, about kids, take them to Borders to buy a book, get them a subscription, tell Aunt Millie to buy them a book by their favorite author, Harry Potter…… I DON’T CARE………..because READING RULES- THAT’S WHY. The Pistons can afford to lose. Our family and our country cannot afford to lose this one. So don’t kid yourself. Have a great and safe summer. Watch over my kids. I can’t teach them anything if they are not here in the fall. Gotta go. I’m in the middle of a book. Mr. E
