Books, Boys, & Beyond
Reading helps boys connect their experiences with others’ and begin to build a sense of the world. But how, exactly, can we make sure boys know that reading is for them? We want boys to feel that reading belongs to them. We want them to go at it with joy. How can we encourage them to read without turning it into an obligation? I developed the READ model presenting 4 essential elements to crafting a rich reading life for boys: Ritual, Environment, Access, and Dialogue. Once these are in place, the stage is set for a lifelong love of reading.
HAVE A READ-ALOUD RITUAL—
Rituals are comforting, familiar routines and processes of our everyday lives. Rituals can help our children deal with big changes, like the end of one school year and the start of another. Rituals give life a sense of continuity. Rituals around reading cultivate a love of books and language in even the youngest children. Don’t feel restricted to a bedtime reading schedule when so many parents and children are too tired to get the most out of the experience. What about afternoon snack and reading aloud time? We can create new rituals for resistant or struggling readers, no matter the age. We can begin now. It is never too late. Many boys come to our reading programs emergently literate at the ages of sixteen and seventeen. Even then, I begin the way I would with any younger child: with the read aloud with simple texts that I read and reread each day I see them. The first time I read “Where The Wild Things Are” to a boy named Daniel, a teenager, he said to me, “That’s the first time anyone’s ever done that for me before.” At home, be sure that your read alouds are not restricted to narratives or picture book stories, but also include poetry and nonfiction, excerpts from funny sections of Web sites and magazines. Let the rituals we create show our boys that we advocate for a varied and rich reading life, with all the different genres that brings.
ENJOY DIFFERENT READING ENVIRONMENTS—
Allow for spontaneity and whimsy often in a boy’s reading life, perhaps from carrying a book to recess or clustering with a group of friends around a computer screen. At the same time, it is also essential to create a firmly identified physical space that is conducive to reading. Devoting a space to reading emphasizes its importance. Create a home library that is rich with variety in genre and also inventive in placement of print. Create baskets of books that the children can create themselves, with themes and categories you might never have thought of on your own. When I ask boys and girls to create their own label for categories of books, I am often enchanted and surprised by their responses. Everything from “Worlds We’ve Never Seen” to “Questions We Have About Life and Nature” to “Ugly Pets” makes me smile and gets the boys over to those baskets more frequently.
Comfort is a key element in planning a reading environment, although we are not all comfortable with the same things. Some boys prefer to read standing up. In one friend’s home her nine-year-old son had devised what he called his reading counter. He used an upturned music stand anchored at a living room window. Shifting from leg to leg, he would read book after book, a basket of new reads and favorites within arm’s reach. Occasionally he would stare out the window, a key element in his design. He told me that he loved to look out at his street and imagine the worlds and people that were in the stories he read.
GIVE AN ALL-ACCESS PASS TO LITERACY—
Surround boys with books and all kinds of text. Keep books in places that allow for spontaneous reading. Baskets of books, boys’ own stories, as well as magazines should be accessible. Don’t forget about newspapers, instruction manuals, and even baseball cards, iPads, computers. Easy access to them all should be highly valued in your home’s rooms, and where, when, and how boys access them should make sense. Access is about not just having a lot of books, but having the right ones. The best way to do this is to pay close attention to what boys say they like. Instead of trying to make a boy interested in certain books, boys (and girls) should have access to a wide variety of different genres, authors, and stories. Check your collection; there should be at least 30 percent nonfiction, 30 percent poetry, and 40 percent fiction. There should be books written by both men and women.
There should be topics ranging from fashion to sharks. Access is also about levels. Boys who are struggling readers in eighth grade need to be offered access to books that are truly at their reading levels. If they are reading at an emergent level, and you want them to be familiar with great fiction that is mandatory or suggested reading for older boys, you can read aloud to them. For their independent reading, they need books at their independent reading levels—and they need not to be embarrassed to read them. I once entered a classroom and saw a very unhappy eight-year-old boy reading Junie B. Jones. He looked miserable. Now, I love Junie B. Jones, but this reader did not look happy about this situation. I asked him what was going on, and he said: “Because this is my level, I always have to read this same book, and I don’t want to read books about girls! I don’t even want to read a book with chapters in it!” My heart broke for him. If his library had been stocked with books at every level in every genre, his choices would have been greater, and he would have been hooked. He knew exactly what wasn’t working. The problem was no one was asking him what choices he would have made for himself as a reader.
LET’S GIVE ’EM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT—
Dialogue is key to cultivating a love of books and reading in all children, especially those who are resistant to making reading a part of their own identity. Active, thoughtful dialogue makes the reading experience social and interactive. It can take a variety of forms: between two people, in small or large groups, with pen pals or a book club. Genuine, open communication is a treasure between teachers and students, parents and children. Literature gives us all an opportunity to think about the world that we live in and react to it in a deeply personal way. Talking to boys about their reactions to a text creates moments for boys to express their feelings in ways that feel safe and nonthreatening.
Pay attention to the quirky things boys say about the books and stories they read. What do they notice? Who do they identify with in the story? Celebrate their unique perspectives by asking questions that only they can answer. You could ask, “How do you feel about that?” or “What would you have done if you were that character?” It is fascinating to explore these avenues of thought with boys of any age.
Recently, I held panel discussions on the subject of boys and reading for boys in schools around the country. I asked them what criteria they used to judge their success as readers. They all said: “How many words or pages we could read!” Let’s not underestimate the fun of talking about how much we’ve read or how many minutes we were able to read yesterday. I also asked boys, “How do you select books?” They all agreed that tend to steer clear of “those books with medals”, instead choosing books with “weird covers” and “definitely dragons” and “some kind of great art on the front”. These are topics worthy of discussion; your open inquiry with boys will enable them to tell the truth as readers and for you to stock the reading environment with the kinds of text that will compel them to love picking up another and yet another book.
Pam Allyn is the Executive Director and founder of LitWorld, a global organization advocating for children’s rights as readers, writers and learners. She is also the Executive Director and founder of LitLife, a national organization dedicated to school improvement. She is the author of the acclaimed and award-winning What To Read When: The Books and Stories To Read With Your Child—And All The Best Times To Read Them(Penguin Avery). Her most recent book is Pam Allyn’s Best Books for Boys: How To Engage Boys in Reading in Ways That Will Change Their Lives.(Scholastic). Her forthcoming book Your Child’s Writing Life (Penguin Avery) will debut in August 2011. Pam is widely known as a motivational speaker advocating for reading and writing as human rights that belong to all people. Her personal quest to bring literacy to every child stems from a deeper desire to bring dignity to every child, and to empower children to read and write powerfully, effectively and with passion in ways that will change their worlds and the worlds of others. Her work has been featured on Good Morning, America, The Today Show, Oprah radio, in The Huffington Post and the New York Times. Find her at pamallyn.com or on Facebook.
