future bookworms of america
Posted by nina on October 6, 2009
I get so incredibly frustrated when I hear people say they don’t like to read. That’s like saying “I don’t like to leave my house,” or “I don’t like food.” You have to taste a whole lot of cuisines before you can get away with that kind of statement. That’s why I decided to become a reading coach.
Today I attended an orientation for a local volunteer organization that hooks up first-, second- and third-graders who are less than enthusiastic about reading with personal reading coaches to show them that reading can be fun. Each kid gets borrowed from class once a week for half an hour, during which they get to read whatever they want.
That’s right: No homework, No studying, and No suffering through boring textbook selections. Part of the reading coach’s job is to figure out what really lights a fire under the kid’s butt and then find grade-level books on that topic. If the kid doesn’t feel like reading, volunteers are also supplied with word games and notebooks for writing stories. We’re encouraged to engage the kids with stickers and crayons. The parent organization even has a donation library where you can find books to give to the kids for free.
Awesome, right?
This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, since it makes perfect sense. I love books. I love reading with kids. I think literacy is incredibly important. And I have a little bit of free time due to our miserably shriveled, pathetically feeble string bean of an economy. (In contrast, China’s string bean is robust and glorious, Brazil’s has doubled in size since last week, and Canada’s is stout and organically grown.)
Here are some terrifying facts about literacy in the United States, according to the guy who led the orientation. He didn’t cite his source, so don’t crucify me if I’m wrong…
- 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. are functionally illiterate. That means they can’t fill out a job application, read product labels, or navigate automated systems like ATMs.
- 1/2 of adults have only a 6th-grade education. That’s why newspapers don’t use big words.
- 90% of high school dropouts are below-grade readers. Anyone else see a correlation?
- States use the number of 4th-graders reading below grade level as a factor in predicting prison populations a decade down the road.
Sigh. It makes me want to go read a good book.
