My Turn
It's Okay To Read, at Any Age

A Kansas high school teacher lets her students read what they want to read.

By Lori Stratton

High school English teacher Lori Stratton believes regular reading in class can bring the joy of good books back for older students.

Standing in line at a local store, I felt a tap and turned to gaze up at a vaguely familiar-looking young man with bright red hair.

"Nick?" I asked, tentatively.

"Hey, Ms. Stratton, what's up?"

Nick told me that he was getting ready to leave for his final semester at Johnson County Community College. Then he would transfer to the University of Kansas in the fall.

A slow smile spread across his face.

"You know, I've made the dean's honor roll three semesters in a row."

I swallowed past the sudden lump in my throat, treasuring this moment.

"That's great Nick," I said as he loped out the door.

Flash back two and a half years. It's early September and it's hot. I face a room of 30 seniors who look as though they're about ready to have multiple root canals instead of spending one class period in senior English. I've just returned from maternity leave after having my third child; I'm sleep-deprived and hormonally unbalanced. I take a deep breath and begin.

"We're going to have reading time," I say, "Twenty minutes a day. You can choose your own books, but you have to read."

A chorus of groans fills the room."No offense or anything," Nick pipes up, "but I've never read a whole book in my entire life, and I'm not going to read one this year."

Undaunted and with a sense of purpose (or desperation), I led my class to the library to choose books. Many picked the shortest one they could find--if it had pictures, even better. But, much to my surprise, many didn't choose. They asked my advice or questioned the librarian.

These students read book jackets and looked at the first few pages. Some of them, I clung to the thought, seemed even excited about the chance to read.

And so was born the most successful teaching practice I have yet tried during my 10-year career: I let the students read the books they wanted to read during class time.

This idea may not sound very earth shattering, and primary instructors may think it's ridiculous.

But we as high school English teachers are not, for the most part, reading experts. Put a 17-year-old with a seventh grade reading level in our English class and what do we do?

I first thought about the reading in class idea around the time that my oldest child was entering that magical first grade year when most children unlock the secret to decoding words.

Most of the first graders were allowed to read what they wanted to read. Why, I thought, couldn't this work with my high school students?

I began to immerse myself in learning about the teaching of reading. I took classes and workshops and devoured every article about reading. Most of what I learned was about helping young students read.

Then, on that hot day a couple years ago, I decided to forge ahead with letting students read books of their own choice during class.

And that approach worked better than I'd ever imagined. Not only did Nick, my reluctant reader, finish a book (Jay Bennett's Skeleton Man), he finished about eight others during the year as well.

I've learned many things since that first year of setting aside 20 minutes of daily "reading time."

For one, students enter my classroom with preconceived notions about reading that have to be addressed. So I now start out the year talking about children's books. We reminisce together about our favorite stories from childhood, the ones we memorized and wanted to hear every night before going to bed.

We talk about the time our third grade teacher read Where the Red Fern Grows out loud during class, and everyone, including the teacher, cried. We remember, with smiles and laughs, the love affair we had with books when we were children.

I've also learned how important it is for me to read my own book as my students read one of theirs. Occasionally, I'll read aloud a passage for the students, and I've found that this encourages students to do the same when they discuss their books.

I understand and respect those who question the time spent on reading. I felt the same way.

But my classroom has been transformed by something as simple as letting the students read for fun. We still manage to get through the required curriculum every year, and test results show their reading comprehension level is rising.

Of course, not all students immediately take to reading, despite my best efforts. Some resist--strongly.

My response to these students is to just smile--remembering Nick-- and say, "Let's just try it and see how it goes."

Lori Stratton teaches at Wamego (Kansas) High School. She can be reached at msphoto@wamego.net.

Editor's Note

If you read the fine print on the bottom of page 2, you know that, each year, about four of your dues dollars are earmarked for NEA Today. How's that money spent?

The major expenses for publishing NEA Today are paper, printing, and postage.

Other costs are also involved, of course, everything from staff salaries to purchases of photos and illustrations, but the largest expenditures by far go to these three core expenses.

It's a constant battle to hold these three expenses in check and, at the same time, ensure that you receive a good-looking, readable publication on time, every month.

Each year, we buy more than 6 million pounds of paper. That's enough to give us some bargaining clout with paper merchants.

Our production coordinator, Ann Marie Bohan, keeps a keen eye on the paper market, and she nails down multi-year agreements whenever paper prices are right.

We also watch printing costs carefully. NEA Today is printed on rotogravure presses, a very economical, yet high-quality method of printing large-circulation, four-color publications like the Parade you see inserted in your Sunday newspaper.

Roto presses save both money--and trees--by reducing waste in the printing process.

Our third key expense, postage, is also our largest expense and the toughest to control. The Post Office used to heavily subsidize mailing costs for newspapers and magazines, under the thinking that democracy demands the widest possible circulation of ideas and information.

That lofty goal, unfortunately, is no longer driving postal rate decisions. Nonprofit publications like ours have just been hit with another hefty rate increase.

But that hike won't stop us from meeting our goal: Putting a quality publication in your mailbox eight times a year.

—Bill Fischer