On the Podcast: How to Build Lifelong Readers with Donalyn Miller

Donalyn Miller:

When we're talking about joy, we're really trying to move away from some temporary frivolity. And often we feel that some adults are suspicious if children are enjoying reading too much. We've heard this. It must not be rigorous if kids are having fun. When we talk about reading joy, we're talking about more of a long-term investment I think. The over of reading lifetime, what does reading offer you that provides you engagement, edification, learning, touches your spirituality, your intellect, and all the ways that reading can become a part of our lives and really add to our lives? When we talk about joy, what we want is for kids to have the opportunity to be able to build that connection with reading, where reading is personally meaningful to them and not just something that they're being told to do for a school job, or because of some future college and career readiness goal.

When I talk with young people of all ages, and if you will sit down and talk with them, they will tell you that when teachers listen to them, and engage with them about their interests and care about their reading lives, they feel seen. That when teachers give them time to read, they read more. That when teachers give them some choice in what they get to read, they like reading more. There's an incredible amount of high stakes pressure on teachers to make sure children perform on standardized tests.

And although we can persuade colleagues that investing in students' reading lives long-term will improve their test performance, short-term, and let's be clear, it's a short-term concern, their reading lives are a long-term concern, that we can invest in their reading lives and their test scores will improve. And there's many studies that back that up. There are other researchers and teacher-practitioners who talk about that link between engaged invested reading, and an increase in students' reading performance. I just think there's a lot of pressure on teachers who make reading a performance. And kids aren't given time necessarily to cook reading lives. It takes time to build that confidence and competence as a reader that helps reading become really joyful. And there's just so much pressure on kids to get to the next milestone, to get to the next marker.

Steph:

So what barriers exist that prevent independent reading time?

Donalyn:

Of course, we can talk about the more, I don't want to seem more glamorous, but let's say more nuanced and fascinating conversations that we could have around choice, and community, and how that affects individual readers. But honestly, step two very boring things, very foundational brick-in-the-road things are two of the biggest obstacles for teachers and for kids. And it's time and access. You can talk about choice all day long. I've learned that choice is a privilege that depends on access. Choice from what? If you teach a student, and this has happened to me and I've talked to colleagues, it's happened to them too, you tell kids, "Oh, you can go off and read whatever you want for reading at home," and they bring in their reading log, or you sit to have a conversation with them and they've been reading the same book at home for two weeks. And you discover that's because that's the book that child owns.

So choice from what? So that fundamental access piece is huge. And access means, so I talked about this with my friend Colby Sharp in our book Game Changer, and we were able to bring in other people who were sharing what they were doing about access in their communities too, because it is a pervasive issue, but it starts with that physical access piece. Do kids have books on hand to read? I don't care how motivational your summer reading program is, if kids don't have a book to read after that conversation, I don't think the program's going to be a success. So we have to make sure kids have the physical books. E-books, audiobooks, paper books, and that if kids need assistive technology in order to access that book, that they have the technology too. And that access is inconsistent from community to community, and honestly from family to family inside the same school.

So that's a system-wide conversation. That challenge is a challenge that's difficult for an individual teacher to overcome without let's say a classroom library resource. Many schools are losing their school librarians, which undermines access for children, but it also causes teachers to lose a valuable colleague that would help them locate the resources that they would need to support their students. So when you lose the school librarian, everyone in the school community suffers from that. So that access piece is a big piece that I think a lot of school districts, a lot of school leaders would benefit from engaging with teachers and with community members, talking to families. Public library is another aspect.

And then that time piece because there's so many demands on the school schedule, but if we don't set aside time during the school day for kids to read, then how can we say we prioritize reading if we don't make time for it? We know that kids read more when they see other people reading, which means that beyond just the time of sitting, you and I would love it if we had 10 minutes to read every day, just set aside for us. But beyond that, the community piece when that happens is important we've found with kids. So you may think, oh, 10 minutes doesn't very much reading, doesn't really matter. Well, yes, because if kids aren't reading at school, it's unlikely they're picking up the habit at home and going, "Oh, reading, I didn't do it all day, but I'm going to do it now." That doesn't happen. They need that daily habit so they can keep going through their books.

Beyond that, it's that community piece where they're sitting with their classmates and everyone around them is reading too, and that has a powerful influence on their reading identities. So I know it's not flashy. setting aside time to read in the schedule, making sure kids go to the library, but those two foundational pieces, without those, anything else we would want to talk about, choice, community, response. It doesn't make any difference.

Steph:

You said something that reminds me of something you said earlier in this interview and it comes up in your book. This saying, "We really value reading." But then we criticize kids if they read too much. Sometimes they're reading the wrong things, and I feel like that really ties into that element of choice. And are we honoring kids' choice?

Donalyn:

Most of the schools that ask me to come talk with their teachers or work in their schools, it's because they're doing some kind of independent reading, and they know that that's my thing. But choice is not defined the same in all of these places. On one end we see all choice tightly controlled. "Oh, you can read whatever you want, but it must be this level. It must be this long. It must be this genre. No, you can't read that book, you read it last year." Like readers don't reread things. "No, you can't read that book. It's a graphic novel. It's not a real book. It has to be this reading level." So we tie so many strings to the kid that really they only have one choice left, which is to choose not to read at all.

Over here on the other end though, I see the pendulum swing too far. We just open up the library door, throw kids into the library, "Be free, pick whatever you want. You don't like to read? It's because you haven't met the right book yet." I've taught middle schoolers, they don't believe us anymore. When we say, Oh, you haven't met the right book yet." They don't believe us. Where is this mystical book? Why is it so hard to find? It's like Atlantis. It might not really be there. But choice we know is so empowering. So what our students need are lots of opportunities to preview, share, and talk about books they might read because that's where their ability to choose comes from. We spend a lot of our conversations talking with kids, as teachers I know conferring with readers, "What are you reading right now? Talk to me about what you're reading right now." Or, "Oh, you just finished a book. Talk to me about that book you just finished." We prioritize or we lean into the books they're currently reading and the books they've recently finished.

But there's benefit, real power in talking with kids about the books they might read in the future. Because one, they can visualize themselves as readers in the future. But helping them learn how to choose their own books is one of the best ways we have to ensure that they will read in the future without us. Unfortunately, we complain if kids aren't reading the right things sometimes. Adults often complain that kids don't read, and then we bemoan their choices when they do. "Oh, we want you to read Tom Sawyer, not the Lightning Thief." I actually had a parent have a conversation with me about those two books one time that was not a made up example.

So I think we have to value the reading lives of children. The books that are written for them are not written for us, and that it's a time in their lives where it's appropriate for them to read them. And if a kid will read anything, I can challenge them to grow. If they won't read anything, we're stuck there in that spot. Yes? So I think that's where we put our effort. Can we get them into anything they'd be interested in reading? We can take them from there.

Edie:

Thanks so much for tuning in today. You can learn more about Donalyn, her book, The Joy of Reading, and read a full transcript at blog.heinemann.com.

Donalyn Miller’s work champions self-selected independent reading, providing guidance and resources that foster children’s love of reading and the development of positive reading identities. A national and international consultant and bestselling author, Donalyn’s published works include The Book Whisperer (Jossey-Bass, 2009), Reading in the Wild (Jossey-Bass, 2013), and Game Changer: Book Access for All Kids (co-written with Colby Sharp, Scholastic, 2018) as well as articles in Gifted Child International, Education Week Teacher, The Reading Teacher, Voices From the Middle, Educational Leadership, Horn Book, School Library Journal, and The Washington Post. Recipient of TCTELA’s Elementary Language Arts Teacher of the Year (2011) and TCTELA’s Edmund J. Farrell Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award (2018) (for her contributions to the language arts teaching profession).

Donalyn is also a co-founder of The Nerdy Book Club, an online community which provides inspiration, book recommendations, resources, and advice about raising and teaching young readers. Donalyn and her husband, Don, live in Texas atop a dragon’s hoard of books. You can connect with her on her website BookWhisperer.com, or on Twitter at @DonalynBooks.