Most teachers love reading and learning. It’s a big reason why teachers become teachers. While students loving reading is awesome, it’s important to understand that reading is about a whole lot more than doing so for enjoyment. Here is why your students don’t have to love reading, but they do need to be able to read proficiently.
Why do students really need to be able to read?
I can remember hiding under my blankets with a flashlight, hoping my parents didn’t catch me staying up way-too-late reading Harriet the Spy way past my bedtime. I cried real tears when I read just about every Harry Potter book. And, I can even remember wishing I could jump into the pages of the Busy World of Richard Scarry. The point is, I love reading, and I’m still an avid reader to this day. I absolutely want to help every student unlock these hidden worlds and readily available joy. So how can I say that students don’t have to love to read?
Reading is a Life Skill
We’d love for our students to love reading. The reality is that reading is an important life skill for survival. And, it’s a life skill that our brains are literally not designed to do. This means that it’s hard work to learn to read. While we’d like our students to love reading, it is firstly more important that our students can read. Reading is a life skill. It’s a survival skill.
Our students need to be able to quickly and efficiently decode English sounds, analyze their meaning to comprehend what they’re reading, and then use that information moving forward. When our students are adults, they need to read words automatically.
It is vital that we teach our students the logic, rules, and patterns in written English so that they can read street signs, fill out a job application, and navigate our constantly changing world. While technology is here to stay, reading is certainly here to stay as well. (Just look at the text one needs to read while scrolling Instagram or TikTok to learn how to make that viral bread recipe.) Students, even the ones who don’t love reading, need to be able to read so they can function in society.
Understanding Comes Before Love
You can’t love reading by yourself if you can’t read by yourself. As a teacher, I love a good read aloud. Reading to my students is one of the highlights of each day, and I work hard to find really great picture books, graphic novels, and chapter books to share with them. However, I can’t follow each of my students around for their whole life reading baking directions to them. They need to learn to read themselves.
Students have to be able to read independently before then can fall in love with reading independently. Once they can read, they are much more likely to love reading.
It Doesn’t Have to Be Either Or
Of course, this doesn’t mean we can’t both foster a love of reading while teaching the mechanics of reading at the same time. (Spoiler: we can do both). It’s also important to recognize that there will be some students who just don’t fall in love with reading. There will be students that have to work so hard to learn the foundational skills that the joy part doesn’t develop.
We can (and should) continue to make the joy of reading accessible with things like audiobooks, read alouds, and graphic novels. But, at the end of the day, it is our job as teachers to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need into adulthood.
We want them to love reading just like we want them to love math, science, and being kind to others. We can work towards that goal while recognizing that being able to do it is a must. And, the good news is this. They have a much better chance of loving something that they fully grasp and understand.
