How often does one re-read a college text?  How often is one happy to re-read a college text?  I realize it is unusual, but as I will be a guest speaker in a Graduate Library course  this week, I find myself doing assigned readings along with the students.  And I am thrilled that one of the assigned readings is “The Power Of Reading” by Stephen D. Krashen.

When I had to read it as a student I acquired an interlibrary loaned copy.  I used sticky note flags to mark the passages I wanted to note.  With almost twenty flagged passages I quickly knew I had to buy my own copy.  I did.  And I transferred the sticky notes before returning the ILL copy.

Krashen’s book is an overview of research – not just one project which set out to prove what it wished and discounted anything that didn’t support the thesis.  The findings in this book resonate with me.  After 28 years as a school librarian, and almost 45 years as an avid reader, I recognize the good common sense insights in this text!

Here are some of my “sticky note flags”:

“The cure for this kind of literary crisis lies… in an activity that is all too often rare in the lives of many people reading.  Specifically I am recommending …free voluntary reading.  FVR means reading because you want to.  For school-age children, FVR means no book report, no questions at the end of the chapter, and no looking up every vocabulary word.  FVR means putting down a book you don’t like and choosing another one instead.  It is the kind of reading highly literate people do all the time.” (x)

Amen!  Amen!  Amen! 

Reading improves spelling.  (More than direct instruction!) (16) 

They obviously didn’t use me in one of the studies.

Reading is the most often mentioned flow activity in the world.  Flow is the state people reach when they are deeply but effortlessly involved in an activity. (29) 

Flow….zone… whatever it is.  I hear nothing, I see nothing when I read a novel.  I did not read for pleasure when my children were little.  It wasn’t safe for them. 

Bedtime reading is recommended!  (32) 

I knew it!  My trusty under-the-covers flashlight and I knew it! So did my mom, despite her chastising, “Marcia Ann!  It is one in the morning!  Are you still reading?”

Those who read more, know more.  (35) 

This required research?

Studies show that reading is good for you.  “The research however, supports a stronger conclusion:  Reading is the only way, the only way we become good readers, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammatical competence, and the only way we become good spellers.”  Direct instruction not required!  (37) 

You want to learn to read?  Read!  I was once asked what kind of speed reading course I had taken.  “None,” was my reply.  “I just read A LOT.”

Better school libraries result in more reading.  (58)

Oh yeah!  Un-hunh!  Get down!!!!!!  (We librarians knew this)

Teachers should also read along with students during SSR!  (85)

I promote this with young teachers!  Please sit down and read with your class when you are scheduled in the library.  We have a new language and reading teacher this year.  “I get to read, too?”  she said. “Well then I can’t wait for Friday!”

Children read more when they see other people reading. (85)

Funny.  The PE teacher has recently found what he likes to read – sports biographies and stuff by the ESPN guys.  (I couldn’t name you a one of them! – but he likes it!)  This teacher has noticed his two boys will sit down to read when he does at home.  “I guess this doesn’t surprise you, does it?” he asked me last week.  NOPE!

Children read more when they have time to read.  (85) 

Does Suzy really have to have an activity every evening after school?  Make your child choose between soccer, dance, and gymnastics.  Limits are healthy!

The data supporting Accelerated Reader does not exist.  (121) 

I’m doing my happy dance!!!!!!

Television doesn’t prevent reading.  (146) 

That one’s a surprise, isn’t it!

This is a book I heartily recommend to teachers and librarians.

The Power of Reading is… READING! 

Read it!

The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research. 2nd Edition.  Stephen D. Krashen, 2004.