In spite of the fact that my recent surgery was, after all, just day stay surgery, I have been absolutely run down and exhausted. I did, however, manage to read the article "Encouraging a Love of Reading: 7 Ways to Inspire Your Kids" in the August 2012 issue of FamilyFun magazine. I am absolutely delighted by the article! I wonder why, when I am so convinced that it is both unrealistic and damaging to try to force a love of reading.
I think that it is the matter-of-fact tone of the article that I find so delightful and inspiring. The article begins by naming the conventional wisdom on encouraging a love of reading and goes on to say that sometimes those methods just don't work. It was a relief to see admission of that fact in print, in a magazine that is both mainstream and popular. While my most recent version of "LD Librarian" on this site talks about the damage that insisting on always inspiring a love of reading can inflict on a child, the fact is that it hurts parents as well. I can't count the number of parents who have said to me over the years, "But I did everything right." My observation over the years has been that parents inevitably, on some level, harbor guilt of their children's disabilities--reading experts inflicting more guilt just isn't right. I am hoping this article will lighten the load for some of those parents simply by pointing out that conventional means of creating a child who loves reading don't work.
I also loved how matter-of-factly some of the parents wrote about their child's disabilities. To someone like me, who grew up ashamed of my disabilities and consistently warned to keep my struggles secret, seeing parents openly acknowledge their children's invisible disabilities in a national magazine seems, in and of itself, fantastic and miraculous. I am further moved that said acknowledgement is accompanied by neither shame nor breastbeating, but simply presents disabilities as a practical problem that can be addressed in a straight forward manner. The tone of the article suggested that not loving reading is a side effect of certain disabilities, which can be alleviated, if not eliminated, through certain activities.
I
matter how consistently
I think that it is the matter-of-fact tone of the article that I find so delightful and inspiring. The article begins by naming the conventional wisdom on encouraging a love of reading and goes on to say that sometimes those methods just don't work. It was a relief to see admission of that fact in print, in a magazine that is both mainstream and popular. While my most recent version of "LD Librarian" on this site talks about the damage that insisting on always inspiring a love of reading can inflict on a child, the fact is that it hurts parents as well. I can't count the number of parents who have said to me over the years, "But I did everything right." My observation over the years has been that parents inevitably, on some level, harbor guilt of their children's disabilities--reading experts inflicting more guilt just isn't right. I am hoping this article will lighten the load for some of those parents simply by pointing out that conventional means of creating a child who loves reading don't work.
I also loved how matter-of-factly some of the parents wrote about their child's disabilities. To someone like me, who grew up ashamed of my disabilities and consistently warned to keep my struggles secret, seeing parents openly acknowledge their children's invisible disabilities in a national magazine seems, in and of itself, fantastic and miraculous. I am further moved that said acknowledgement is accompanied by neither shame nor breastbeating, but simply presents disabilities as a practical problem that can be addressed in a straight forward manner. The tone of the article suggested that not loving reading is a side effect of certain disabilities, which can be alleviated, if not eliminated, through certain activities.
I
matter how consistently
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