Practice Makes Perfect?
By Mark W.F. Condon, Unite for Literacy vice president
Children and adults that bemoan being poor readers seem to have either missed out on or forgotten the golden rule of human learning. While nothing a human does ever makes things perfect, despite the old saying that “practice makes perfect,” it’s undeniably true that enjoyable practice always leads to improvement. Always, because delightful practice is a good thing. No one can convincingly argue otherwise.
Take Maya for example. She has been and never will be a particularly good basketball player, but if she enjoys basketball and plays every day, so gets better at the game. While she’ll never play for a professional team, the time she spends dribbling a basketball and shooting hoops certainly increases her chances of enjoying fun, pickup games.
Those who don’t read well also can get a boost by engaging in enjoyable practice. They only first need to self-select a book they believe they will enjoy reading, and then relax and read it. When they have finished that book, they can choose another.
Read, enjoy, repeat.
Their selection process doesn’t need to be in a vacuum. Suggestions and encouragement from friends and caring adults will put them in touch with books that others have found enjoyable. Over time, following this simple formula will not only make them better readers, but it will grow other strengths, like accepting the support of caring others.
So, what’s the key here?
Children must simply keep selecting, reading, and sharing books they like.
Note the emotional engine that drives this practice. Reading must be enjoyable. Assigned books and other “have-to-reads” typically aren’t fun and, in fact, can lead to young readers who are committed non-readers. Positive emotion is the powerful dynamic that energizes children to discover home-run books, those books that almost all children love and then seek out more.
Good teachers and children’s librarians always have in their tote bags and/or swirling in their minds a collection of sure-fire memorable and delightful reads for children who haven’t yet become joyful readers. They believe and have experienced that fabulous reading can happen for every child.
Our educational systems cannot claim success unless every child becomes a committed reader, one who is determined to find and then take their own paths to successful book selection of personally enjoyable readings. A good education is not about the diploma that high school graduates triumphantly hold in the air. It’s about the understandings, abilities, strategies, and habits that they carry off that ceremonial stage and into life. Graduation rates mean nothing, really. Locked-in habits of lifelong learning and the enduring inclination to inspect, inquire, question, and read are what we should strive for and celebrate.
Just as babies soak up the new language they are bathed in, readers internalize the language complexity and powerful words they encounter in good books that have captured their hearts. We can often tell which individuals are avid readers and which have yet to discover the power of print by simply listening in on their conversations. And having seen an impressive sentence construction or a particular word dozens of times as they read, those strong words and sentences become integrated into their conversations, compositions or personal and business communications. Indeed, and not surprisingly, the added benefits of being a lifelong reader are good writing, spelling, and an ever-expanding vocabulary.
Therefore, parents and teachers must keep offering support for children’s independently finding potentially delightful books to read or reject. The subsequent powerful expansion of their very personal literacy will take care of continued learning and growth throughout the rest of their lives.