Whither the Joy of Reading?
The act of coming to be a reader is infinitely complex. So complex that any attempt to talk about teaching reading is ultimately inadequate. This is certainly true of the recent article I wrote for theWashington Post Answer Sheet. The purpose of that piece was to take a close look at some research purporting the benefits of “frustration level reading” and to argue for the necessity of instruction for students on the instructional level.
Some readers/commenters on this piece asked a good question: What about the joy of reading? Aren’t we likely to be more successful if we forget all this instructional mumbo-jumbo and focus on the joy?
Of course, the joy of reading matters and it matters a great deal. As Mark Twain has said, “The [person] who can read and chooses not to, has no advantage over the [person] who cannot read.” So yes, the joy of reading, the sheer pleasure of a good book well read, matters. There are those who argue that the biggest literacy problem in this country is not people who cannot read, but people who do not. But while joy is necessary to building a reader, it is not sufficient.
At the risk, again, of oversimplifying this complex process, allow me to posit the three most necessary instructional aspects of making a reader. Each of these is necessary, but of itself, not sufficient.
1. Developing in the reader the ability to smoothly and fluently process the visual, structural and semantic clues provided by the words of the text. (decoding)
2. Developing in the reader the ability to comprehend that text on a literal, inferential and evaluative level. (comprehending)
3. Developing in the reader a deep sense of the life-long joy that can be found through reading a wide variety of books for entertainment and information. (motivating)
While it is true that many children come to reading with minimal Russ on Reading: Whither the Joy of Reading?: