Make Reading a Family Affair This Summer

By Elizabeth Donofrio

My 6-year-old daughter, Sarah, shocked me the other day. During a casual conversation about mystery book heroine Nancy Drew, I commented that I loved reading. “No, you don’t,” she said.

Come again? How could Sarah think that I didn’t love to read? I had been an English teacher for seven years, for heaven’s sake! My husband and I have been reading nightly to each of our four children since birth. They each have their own bookcase. We go to the library every week without fail. Me not like reading? Impossible!

 So I calmly asked her, “Why do you think I don’t like reading, Sarah?”

“Because I never see you do it,” she quipped as she bit into her sandwich.

She’s right. Since my oldest was born in 1996, I have limited my reading to reading aloud from Rainbow Fish, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Ten Apples Up On Top, Touch and Feel Wild Animals, and the Little Critter, Thomas the Tank Engine, Carl the Dog and Arthur series. Only recently have I entered the realm of chapter books with the American Girls, Little House on the Prairie, and now Nancy Drew.

I know that a parent’s example of reading for his or her own enjoyment is a great predictor of a child’s love of reading, and hence, a good indicator of success in school. How can you do well in school if you don’t like to read? I know I need to be a model of a good reader to encourage Sarah, and all my children, in that vein. With that in mind, I started my action plan.

Show, Don’t Tell

This time, when we went to the library, I asked Miss Dottie, our lovely children’s librarian, for a good read. She handed me Green Eggs and Ham – which, obviously, I had already read. She then chose for me The Secret Life of Bees, an adult novel by Sue Monk Kidd (Penguin, 2003). After supper, when I usually concern myself with superfluous tasks such as washing dishes and putting away food, I pushed everything aside, put Ellie, our newest baby, on my lap to nurse, and pulled out the Bee book from our library bag. I read the author’s biography on the jacket before I realized Sarah was no longer in the kitchen and was, therefore, not watching me!

Immediately, I hoisted Ellie up with one arm, held on to the book with the other, and moved to the living room where Sarah, Abigail and Mitch were playing Arthur games on the Web at PBSkids.org. Easing onto the couch, I repositioned Ellie, and then dove into my novel, getting to page eight before Daddy came home and I was again required in the kitchen. But, true to plan, I had read where Sarah could see me.

Just before she went to bed, I double-checked. “Did you see me reading today, Sarah?”

“No,” she said. I was crestfallen. But she picked me right up again. “What did you read?”

“The Secret Life of Bees.”

“Oh, let me see it.” Sarah looked at the cover, flipped through the pages and asked, “Any pictures?”

“No, just on the cover.”

Without further conversation or fanfare, she put the book down on the table and ran at top speed out of the kitchen.