Read, Baby, Read!

Well, I just ruined another perfectly good night’s sleep with a gripping crime novel. As my husband snored away, I was shaking, wondering if bullets were going to needlessly fly by. Shame on me. But—it’s summer and I knew I really didn’t have to get up and report to work at 7:30. That’s a summer perk, and I’d do it again for another gripping plot.

Reading is a life skill and dare we claim the most important skill—next to speaking well? Think about it. There are a number of skills that we use daily: reading, writing, speaking well, math, deductive reasoning, and our memory. We may not remember what the mathematical formula is to calculate velocity, but we read day-in-and-day-out.

The more students read, the better they read. The better they read, the more they comprehend. The more they comprehend, the better they achieve. Therefore, achievement in its rudimentary root correlates right to reading. Read-baby-read!  That should be our motto. That’s what advocates such as Stephen Krashen espouses. Linguist Marilyn Jager Adams traces the correlation between reading and achievement in many of her publications. So, take time today to read away, go online or grab one of those gripping novels.

Reading is good for the brain. It helps the young achieve and the old prevent Alzheimer’s disease [National Institute of Health]*. So, until September, I look forward to ruining another good night’s sleep—probably near the ocean—reading a seafaring or pirate novel. After all, reading is good for the mind. It is one of three activities that has a direct correlation to keeping the mind sharp.

This online issue has a number of articles featuring reading ideas to inspire you and deliver a few ideas for connecting with your classroom, connecting with authors, connecting reading with curriculum, and connecting your students to good books. Don’t miss Naomi Bates' ideas for linking literature with classrooms, and don’t miss Stacey Rattner’s inspiration to connect with your favorite authors. Don’t miss the new ideas we’re delivering to improve your building’s reading connections!  Read-baby-read.

Links:

"Keep Reading to Keep Alzheimer's at Bay" Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Research Foundation https://www.alzinfo.org/articles/reading-alzheimers-bay 

"Preventing Alzheimer's Disease: What Do We Know?" National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging. https://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/preventing-alzheimers-disease/search-alzheimers-prevention-strategies   

Marilyn Jager Adams. "Advancing Our Students' Language and Literacy: The Challenge of Complex Texts." American Educator (Winter 2010-2011). http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Adams.pdf