Reading ANYTHING Improves Reading!!

At Aubrey, the library philosophy remains strong that students’s READERS CHOICE is extremely important!

I would like you to imagine for a moment that you have just walked into the public library excited to read the newest book that is just out, and as you are browsing the shelves, the librarian approaches you and says that you can ONLY check out a book that is housed on ONE particular shelf.

Hmmm, how would your readers motivation change?  How excited are you going to be, having been TOLD that you must read something chosen by someone else?  What if that particular book was the newest cookbook and you HATE cooking?  The #1 Best Seller for “How To Invest” and you are not the most financially savvy, or you were just told that you were NOT ALLOWED to borrow ANY fiction books?  (Oh, but others can!).

Let’s allow kids to read what THEY find exciting, what motivates them to want to read, (not what YOU want them to read) because isn’t that the goal?  If kids are visiting the library WANTING to read, then we as grown ups have done a good job!   It only takes ONE great book/ magazine/ graphic novel to get kids hooked on reading; we just need to find it!  In addition, we have to acknowledge that ‘reading’ no longer means ‘text’.  In today’s society, children are growing up learning to ‘read’ both text in combination with pictures/icons, sometimes more images than text, whereby they are using interpreting skills to understand meaning….. hmmm sounds a bit like graphic novels, no?  It’s no wonder why kids of both genders are gravitating toward graphic novels!

So please remember:

Readers CHOICE!  AND 

Reading ANYTHING improves reading!

Research proves that reading alone subconsciously raises success levels of spelling, grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary etc.  So if you would like to help your child develop their literacy skills, allow them the freedom of choice to read what they want to, and read often!