What “Counts” as Reading
Stephanie Schott is the Branch Manager at Chugiak-Eagle River Library (Anchorage Public Library) in Alaska. She received a Masters in Library & Information Science from Rutgers University. Stephanie has jumped around the library world including stops at Alaska State Library, Maine State Library, and Alaska Ready to Read Resource Center.
NOTE: Ms. Schott's post is in response to the introduction post, "What Should "Count" for Summer Reading" and follows Dr. Reynolds' post, "Choice and Possibility in Summer Reading". We will be posting a response each Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks from various experts on literacy and literature.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if “summer slide” was how we described the joy children experience while reading over the summer? Instead, summer slide is the loss of knowledge and skills from the end of the previous school year to starting school again in the fall. Public libraries have filled that gap for generations with Summer Reading programs, and recently many have transitioned to Summer of Discovery. This small change in the program title acknowledges the multitude of literacy rich experiences available to library users – whether it’s reading the instructions at a craft event, listening to books at storytime, or reading a comic book.
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With the importance of summer learning loss on the line, asking what counts as reading is like opening a can of worms. Are materials discounted due to the content, the characters, or whether they are visual or audio formats? Since students access information in different formats for their learning, why be so picky when it comes to their reading? An integrated concept of literacy can’t only include printed materials, especially in a world of proliferating amounts of information. On a side note, let’s take time to appreciate the mental energy needed to retrain the Western brain to read manga in the correct order while also blending print and visual cues to comprehend the material. That this level of discernment happens while reading for pleasure means “…[students] can skip words without fear of missing anything that affects their grade, [and] will result in vocabulary growth and overall language competence” (Krashen, 2004, p.455)
Going backwards, it seems the pre-literacy skills that librarians extol should inform the types of fluency we expect from students. The Association for Library Service to Children created a campaign around early literacy based around singing, reading, talking, and playing with young children to expose them to the world of words. For students this would mean understanding they are always interacting with a world of words whether listening to the lyrics of songs, talking about facts learned from podcasts, or reading through their social media. This may seem like a wide net, but it all contributes to vocabulary, comprehension, and background knowledge that are the building blocks of reading.
In my own life, as an aunt to three nieces with very different reading journeys, I’m so happy they had options. My oldest niece is a great reader but is more of a numbers person, and she is happiest with non-fiction. She famously predicted the ending of Charlotte’s Web because she understood foreshadowing and story construction, even though she was disinterested in the book itself. My second niece always has two books going (mostly based on movies or tv shows) and will eagerly tell you about them both. My third niece experienced kindergarten during the first year of the pandemic and is still a struggling reader to this day. If she didn’t have Elephant and Piggie, Baby Mouse, and other comic books, I’m not sure that she would ever have read on her own.
This question of what counts won’t go away anytime soon. If you wonder where public libraries fall on this issue, you only have to look at the movement toward bingo cards that offer suggestions for various paths to experience materials. Your public library wants to meet you where you are, without judging what counts as reading. It’s kind of like the classic voting: we don’t care who you vote for, just vote. In this case, we don’t care what you read, but we hope you engage with the process.
References
Krashen, S. D. (2004). The power of reading: Insights from the research (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
