Adults who read regularly do so because they love to read not because they “must read.” The youngest children drop everything at any opportunity to hear a story because they instinctively love stories. First-graders go to school the first day thrilled that now, finally, they will learn how to read for themselves. What happens in between? Why do only 50 percent of fourth-graders like to read and less than 25 percent of 12th-graders like to read? If reading a good book is one of the great joys of life, if the love of story is ingrained in our human nature, how can we think the only way children will read is if we force them to read something we think they should read?

Which do you want? Do you want your children to say 15 years from now, “Well I hated it then, but now I’m glad I was forced to read a set list of books every summer,” or do you want them to say something like, “I need someone with a truck to help me move, but I don’t have much to move since all I care about are my books.” If it is the latter, ask yourself what makes your kids/students want to read more and do more of that and ask yourself what makes your kids/students want to read less and do less of that.

Gaby Chapman

Durango