We will not be counting minutes at my house any longer! Last night, I read Alfie Kohn's, "How to create nonreaders" and recognized some of these actions in my daughter's school. Then, before my daughter went to sleep last night, she asked, "can you wake me up 20 minutes early so I can read?" She didn't want to wake up early because she was in the middle of a good book and couldn't wait to see what happened. She wanted to wake up early to read because she didn't think she read enough minutes this week. She read about 175 minutes even though she attended a Girl Scout meeting, dance practice and church class. She doesn't pick up a book "just for fun" anymore (and it's only been 1 month of counting minutes). She picks up a book because she wants to read for more minutes than her classmates. You may believe that reading is reading and as long as she is reading she is improving her reading. This would be an incorrect assumption. Her reason for reading has changed. Reading has become a chore; a school assignment.
I have worked 8 years nurturing her love for reading. So, we are throwing away the minutes record and she will read when she wants to read when she wants to read. We will talk about what she's reading and she will tell me what she wants to read. She read nearly 50 books this past summer and enjoyed all of them. She had no reports, no recording of minutes and no competition. I enjoyed watching her open a book and get lost in the action.
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