Posts Tagged reluctant readers

Reluctant Reader Meet Reluctant Writer

Young girl sitting at her desk with her head down in a book.

As educators, parents, and creatives, we are very familiar with the notion of the reluctant reader: young—and old—readers who dread picking up a book, yet alone finishing it! Educators struggle with recommending interesting stories to unmotivated readers. Parents struggle with unfinished library books that their children just HAD to have. Writers struggle with creating unique and binge-worthy tales for their audiences. While the concept of a reluctant reader is well known, its counterpart—the reluctant writer—may not be as popular. 

Some students may be labeled as reluctant writers because they have a deadly aversion to writing. Be it a short-answer response on their exams, or a creative story for an assignment, reluctant writers have zero desire to put their thoughts down on paper for whatever reason. This scenario happens to the best of us and I would proudly declare that I consider myself to be a reluctant writer. Even if I know I have amazing stories to tell, when it comes time to sit down and put pen to paper, my brain shuts down!

For many of us, the start of a new project is always exhilarating. It’s thrilling to sit up and think about new characters, new worlds, and new loves. The entire process is always exciting at the beginning. When you open up a fresh, blank document and start typing your first words, all of your ideas flow easily onto the page. The story starts off strong and your characters come to life while you document their trials and tribulations. Your plot thickens as you hit a groove and steadily add to your word count day after day after day. But then suddenly, it happens without warning ~ writer’s block. 

Clip art of a boy at his desk with his hand on this chin, staring into space.

Your ideas become stale, your writing stalls. Your blank pages stare back at you, judging your ineptitude. Your characters whisper behind your back and mock your inability to continue the story. Your world fades the longer you miss your streak and fail to add new words. Eventually, you stop opening the document and move on to a different project. Another manuscript sits in your folder, hoping to see the light of day again, but you both know that story is done. This vicious cycle of new stories, vigorous writing, stalled plotlines, and incomplete manuscripts lives at the heart of today’s truth. 

Writing is numbing. 

It’s extremely difficult to maintain a strict writing schedule when you have life coming at you from all sides. Plus, brilliance rarely strikes every day, so I believe it’s bad practice to force yourself to write every day. Burnout is real and so is the pain of being unable to complete your beloved manuscript. This pain becomes so numbing, you’re unable to do anything else. 

Yet knowing that inspiration comes when it wants, it’s very possible you’ll miss it if you don’t have a steady routine. I know this sounds very contradictory, but the writing process is not just about writing. There are so many other writing-related things you can do when you are caught in the middle of a creative drought. 

Learn to acknowledge the numbing feeling of writer’s block and look for ways to break free from it. Invention is the most difficult part of creation, regardless of the medium you work in. And it’s hard to find the right words to articulate the vision you have in your head. Oftentimes, the words don’t want to come or the scenes just don’t flow.

To trigger my creative side, I’ll take a break from forcing myself to write and wind down by reading or watching shows. Once inspiration hits, I’ll have a brainstorming session to help me get over my writer’s block. Nothing major or planned. Just a quick free write to jot possible ideas down on paper. Usually, this gives me a starting point for stalled manuscripts and I will feel ready to return to them.

Another helpful tip is having writer friends or accountability partners that understand what you’re going through and can pull you out of your self-inflicted misery. We all go through bouts of imposter syndrome, but it doesn’t mean you need to succumb to this malady. It’s important to acknowledge when we’re feeling this blockage and fight to find a way to step away from the numbing pain to seek another new beginning. 

Aerial shot of a group of writers sitting a table with their laptops, notepads, clipboard and drinks during a session.

The more you allow yourself to write without restraint, you’ll find the ideas flowing more freely. Eventually, you’ll find your creative groove and hopefully move away from being a reluctant writer to a productive one! Just know that we’ve all been there and if you ever need a positive push, my inbox is always open! Signing off from the trenches, I’m manifesting great writing sessions and envisioning everyone finding your voice and creating some amazing stories to inspire the next generation of reluctant readers and writers! 

The Five Different Types of Readers: What Authors and Educators Can Learn From them

As an author, I’ve found that it’s useful to understand different types of readers, so I can better understand for whom I might be writing my stories.

I’m going to offers up some definitions I created based on the work of literacy scholar Kylene Beers, who breaks readers into five distinct groups: Avid Readers, Dormant Readers, Uncommitted Readers, Unmotivated Readers and Unskilled Readers.

The Avid Reader—This is someone like myself and my older son Jonah. My husband has been known to pull the cereal boxes off the table to get us to eat. But that doesn’t stop Jonah and me. Oh no. We’ll happily read the back of any brand of orange juice carton. We are even known to flip over the napkin holder because it has interesting warnings in both Spanish and in English that it would be a bad idea to eat the napkin holder.

The Dormant Reader—This is a reader who might enjoy reading but doesn’t have time. In the case of a child, she or he might be overscheduled or it’s not the highest thing on their priority list of things-to-do. They’ve heard a certain book is good and think it’s cool and do want to get there. Eventually.

The Uncommitted Reader—This person feels ambivalent towards reading. They believe that someday they’ll read but that day isn’t quite today.

Unmotivated Reader—This reader never reads for pleasure and finds reading a big, fat ugly chore.

Unskilled Reader—This reader doesn’t yet have the skills to decode text.

These definitions have helped me to be understand reluctant readers and to climb out of my own experience.
I was one of those voracious readers, so I didn’t understand why everyone else was not like me.

Take my younger sister growing up. She really would be practicing her lacrosse goalie skills or watch TV or hanging with oodles of friends. But rarely ever reading.

I didn’t get her. And she didn’t get me.

I was that shy kid always playing pretend or reading books about girls from another century.

While I never bothered to try to coax my sister to pick up one of my thick novels, my mother never gave up on my sister as a reader. She bought her the Choose Your Own Adventure books, as well as read aloud to her quite a bit. When my sister got into music of the Doors, she bought a book on the band.

Today, my sister is a librarian and probably reads more than me. My mother understand that the unmotivated reader can become the uncommitted reader who then can become the avid reader.

So the lesson here is just because a kid is currently in one category, it doesn’t mean they will stay there. And it doesn’t mean that an avid reader will always stay there either. For example, I found that when my kids were babies my reading really dropped. I was lucky to have enough time to read the back of the cereal box. When it comes to reading status, things can be fluid. This can be true for authors in terms of their intended readers as well.

My recent middle grade novels, Apple Pie Promises and Pumpkin Spice Secrets, obviously target reluctant readers. However, the first titles in my new chapter book series, Ellie May on Presidents’ Day and Ellie May on April Fools’ Day are hybrids. I tried to write it for both the young avid reader and the uncommitted one. But I’m ever hopeful that the unmotivated reader will also be charmed by Ellie May’s personality and antics. Since I don’t write beginning readers, I can’t hope to hook an unskilled reader, except as a read aloud. And if it that were the case, I would be very happy indeed.

What sort of reader were you as a kid? Where are you now? Teachers, do you see a huge spread in your classrooms. And authors, whom do you write for?

Hillary Homzie is the author of the forthcoming Ellie May chapter book series (Charlesbridge, Dec 18, 2018), as well as Apple Pie Promises (Sky Pony/Swirl, October 2018), Pumpkin Spice Secrets (Sky Pony/Swirl, October 2017), Queen of Likes (Simon & Schuster MIX 2016), The Hot List (Simon & Schuster MIX 2011) and Things Are Gonna Be Ugly (Simon & Schuster, 2009) as well as the Alien Clones From Outer Space (Simon & Schuster Aladdin 2002) chapter book series. She can be found at hillaryhomzie.com and on her Facebook page as well as on Twitter.

Pitchers & Catchers

 

“It’s like a—a country or somethin’,” Joey-Mick went on. “Baseball, I mean. A place where everybody’s crazy about the same thing.” – KEEPING SCORE by Linda Sue Park

Pitchers and catchers report!

It’s that time of the year again. Spring training time. Baseball time! Those are magic words to a baseball person.

Baseball.

Baseball at Night by Morris Kantor, 1934 (Photo credit: American Art Museum on Visualhunt.com/)

It’s in my blood. It’s been that way since I was old enough to walk. A bat in my hand feels as natural as a clarinet or a trumpet to a musician. To folks who don’t really enjoy or understand sports, that’s about as well as I can explain the importance of sports to sports kids. It’s part of who they are.

Softball and baseball-crazed kids are my kind of kids. I can identify with their love of the game. I also firmly believe this love of sports can help these kids on their road to becoming lifelong fans of another important activity…READING!

Sports books can be used as gateways to draft the reluctant reader onto the reader team. They give familiar and safe subjects to the reader; subjects they can understand even if the text or the narrative is a challenge.

Pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training signals the start of the Major League Baseball season. It also means it’s time for middle-grade baseball books to report to the shelves of middle-grade readers.

To get some of your favorite middle-grade readers off the bench and in the batter’s box, here’s a short list of middle-grade-ish book titles with a baseball component.

And now, for today’s starting lineup,

MUDVILLE by Kurtis Scaletta
KEEPING SCORE by Linda Sue Park
SUMMERLAND by Michael Chabon
BIG LEAGUE BATBOY by Jerry Gibson
THE DISTANCE TO HOME by Jenn Bishop
HOTHEAD by Cal Ripkin, Jr.
A RAMBLER STEALS HOME by Carter Higgins
THE BATBOY (or anything else) by Mike Lupica
THE GIRL WHO THREW BUTTERFLIES by Mick Cochrane
CHAMP by Marcia Thornton Jones
SAFE AT HOME by Sharon Robinson
SOAR by Joan Bauer
CLUTCH by Heather Camlot
THE BROOKLYN NINE by Alan Gratz
ONLY THE BALL WAS WHITE by Robert Peterson
PROMISES TO KEEP by Sharon Robinson

As evidenced by the number of times I struck out in my baseball playing days, I know I missed more than a few great middle-grade baseball books to recommend. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment. 

(And while you’re at it, can you suggest some middle-grade softball books? I know a bunch of young softball players who are searching for some softball books.)