Committing to Building Choosy Readers

by Judy Newman

When I was a kid, I identified as a reader, budding author, and a book collector who loved to put up new bookshelves in my bedroom to hold my ever-expanding home library. I was enthusiastic about reading because I learned how to choose books I wanted to read. But, like every other kid on the planet, I wasn’t born knowing how to choose which books were right for me.

My choosing training started when I was a small, thumb-sucking, lap-sitter. My mother read to me: Make Way for Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal, and The Story of Ferdinand. Reading meant cozy time with my parents and my newly arrived sister, Emily, and a good story before bed. We had a bookshelf from which we could choose a book for our mother—or our dad—to read to us. The bookshelf was at the perfect height for me to scan the titles and consider which books I’d self-select that evening. Turns out, we were onto something. According to research from the Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report™, the vast majority of both parents and kids surveyed have the same fond memories and formative experiences as I did, saying that reading aloud is/was a special time with their family.

With my newly developed choosing muscles, I went off to school and would choose books from the Scholastic Book Club flyers my teacher handed out. I chose Homer Price, Blueberry Summer, and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle—I still have and cherish these copies today.

Each spring, my parents would take my siblings and me to Louis Strymish’s New England Mobile Book Fair, where we spent hours picking out books we wanted to read and own. I remember the experience of perusing and choosing from the hundreds of books on display in pallets and on bookshelves as the most delicious opportunity to assert my preferences.

And in the summer, I rode my blue banana bike to the Newton Center Public Library and chose books from the stacks. I monopolized the librarian, and she would help me figure out which books I wanted to take home that week. In looking again at the research, I discovered I’m not alone in turning to my public librarian for support—nearly a fifth of all kids ages 6-17 say their local public librarian encourages them to read books for fun. The librarian pushed me to use my library card for books I wouldn’t normally purchase and expand my horizons, freeing me to try out new genres. Because unlike with the Scholastic Book Club flyers and the New England Mobile Book Fair where I was choosier, I felt I could experiment more freely at the library. I didn’t keep the books I chose, and therefore I had the freedom to return the ones I didn’t like.

Through all these opportunities to choose, I continued to develop my tastes and my interests, and I grew to identify as a reader. From having access to a wide selection of books to choose from, I got better and better at it. I became a confident decision-maker. I lost that anxious feeling of not making the right choice, and eventually, I dropped the guilty compulsion to finish a book I didn’t like.

The Kids & Family Reading Report also shows us that the vast majority of kids say their favorite books, and the ones they are more likely to finish reading, are the ones they pick out themselves. When kids choose the books they want to read, they read more. But many, many kids don’t get the opportunity to learn how to choose.

Learning to choose takes experience and access to a wide variety of different books. Once these conditions exist, every kid will have the opportunity to find what they like and develop their choosing muscles. Opportunities include book clubs and book fairs in schools; access to local libraries and bookstores; and shelves of books at home for their grown-ups to read with them from the time they are thumb-sucking lap-sitters. And while these conditions are not yet universal, the research shows us there’s a silver lining: nearly all parents agree that every community needs to have a public library, every school needs to have a library, and every child needs to have at least a few books of their own at home.

Given that we’re all on the same page, we must take action to tackle this problem because the reality is that a large and growing number of kids in America do not have the same opportunities I did to select their own books and learn how to be choosy. There are children in under-resourced communities in every state in the U.S. who lack access to books, and as we see from the data, households that make less than $50,000 a year have much fewer books for kids in their homes than higher income earners. While it may seem obvious that those with less earnings are purchasing fewer books, these families are also least likely to have borrowed books for their child from their local public library in the past year, which adds an additional barrier to these children having the opportunity to choose their next favorite story. As other research has shown, many kids from low-income households live in rural areas, are from marginalized communities, and often have no access to libraries or bookstores. With limited motivation to practice their reading with books they choose themselves, kids’ reading scores in these schools are typically low.

While book donations are a fantastic start, there is power in kids having unlimited choice and getting to own the books they are proud to put on their shelves, especially for children from traditionally underrepresented communities. According to research from the Kids & Family Reading Report, half of children who are Black (53 percent) or Hispanic (49 percent) have a difficult time finding books with characters who are like them, and over half of Black (52 percent) and Hispanic (59 percent) children age nine or older wish there were more books with diversity available, compared to children overall (44 percent). And nearly half of all parents feel it is important that home libraries include books that feature characters of varied racial identities, ethnic backgrounds, and a range of life experiences.

We must create opportunities that will teach kids (and their grown-ups) how to choose which books are going to resonate with them and motivate them to read. I’ve seen firsthand how overwhelming it can be for students when they are presented with a choice for the first time. Two years of research from The United States of Readers, a book club funded by Scholastic and James Patterson, demonstrates just this. I witnessed how 45,000 kids attending under-resourced schools went from anxious, reluctant students to confident, discerning self-identifying readers after having the opportunity to choose from flyers filled with brand-new, popular, diverse titles that didn’t have price barriers preventing them from selecting the exact books that most appeal to them.

The stakes are very high if all kids don’t identify as choosy readers and build the self-confidence to choose and own their own books. As research shows, children in homes with more extensive home libraries have higher-level reading skills and attain more years of education overall than those with access to fewer books. Further research shows that over a third of children get most of the books they read for fun from the books already available to them at home, meaning that children who lack access to a home library are at a huge disadvantage. Simply put, kids who don’t have access to quality book choice are going to have fewer opportunities throughout their lives.

For me, the core reading experiences that made up the better part of my early life created an enthusiasm for books and reading that led directly to my career in children’s book publishing: as president of Scholastic Book Clubs for 30 years; as Pepper Springfield, the pseudonymous author of the Bobs and Tweets series; as Montclair, New Jersey’s Halloween Book Lady; and as a board member of many literacy nonprofits, including Reach out and Read, that are committed to ensuring all kids have the same access to books and reading that I did.

Now, as I begin my next chapter as the first ever Chief Impact Officer for Scholastic, I am deeply committed to working with partners to expand access and make book choice a reality for all kids throughout the country. I hope you’ll join me in this work. Let’s commit to creating more access for more kids so that they can develop their choosing muscles to select which books they want to read. Because if all kids have the opportunity to choose their own books, there’s a spillover effect. They can approach other decisions in their life with confidence and self-efficacy: from choosing what foods to eat, where to live, and how to participate with a compelling voice in America.

Happy Reading!

XX,
Judy 

Judy Newman, Chief Impact Officer, Scholastic