Encouraging a Love of Reading

How can we, as educators, caregivers, and family members, encourage a love of reading in students? This episode of Literacy Talks explores the challenges and joys of teaching students to read, our priority, and encouraging their love of reading along the way. From helping them experience and feel success as they decode their first words to giving every student the opportunity to succeed, this episode delivers simple, practical, and yet profound tips for nurturing the love of reading and the joy of learning for every learner.

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Transcript

Narrator: 0:03

Hello literacy leaders and champions. Welcome to literacy talks, the podcast series from Reading Horizons dedicated to exploring the ideas, trends, insights and practical issues that will help us create literacy momentum. Our series host is Stacy Hurst, professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor at Reading Horizons where reading momentum begins. Joining Stacy are Donell Pons, a recognized expert in literacy and special education and Lindsay Kemeny, a Utah based elementary classroom teacher. Today's episode is important because our hosts explore how we can encourage a love of reading for learners of all ages, from engaging book talks to celebrations of the aha moments as learners become readers. This episode reminds us of the why behind the work we do. Let's get started.

Stacy Hurst: 1:03

Welcome to another episode of literacy talks. I'm your host Stacy Hurst. And I'm joined by Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny. And as you know, we spend a lot of time talking about literacy on this podcast. And we have been really privileged to cover a lot of topics, we take turns choosing those topics, and today we are talking about a topic that Lindsay selected. So as following protocols just turn the time over to you, Lindsay to introduce us to the topic.

Lindsay Kemeny: 1:33

Thanks, Stacy. Okay, so our topic today also comes with a little bit of an explanation. And what I want to talk about today is how we can encourage a love of reading with our students. And my explanation is that I really want my students to love to read. But that's not my main goal in my classroom. And that's because this is something that we can't really control so much. My main goal in my classroom is to get my students to read. And I think that's the most important thing, because they're not going to love to read if they can't read. So the biggest thing we can do in our classrooms is to teach our students to read. But I also would love for them to love reading. And so I want to talk about how we can encourage that. And like I said that something that it's we can't really control not everyone's going to love reading. But we can do some things in our classroom to get kids excited about it. And when I brought this topic up before, you know, Donell brought up the great point, how some a lot of her students, many of our students can have a lot of trauma around reading. And so we also want to be talking about maybe how we can help some of our students heal from that and what we can do. So to start, though, I want to, I think that the three of us, we all love to read. So I want to start by asking you guys, why do you think you love reading? Can you think of anything that maybe led to that? I will go first of all you guys think because I just got it. But the first thing is, I've always been an avid reader, it came easy for me. And then I grew up with my dad, who was constantly reading. And so I felt like I had this role model where you know, every evening, that's all he did, and he stayed up late reading. And then he took us to the library every Saturday. And I loved going to the library with him and choosing books and he would also take us to the bookstore and seemed like it was always rainy days. If it was a rainy day, we would go to the bookstore and I knew that he would always buy me a book. Because he just really encouraged that with us with with, you know, me and my siblings. So what do you think? What Why do you guys like reading?

Stacy Hurst: 3:56

Okay, I'm guessing Donell is pausing. So I will let her go last but I you know as you were sharing that, Lindsay, I was thinking about that too. I remember reading a research study, it's been too many years to even recall where it came from. But it was early in my teaching career that said if fathers read to children and are involved in their literacy development, then somehow that has a greater impact. Or a great impact, I should say, because on the surface that sounds wrong because moms do a lot with that too. But I also saw my dad reading and he was kind of an anomaly because he actually didn't graduate from high school. But he really loved reading was kind of a closet nerd. He was like a diesel mechanic and a truck driver, but he also read Star Wars books. So yeah, I'd say early on, I had a lot of great examples of reading. Even though you wouldn't expect it based on my upbringing, but I also think the fact that I could read, like you said, it came kind of naturally to me. And then very shortly, I got caught up in stories and learning about people in places that I didn't know. I think it just really expanded my vision of life and then later, learning how to apply what I was reading to things like cooking, or, you know, I mean, from a very early age, I read the encyclopedia. I'm not gonna lie, I did that before Google. And just learning I think, my love of learning and the fact that reading facilitated, that was a big part of it.

Lindsay Kemeny: 5:38

Yeah, I love that we all love learning, right? We're kind of obsessed with that, where I just feel like we take in as much as we can. Um, Donell, do you have anything to share about your love of reading?

Donell Pons: 5:49

You bet. I would say it most definitely was my mother. And my mom was a busy woman, we had a lot of siblings, and my mother worked. She was a piano teacher for the years, and she had been a school teacher. And so her time was precious. And whenever she got a minute, she would grab a book, she always had one handy. And so if you wanted to spend time with her, then you spend time with books. And I remember being very young and unable to read, I hadn't learned to read yet. And I would crawl up on the bed while she was lying down reading. And I would snuggle up in the crook of her arm, and she had her book aloft in the air. And she would turn the pages and I would pretend that I was reading with her. And that was the first really memory I have a book. So I was really young. And I remember how much joy she received from books. And that was important was seeing just how much my mother loved books. And then we had those opportunities like you did to Lindsay, we would go to the library, and would take a big bag, and we would fill it with books, and we were there for hours, my mother would take us weekly. And one of the things I do remember, though, about those times, there were some siblings who were lacking. And I only when in adulthood realized why there were some siblings that didn't take the trip to the library. While there were some siblings that didn't find themselves crawling into the crook of my mother's arm while she was reading. And it's because reading was not coming for them. And later, I would find out why, you know, it was a heritable reason why learning to read was difficult. And so that's kind of interesting, too, it shapes my memories of reading in my household to that some loved it, and some did not love it, and why some did not love it when it was so pervasive in our home. And our mother loved it so much. And I think of Maryanne Wolf, who's one of our fantastic reading researchers, and she writes so beautifully on reading. And she talks about that those early experiences with reading that you have with your parents, and, you know, the the older guardian in the household to the child, and how important those are. And they I'm hearing that they shaped all of our experiences in many ways.

Lindsay Kemeny: 7:45

Yeah, so interesting. We all have these positive memories around reading. And so let's try to bring that into the classroom or, you know, with our students or in a tutoring situation or whatever. How can we bring in more positive classrooms? So let's kind of move to some ideas about what we can do to encourage this encourage this love of reading? And of course, we know, the main thing is to teach them to read. But what else can we do? So one thing I was thinking about is to help them feel successful as they read. And, you know, I love that Anita Archer says success breeds motivation. And I and I really see that and one way I can do that, with my first graders that are just starting to read is for them to read, I can start them with decodable, exposing them to, you know, sound symbol correspondences that have taught already so that they can practice and they can feel that success. And I just remember this one boy one time saying, Mrs. Kemeny, I can actually read the words. And he was so excited. And I just love that. So showing them that they can do it and showing them how they can be successful, I think is one way. Okay, what else? What are some other ideas?

Donell Pons: 9:12

So Lindsay I'm going to add, that's fantastic. And I love hearing about that in the classroom as the school teacher, and how fun how fun that is to have that happen. But equally, it's those students who are going to struggle because we know that there's a segment of the population that has been born with certain components, right, we're talking about dyslexia for one, and there may be other reasons to to struggle with reading. But making sure that opportunities are provided that they will get the additional support they need in order to have those moments they'll come, they'll probably come later, they'll take a lot more work or effort to be able to have those moments where that student says, Oh, I can read this. I can read those words. But maintaining that it's equally important to provide the support to make sure those students reach that place to and like I say, it's not going to happen maybe in those first few months like it does for another student, but making sure that they're always present in the classroom. They're always front of mind, just like the rest of the students are in the classroom to make sure they get to that stage, rather than falling further and further behind, where the rest of the class seems to be progressing forward and coming to love and enjoy. And they're coming further and further behind and having less and less to do with reading in

Lindsay Kemeny: 10:16

Yeah, it's a great point. And you know, the classroom. what's interesting is that boy who said that he does have dyslexia. And so I think he had this just such a great appreciation, because it was starting to make sense to him. Uh, ha, you know, and making sure to give him a text that he could be successful with. Stacy, did you have something?

Stacy Hurst: 10:39

I do, because I think every child deserves to experience that success, right. And one of the reasons I loved teaching first grade, and I've said this many times before, that's where my heart will always be any chance I get I work with first graders, because you see so many of those moments, it's a very pivotal year for reading instruction. And as I look back on my own teaching, I modeled the love of reading to my students a lot. I was reading the unabridged version of Les Mis one year, and I was talking to my students about it every day, of course, on a first grade level, we had a really healthy debate about whether John Bel John was right and stealing the bread or not really complex ideas, right. But I think there's a flip side to that. Because at the same time, the students who were like me as a child and reading came naturally. Luckily, my teaching was informed by science. So they were getting phonics instruction as well. However, what about the students that were feeling the same level of discouragement as the students who are feeling the same level of excitement over it because they were struggling. And I do think it's important for us to model that love of reading, and the fact that we can do it, but I also remember modeling for my students reading complex text words that I couldn't read, that were from a research study, and modeling that struggle. And maybe we need to focus on that, too, that everything's not easy. But if we persist and stick with it, of course, there's a great responsibility on us as teachers, because I think of Maryanne wolf to man, that woman has the heart of a poet, if you've ever heard her talk, she's so inspiring and energetic, she is fantastic, but she also has a deep understanding of the mechanisms involved in learning how to read. So marrying the two I mean, we can as educators only inspire to that right, or aspire. Um, but I think those things are important to not only model the joy of it, but also model the struggle, and coming down.

Lindsay Kemeny: 12:51

So I like that. So kind of pointing out, sometimes I struggle with this, or telling them, You know, sometimes I read a page and realize, Wait, I don't know what I just read, and I have to go back and read it again, right? Or pointing out that sometimes you struggle with the words as well. That's an interesting point.

Donell Pons: 13:10

You know, I love all of this is so good. I love listening to it. And I'm also thinking of I do a lot of repeat reading. And it doesn't matter how old the students are, and a variety of texts, but will read and they'll say, let's read that again. And see, I'm not sure I understood, what do we think that really meant, and go back and really linger on a sentence or two, and say, Oh, I think I've kind of changed what I thought the first time I'm thinking this now, what do you guys think, and really pondering over a text. And that's important too. And Stacy mentioned, the value of reading a text that they would not be able to read at that particular time, they don't have the skill for it, it's well above their skill level to be able to read, but being able to hear we call that the you know, that ear reading, and they can do a lot of ear reading that's well beyond their years. And I think that also helps for students who are struggling with reading period is to have opportunities to just hear language, to hear somebody else reading a text and what that sounds like. And I did a lot of that with my son, who struggled and struggled to read when he was younger, he has dyslexia. And he was exposed to so many texts that were well beyond his years. He was always in three books at a time. And that was our choice. And his he was always at a text that he could read, which was obviously well beyond typically his peers, and that he was in a text that was a bit of a reach. And so he was reading with someone. And then he was in a text that he was had no skills to be able to read that was well beyond his years and beyond his peers years, so that he can have opportunity and exposure to hear a text at a higher level. And I think all of those things really contributed to him to this day, not being afraid to tackle a text and even though it may be difficult, he he still wants to he has a desire to tackle a different text that is

Stacy Hurst: 14:49

so critical. I don't know Lindsay, if you're having memories of learning the Goldilocks approach to choosing a book that we taught our students and Mmm, I don't know if you did but like was so that they could identify this is too easy. This is too hard. This is just right. And even on a very general level, when they start out with a book in small group instruction or wherever it is that they deem too hard, just pointing out when it becomes too easy for them, right and celebrating that and really focusing on that trajectory that we all have. That was important to remember. Thanks for mentioning that.

Lindsay Kemeny: 15:28

Well, and I love Donell, is talking about these read alouds. And that is so important that we do that in our classroom. And even for older learners, I think they would love those read alouds. And that is building a positive experience. And really, we want to build these positive experiences as we're talking about surrounding text, and read alouds just can bring reading alive in the classroom. And that gets all your students excited about the story and excited about books. And we can, you know, use that time to do a wide variety of great literature, nonfiction, everything exposing our students to that is huge. And also like similar to you Donell, my son with dyslexia, loved read alouds. And we, you know, in fact, we pay for a Learning Ally every year, which I think you have to be diagnosed with dyslexia to get it, but it's all these human read audiobooks. And that really got him into reading because the first, you know, larger book that he read, he listened to it first. And he listened to the book, and then he actually read it. And so always be thankful for that. But read alouds where you know, everything that could be like a subscription service, but also you the teacher reading to them is so important.

Narrator: 16:52

Get all the resources discussed during Literacy Talks podcast episodes, and stay up to date about webinars and other special events from Reading Horizons, go to readinghorizons.com/literacytalks, and subscribe to our podcast digest. So you're always in the know about everything literacy.

Stacy Hurst: 17:15

You know, I was thinking about this in our overcorrecting episode. And one thing that I wish we would have had time to talk about, that I would hate to see, go by the wayside is something I learned from my balanced literacy instruction focused on comprehension is, especially when we're reading aloud, but it is teaching students to make connections with the text. And we used to call it text to text, text to self, and text to world. But I have never stopped doing that. Because I think there's so much power in relating that to their own egocentric lives that first write their first graders, what do we expect, and then helping them just make connections between other texts or meet forms of media, movies they've seen, maybe they read the book and seen the movie, but then also expanding their vision outside of themselves, and literally want to, I think it's, I don't know, I hesitate using the word magic. Because we understand what happens in the brain when kids learn how to read. And I feel like that's magical, in a sense. But it's also very magical, when students start making these connections to those texts on their own. And I'll never forget the day in my classroom that we were reading Sylvester and the magic pebble, is that what it's called magic stone. And literally, that was our read aloud the day after Elizabeth smart was found. And my students were making the most fantastic connections. If you haven't read the story, I won't take the time to review it, go back review it and think about that whole story if you're familiar with it, based on their world, right. So anyway, I think that that's something that's really important to always connect to their own lives.

Lindsay Kemeny: 18:56

Yeah. And to other texts in a way we can do that is like if we have author studies where we read several books by the same author, or by topics, it's great to pair a nonfiction text with a fiction text. So maybe in science, you're learning about frogs, and then you're gonna read frog and toad as a fiction, and that's great to kind of compare so yeah,

Stacy Hurst: 19:20

yeah, that's fun, Lindsay, because you're currently in that space. Do your students have a favorite author? Favorite?

Lindsay Kemeny: 19:26

Oh, they're obsessed with Pete the cat. Now I'm like, forgetting who the author is. I can't even tell you I need more Pete the Cat books, and I had like five and they're all like coming apart and ripped because they go to that and they're reading it constantly over and over. And David Shannon, he's like No, David and those ones. Those are their favorites right now. I'd seriously need to go purchase more because,

Stacy Hurst: 19:52

you know, speaking of being able to do the thing, right. I think that's one reason they love David Shannon because they can read no David Right. If they can recognize some of those words, my students loved Robert Munch. And most of us know him for I love you forever, which I still can't read aloud without crying. So there's that. But he also has a lot of really entertaining funny text too. And like you, Lindsey, I had the anthology and the pages were coming out. I bought so many of Robert munches books. But

Donell Pons: 20:23

so just to add to this conversation, one thing I'm hearing and it's really interesting and fun to kind of listen to you guys talking about those younger ages. But there's an author that Mary Ann wolf had mentioned when she was on a podcast recently. And it's Marilyn Robinson, and she's one of my favorite authors. She's fantastic. And she produces a book every, like 1013 years, she takes her time and Labor's over every word, it's just beautiful. One of her books is Gilead. It's a great book I highly recommend. But she also has written some essays on different topics. And one of them is reading is part of one of the topics. And in it, she says something very interesting that I think is really important it, we need to think about it for a minute exactly what she says. And I would linger over the words, if I were doing this with a class and reading it aloud and saying what do we think she's really saying with this, but in it, she talks about the the very act of reading, when someone takes picks up a text doesn't matter what it is, but that very act of taking up the text and spending your own time with it in your own way. very personal, very subjective, that act of interacting with information in that way, is something that everyone should have an opportunity to do, and should have an opportunity to do as much as they would like. And then have an opportunity to say this is what I think about it, and have it be their own opinion and be fine. So she said today, we've moved away from not only having those experiences, we may never have them a lot of people and go through their weeks and weeks, months and months, years and years and not have an experience. We know how often people don't pick up a book. So that's tragic. But then she said on top of that, we've moved kind of into an era where there are experts who tell us what we should be thinking about what we're reading. And we're in an era where there's more of that than ever. And she said, I'd really love to see us go back and revisit those important aspects of reading. And that is where what I say about what I read is really important. So hearing you talk about how your your students gravitate towards a certain text, and they love it so much they're wearing the book down. But they're also think about gaining an opinion about how they feel about that that's so important that they can take with them and other areas.

Lindsay Kemeny: 22:19

And it brings up because one of my centers that they're doing independently is reading, but they have the choice to read, or they can do audiobooks, right, because I don't want it to be a waste of time. But you know, I am happy if they want to flip through Pete the cat, and they're remembering the story and maybe just calling it out, and they're not actually reading the words. I am fine with that. Because they're, that's encouraging a love of reading, and I know that I am still going to be teaching them reading and they're gonna get lots and lots of reading practice from me. So this is not like our main reading time. But if they're gonna if they want to spend time browsing the pictures, you know, leafing through the pictures of a book, great, they're getting excited about that, and you know what, eventually they'll be able to read it. Lindsey, I love that

Stacy Hurst: 23:11

word, the choice right choice, I think that's another thing we can do for our students, give them a variety of texts, expose them to all kinds, let them choose, and then teach them what they need to know to read.

Donell Pons: 23:24

Lindsey it reminds me of a book I read many years ago by Daniel Canac, p e n n AC, I'm probably pronouncing that correctly, because he's French. But he was a French teacher. And the book is sold out many times over in different places around the world. And it's been translated, but it's called the rights of the reader. And he's got these rights that you have. And one of those is to be able to pick up a book and do whatever you want with it, if I want to read the first page, and that's all I should be able to set it down. And I love you giving your students that right the rights of the reader to approach the text how they want to approach it, love it.

Lindsay Kemeny: 23:56

And I used to you know, I've kind of grown with this too, because I used to when they were at that little center, and they're kind of close to me, because my reading group is there. So I have a group of students where we're practicing reading and, and the kids are at the carpet or the couch right there in our little reading nook. And I used to be really like, oh, quiet. I'm talking to your neighbor, you know, and and now I really loosened up because I will have two little kids and maybe one's going to read the to the other and and they're giggling and they look at looking at the pictures. And it's just like, I just feel like I've grown a little bit because I've realized, you know what, they're having a positive experience with the book. And that's what I want.

Stacy Hurst: 24:36

Yeah, you're bringing back some happy memories. For me, the student who was what in my classroom called the reader of the day. Part of their assignment was to share a book that they liked. It could be anything, but we had an author's chair that they use to share their writing. They should have added the word readers because they sat on that to talk about their favorite books, but I'm just having some great fun memories of, and it was all manner of books, right? It was, it was all kinds of books really cool. But that I think that's important that they're sharing about what they're reading right?

Lindsay Kemeny: 25:12

Book Talks, it's just another way, you know, you can let them talk about what they're reading, either at home or in the classroom, you can talk about what you're reading, I was taught back when we did like everyone's silent reading at the same time, and that the teacher should be reading, then to model it. And I don't think that's true anymore. Because it's kind of a waste of time, like you could be out helping. And second of all, they could I can talk about what I'm reading at home, I don't have to read in front of them to model that I love reading,

Donell Pons: 25:44

I was just thinking of my older students, and many of these same approaches that you're talking about, that you're using in the classrooms, I use, in many ways, with older students as well. And so remember, Lindsay, you said at the beginning about sometimes for especially older readers who have struggled for many, many years, you're removing trauma. So we're not just thinking about, Oh, a love of books or an enjoyment enrichment? It's really how can I remove the barriers and some of the really bad experiences you've had with books to make them even approachable for you, because for a lot of students, that's they look at books, and they break out in a cold sweat, you know, you say library and the stomach sinks, you know, you want to go to a bookstore and they say, I'll meet you in an hour, you tell me when you're done. These are the experiences that they've had with the written word, and particularly places where that's all there is. And so you're trying to remove as much as you possibly can. So not only you're, you're teaching them the skills they never receive, so they can actually approach a text in a way they never have before, because they have the skills finally for the first time and the support. But then it's also finding a bunch of material that they will find interesting. So some of it may be above and we discuss it. And we talk about why this text looks the way that it does. But often too, I searched desperately to find texts that somebody has worked with, so that they can bring it to a level that the student can approach it. But it's still a subject that maybe the student would find very interesting, or it's a book I know a student was never able to read, because it didn't have the skills. So say it was 12 Years a Slave. That might have been a very interesting book when they were in high school or college, but they never read it couldn't touch it, because they just didn't have the skills. And then I have a copy that's more approachable. I got a copy. And I'll say, What do you think? Do you want to want to look at this text? They'll say, gosh, it was really, when I was in school, I really thought that looked interesting in the class seem to be having good discussions about it. I was never able to read any of it. Yeah, I think I'd really like to talk about that, if you think I could. Absolutely. And so it's also bringing in going back going through texts that you know, they probably had in a classroom. But you know, they didn't have the skills to read and sing if they want to approach that text. And I've seen students just light up, they're older. I mean, these are students who are our past going to college, it doesn't really matter at this point, whether it's going to be for a class or not. But it's just because they know that other people have been able to read that and have an experience with it. I'd like that opportunity as well.

Lindsay Kemeny: 27:59

I love that. Donell, it's so important. And that was one thing I wanted to ask, because to get more into that, how do we help them heal? How do we help them with this, this trauma, and I love the idea of kind of going back and helping them access those texts. Right?

Donell Pons: 28:15

You know, and Lindsay, another important thing to my students have taught me a lot of things my students teach me a lot about reading those who have struggled. And one thing that we've we have kind of devised and developed over time is my we have a way of talking about reading where the student gets to tell me what they're experiencing with reading and what they need. And finding those words and finding the strength to be able to say that to somebody else to say, hey, look, this text isn't working for me, because and then having the right words to say why it isn't working. But I would I'd like to learn this information. Is there another way we can do this. And the more we have those conversations, they'll come back to a tutoring session and tell me about a work as an experience at work and experience where they had to go down to a city building, and they wanted them to read a document before they feel something out. I mean, it can be so many ways in which they encounter print. And they'll come back and talk about how those words were so powerful because they were able to use them when they were out and about to talk about, hey, this isn't working for me. Is there another way that we could do this so that I can participate in this? It's really interesting that right, so the reader, right? Yeah.

Lindsay Kemeny: 29:18

Stacey, did you have something?

Stacy Hurst: 29:20

No, I'm just enjoying the conversation.

Lindsay Kemeny: 29:24

So is there anything you think that we might do that would hinder or you know, destroy, with love for eating?

Donell Pons: 29:34

Oh, yes, I can think of many. And, you know, here's the thing, if any of this strikes close to home, remember we've all done things we wish we hadn't have done right? So just remember that whenever anything's being called out, but I think it's anytime a student picks up a book and they're struggling through that first page, whether they're making a lot of errors or they just have no interest, giving the student the right to say let's choose something else and not saying to them Nope, you have to, I mean, a really good reader perseveres, right? No, let's see, if we can't find some other way of approaching, I think my door is much more wide open. And I thought I had a door that was wide open before, but my students have taught me my door could be much more open than it is, and has been. And so I think that's one is, is allowing students to say, Can I can I choose something else? Because there's so much we can find something?

Lindsay Kemeny: 30:23

Well, and that's kind of mine, too, that it's about that choice, because I talked about this in our pet peeves episode, I think it's in season one. So if you guys want to go back, that tells the whole story. But you know, when we tell students, you have to read this level, and and I think we need to open that up, because, you know, maybe they want to read something easier. And I shared experience with that, and that's fine. That's their interest, maybe they want to read something harder. And, you know, they can do that with support. And maybe someone's going to be supporting them with that, or maybe they have a lot of background knowledge on that topic. And so they'll be able to read that text a little better. So that's just, that's kind of my pet peeve. And something that I think can hinder if we tell our students No, you can only read from these books. You know, the other thing I was thinking about, hindered my I still love to read, so it didn't totally hinder it. But I just remember in like, high school, or junior high, these extensive book logs that I had to do, you have to like, stop the reading to fill out this whole thing and a thought and all this. And I just hated that. I'm like, I just want to read the book,

Donell Pons: 31:33

you're not alone of the book logs and think about it is you can really love reading and not love the book log. So imagine what it's like if reading is difficult. And you've got to do the book lock, right. So just on so many levels, thinking about is that really and then what does that really telling me? And how is that really helping my student right to really think that through for a little bit.

Lindsay Kemeny: 31:51

You know, my son, he has dyslexia, he's in seventh grade, and we went to go, I had to go change this sheets the other day to wash them. And we he helped me get everything out of his bed. And there was like a stack of like 20 books, we piled them up and took a picture because he just read leaves him on his bed. And I just thought, I love this. I love that he loves to read. And that's, you know, pretty unique for someone with severe dyslexia. But we have so many like positive experiences me reading to him, and then him reading to me, we always snuggle up on the couch and read. And I just love that. So I just think, you know, yes, we absolutely are, our main focus should be teaching these students to read. And that's going to help lead to love of reading. But we can also do some other things to encourage the love of reading. And I think kind of our consensus that we've been talking about is having those positive moments, those meaningful experiences with text. So thank you guys so much for this conversation.

Stacy Hurst: 32:54

Yeah, it's been a great conversation. And in closing, I would just add not to blame the student too think sometimes we do that if their love of reading doesn't match ours, we're really just facilitating that. And I'm thinking about things like that are good for us. There are some things that are good for me that I don't like, like okra is okra even good for you. I guess it depends on how you make it. But yeah, that's good for you. Right, let's have vitamins, just encouraging how reading can benefit our lives I think is helpful too. And then stay I really appreciated the question of what do we need to be careful of so we're not facilitating that love. And I think you guys had great responses to that. So what a fun episode. Thank you guys for the conversation. And thank you all for joining us and we will see you next time on the next episode of Literacy Talks.

Narrator: 33:49

Thanks for listening to literacy talks, the podcast series for literacy leaders and champions everywhere. Literacy talks comes to you and your colleagues from Reading Horizons. We're reading momentum begins. Visit reading horizons.com/literacy talks often for resources, ideas and great literacy learning conversations. Subscribe to Our Podcast digest and you'll always be up to date on all things literacy. See you next time.