>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington DC.
>> Nancie Atwell: By now
educators have a lot of research
that shows us the benefits
of voluminous self-selected
book reading.
What we know is that independent
readers score the highest
on standardized tests
of reading ability.
Kids who read extensively
for pleasure develop
larger vocabularies,
they write more effectively,
they spell more accurately,
they perform better
in math and science.
They demonstrate
greater knowledge
of history and geography.
It also turns that children's
pleasure reading is important
not just for educational
attainment
but also for social mobility.
A recent study shows that
a childhood that's rich
with self-selected books can
help even our most challenged
kids increase cognitive
development
and overcome social
inequalities.
As adults, book readers vote
more often, we volunteer more,
we demonstrate greater empathy.
Yale tells us we
even live longer.
Yet independent book reading
is a low priority activity
in U.S. classrooms.
Most of the good work
that people have
described today working
with children is
happening through tutorials.
In our classrooms
especially in the U.S.,
commercial reading programs
have a stranglehold.
At the secondary level kids
are reading whole class novels
or textbooks.
And these activities are
squeezing independent reading
out of the school day.
When kids are allowed to choose
their own books teachers attach
conditions that strip
meaningful pleasurable reading
of meaning and pleasure.
Quizzes, book reports, projects,
endless dioramas, collages,
character dress up days,
assignments to write a new
chapter or summarize the book
in 10 words, or four
emojis, or a meme.
The Center for Teaching
and Learning is a K
to 8 demonstration school.
Our role is to innovate and then
to pass along best practices.
Our faculty has learned
to trust in two things --
the power of stories and
the power of kid's humanity.
Since 1990 we've been working
to demystify the process
of learning to read
with an approach we call
reading workshop.
In reading workshop kids
choose their own books.
They read everyday at
school and at home.
And they soar as readers in
terms of accuracy, stamina,
habits, and a love
of literature.
The annual average for our 5th
through 8th graders
is at least 40 books.
In the primary grades
where picture books rule,
kids read hundreds
of titles every year.
Our kids recommend the best
of the best of those stories
on our school website.
Lots and lots of teachers,
three or four thousand visits
a week look at that website
to find out what to do to enrich
their classroom libraries.
The reading workshop
teachers at our school invite
and sustain book reading
by making book reading
the central activity
of the reading curriculum.
Supported by appropriate
research based instruction.
That means there's time everyday
in school for kids to curl
up with great stories they
chose and to confer quietly
with their teachers about
what and how they're reading.
The teachers curate big
updated classroom libraries
of compelling books.
They and their students
recommend titles to one another
in book talks to the class
and they establish special
bookshelves in their classrooms
where kids can display
their favorite titles.
Teachers give kids ways to keep
track of the books they've read
but also the books they
might want to read some day.
And they conduct brief pertinent
lessons to the whole group
about authors and
illustrators, about genres,
about literary elements,
about the strategies
that good readers use.
Our school provides colorful
handmade book bags to every kid
so they can more easily
fulfill our baseline K
to 8 homework assignment and
that's to read or to be read
to for at least a half
an hour every night.
We send home a newsletter to
parents about how they can help
and each June we
send our kids home
with supermarket
carrier bags stuffed
with books they've borrowed
because we know that many
of our kids live in
virtual book deserts.
Because of the phenomenon,
also known as summer slide,
when kids who don't read
in the summer lose as much
as three months of
measured reading ability.
Again, our job at CTL is to
teach children and teachers.
The faculty writes books.
Scholastic has generously
given a free copy
to all of you here today.
It's in the materials room.
This is our latest,
"The Reading Zone".
It's the place our
kids say they go
when they're lost
in a good book.
We invite other teachers
into our classrooms.
We give speeches
and presentations.
All of this to promote the power
of authentic reading in school.
Book reading -- book
reading makes readers.
Literacy blooms in
a reading workshop
because kids have easy access
to books they want to read,
time to get lost in them,
and also opportunities
to discover what reading
is good for here and now
and in their literate
lives to come.
CTL is grateful to the Library
of Congress and David Rubenstein
for this acknowledgement.
In anticipation of the award,
I know my colleagues
are busily thinking
which books they want order next
for their classroom libraries.
Classroom libraries
bring the world
to our rural Maine students.
They make them smart
about everything.
When they grow up and
leave Maine, they recognize
and embrace the wide world
they encounter out there
because they all
ready know the world.
It's already lodged in the
chambers of their imagination
because of all of
those thousands
of lines of black print.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.