Teach Secondary - Issue 13.2

47 teachwire.net/secondary Through the READING GLASS T o hear some people talk, it’s as though they think there should be a red panic button in every English classroom. ‘ This child doesn’t read, ’ it would say. Pressing it would scramble a squad of Kevlar-clad teacher-interventionists, who would abseil into the classroom, extract the child in question and whisk them by Chinook to a purpose-built facility. Said child would then return to their learning – a mere day or two later, so efficient would this program be – fully reformed and eager. All would be assured of their future success, having now become that most exquisite of things – someone who reads for pleasure . Reflectivemirrors Research has repeatedly shown that reading for pleasure is a leading indicator of future success, with those who regularly read outside of school performing better on almost every testable parameter there is. It’s such a boon that Ofsted now looks for evidence of reading for pleasure in schools, thus prompting schools to try and provide precisely that. Yet last autumn saw the National Literacy Trust report its lowest ever numbers for levels of reading enjoyment among young people, with boys and students receiving FSM faring worst. Things seem bleak. Maybe those panic buttons need to be bigger. Or maybe it’s all those interventions that are actually the problem... In an oft-quoted essay dating from 1990, US school librarian Rudine Sims Bishop describes the pleasures of reading (see bit. ly/ts132-rfp1). Books, she says, can be windows onto unfamiliar worlds, or sliding doors we can walk through. They can also be mirrors, reflecting versions of ourselves back at us “as part of the larger human experience’. To succeed, young people need to feel that they’re valued – and what better way to feel that value than to see yourself reflected as a vital force, in a complete world held between the covers of a book? This is the importance of reading; it instils and cements our place in the world, while allowing us to explore and empathise with the places of others. Toomanynoses The problem, however, is that the glass is fragile. When too many noses are pressed against a window, the smears obscure the view. If you keep pushing against a mirror, it will crack. Since the publication of my first novel for young people in 2021, I’ve had the privilege to visit many schools up and down the country – and contrary to apparent trends, loads of young people want to talk to me about books. It helps that I’m an unfamiliar face. The students I visit want to talk to me more than those I teach, but it’s always the students who tell me, ‘ I don’t usually read books, but… ’ that are my favourite to talk to. Showthemthe horizon I write about characters who rarely do the right thing. In my novel Grow , Josh is a ‘good kid’ groomed into far-right extremism following the tragic death of a parent. Play follows four young men pushing at the boundaries of their masculinity, breaking things to see how they work. Back when I was a schoolboy, I’d respond to anything teachers and parents claimed was ‘good for me’ with antipathy. Reading for pleasure isn’t an ‘additional learning experience’, nor an ‘investment in the future’. It’s certainly not something that should smell like work. It’s something complete, in and of itself. The NLT report says that ‘supportive environments’ can encourage young people’s reading habits. We must, of course, equip young people with the tools to decode texts at every opportunity – but ‘supportive’ cuts both ways. If we really want to promote reading for pleasure in schools, then we need only show them the wide horizon of glass skyscrapers that are out there. After that, if we really feel that we must accompany them, then we should allow ourselves to be led to the windows that young people choose for themselves. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Luke Palmer is an author, poet and English teacher; his latest YA novel , Play , is available now (£8.99, Firefly Press) C OMM E N T If your students are unable to see books as alluring windows into amazing worlds, it may be that someone or something is blocking their view, writes Luke Palmer ...