Love of Reading… and my fear…

My friend and fellow edublogger Angela Maiers wrote a post today that really hit home with me.  In her post, Reading WITHOUT Meaning – Heartbreak at Home, she described a scenario of watching her son “get through” his weekly reading assignment, after which he tells her:

“Mom, I hate reading. I did not want to tell you that, ’cause I know that it’s your job and reading is a big deal to you, but I really really hate it. I dream of the day when I will never have to do reading again. If I was on a dessert island, I would rather die of starvation, than read a book. And, if you think I am weird or something, you gotta know, all my friends feel exactly the same way.”

My beautiful 15 month old twins are voracious “readers” right now.  They LOVE their books and will spend a great deal of time every day “reading” as many of their books as they can.  Not only do they love to crawl into my lap with a book and demand that I read it to them, they also sit by themselves, flipping pages, and babbling as they stop on each page.  They point to the pictures and tell me the story in their own words.  Of course they aren’t reading the words on the page — but they get the concept and most importantly, they LOVE the concept of reading a book.

My biggest fear is that someday, somewhere, some teacher will destroy their love of reading by giving them “reading assignments” that make reading feel more like a chore rather than a pleasurable activity.