Once We Hook a Reader, Can it Last?

I took my sixth graders to our school library to browse for books for independent reading. They know the expectation is to have a new book ready before they finish their current choice so that we keep up the habit and continue to build reading stamina. And besides are Readers ever without their next books?

As they beelined for the graphic novel section and scrambled to the librarian's desk to request new books in their beloved series, I took a look around.

It just so happened that when we dropped into the LMC today, the sophomore class was browsing for books for their independent book project. I had been their middle school reading teacher and their reading lists and accomplishments came back to me as sure as their faces and names.

Scary.

But then it hit me. They weren't browsing as Readers. They were browsing because they had to for class. Many of them were guffawing and chuckling over their chosen books being "short enough" or something they "already read"...in middle school!

I remarked to two gentleman as they ducked out the door that The Last Apprentice series was extremely popular with this year's sixth graders. It didn't phase them.

So...what do I gather from this chance glimpse into my former students' present reading lives?

1. I must have failed in my mission to help them become lifelong Readers.


2. It's still not cool to be a Reader in our school--the social climate, at least in the high school, doesn't support this.


3. Nancie Atwell's confession about her reaction to the observable decline in reading from middle school to high school in her former students was spot-on as she shared in The Reading Zone (Scholastic, 2007):
   

Now, when I run into them, I've learned not to ask, "So, what are you reading?" Not the girl who read 124 books during eighth grade. Not the boy who read every dystopian science-fiction novel I could lay hands on, from The House of the Scorpion and After, to Brave New World, A Clockwork Orange, 1984, and The Handmaid's Tale. Not his friend who enrolled in CTL at age twelve, never having chosen or read a novel on his own, who graduated with sixty-four titles he loved under his belt. I don't ask them because most of the time I already know the answer, and it kills me: "Nothing..." (106-107)

Just because I can get them reading and thinking of themselves as Readers between the ages of 11 and 14 there's no insurance this will stick. I must confess that my reading teacher heart is a little broken about this.

If reading ability, and I would argue interest, is one of the number one predictors of academic success, what should we do about this trend in reading decline that hits once students walk through our high school doors?

Should this even be on my list of things to worry about?

Can somebody out there (maybe) confirm that sometimes reading lives just go on hiatus during the high school years, only to return in robust form at some future point in peoples' lives?

I know it's wishful thinking, but for this girl, contemplating periods in one's life without great books makes me begin to wheeze, break out in hives, and want to climb the walls.

What makes Readers and non-readers so different?