Reading on the upswing.

This is good news: Teens buying books at fastest rate in decades.

When I was teaching (Earth Science, Environmental Science, Computers, and more over 32 years), I and fellow teachers would do anything we could to encourage kids to pick up a book and read just for the fun of it. It didn’t matter much what they read just as long as they opened a book or magazine and read. It was our hope that by doing so they would improve their vocabulary and learn how to put words into sentences by osmosis.

My own two kids were readers from around age 5. (Before that it was always climb up on the lap and “Read this to me, please.”) The Electric Company, Reading Rainbow and the Sesame Street of the 80’s had a lot to do with teaching them their ABCs. Their mom and I worked at teaching them to read and, through example, encouraged them to make it a habit. Their nightstands always had one or more book perched upon it and their light wouldn’t go off until they had read a chapter or two. On more than one occasion, my daughter’s light never went out and we found her in the morning with a book lying open over her face or chest. We took them to the public library and got them cards as early in their development as possible. We also dropped a fortune at the many bookstores we frequented. It seems to have worked. The kids are now in their mid-20s, are bright, witty and well rounded. Both have done quite well in college and have learned a myriad of subjects from crafts to history.

The old saying was, “Reading is fundamental.” And it still is.