"There's something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell which way is up.  When he resurfaces, he's likely to have a condition called the bends, where the body can't adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere.  All this happens to me when I resurface from a book."   -   Nora Ephron

How can we help the young people in our lives become skilled, committed, critical, passionate readers?  The word "reader" is not only one of the most important ways we want children to identify with themselves, but each one of the other words in that previous sentence is important in its own right.  We need to be skilled readers because our world demands so much of our minds to attend to so many things-all at the same time.  We need to be committed because not all challenges we face will be solved with one, clean solution.  Life at times may take deep reading and complex thinking to address it.  We need to be critical readers because we can no longer rely on most of our current information sources to have our best interest at heart. They so often do not provide us with the relevant information needed to make an informed decision.  And, we must be passionate readers in order for us to see the world of books as pathways to success, a higher quality of life, and most of all-- freedom!

The questions then becomes: How do we pass this legacy down to our children who will grow up-- or who are currently growing up in a world where reading is becoming more and more a task to be completed in order to get to the "important" or "fun" stuff instead of it being an important and fun experience itself?  How do we teach the "iGeneration" where multitasking and hopping from link to link is the norm?  Forty-three percent of students who enter two-year public colleges and twenty-nine percent entering four-year public colleges land in remedial reading, math and writing classes after taking the college placement test.  Tragically these "pre" college courses are no-credit classes, but students still are financially responsible until at least spring of their freshman year.  Only two percent of those students are found to graduate with a degree when tracked through the community college system (Strong American Schools, 2008; U.S. Department of Education, 2003).

As parents, grandparents, teachers, neighbors, "play aunties" and "play uncles" we can help in a number of ways.  Here are just a few:

• Subscribe to a daily paper - The internet is fine, but nothing turns like the pages of your local Sunday paper over breakfast!  When children see YOU read, they are more likely to pick up the habit.
• Encourage comic-strip reading - Nothing was better than to crawl up underneath my grandmother when she read the Sunday paper after church and Sunday dinner.  She would always slip me the kiddie-comics where I read Family Circus and Archie while she read Dick Tracy and Apt. 3G.
• Play word games with the family! - From Scrabble (Scrabble Jr.) to Boggle (Boggle Jr.) to the pen-and-paper classic Hangman.  There are soooooo many more on-line.
• Have your children receive their OWN magazines or book-of-the-month selections - (Stuart Brent has a terrific children's book club where you can enroll a child or multiple children to receive a book monthly, quarterly or on their birthday based on their interests. www.stuartbrent.com )
• READ TO YOUR CHILDERN! - no need to explain this no-brainer!
• Finally, listen to young people so you can keep up with what is going on with their lives---in kindergarten or in high school.  That way, you can read books together based on common interests or common challenges.  It is also a great space for you to recommend books to them that you found important during a certain stage of life.

The gift of life-long reading is so wonderful to give, but is one of the hardest things to do.  That is why we ALL have a calling to work at it from all angles with every young person we encounter.  Whenever you engage with a child, whether it be a conversation, a trip to the mall or a family vacation, there will always be an opportunity to say...."You know, I just read something about that!  You should read it too!"

I hope to catch you reading.....