Promote Reading - Break the TV

I love TV. Okay, actually that’s not true. I don’t particularly care for TV. The last two network shows I actually watched with regularity were Moonlighting and Quantum Leap, so I guess you couldn’t really call me any network’s targeted ideal viewer.

But I do love the screen, big and small, and with the advent of VCR’s followed by DVD’s followed by DVR’s, for many a year I have loved my television set. I am a huge movie buff, old and new, and many hours have been spent sitting in front of my tube, being swept away by a great story.

But I love books more. Books allow me to use my creativity to fill in the spaces the author leaves me, to make the stories more personal to me, to let me imagine what a character looks like or feels based on my own personal biases, to get lost in a compelling plot or lyrical prose. Books are, I think, the most personal form of storytelling available.

In this world of 1400+ cable stations, not to mention internet TV viewing and myriad other choices, so many people today take the time to enjoy the simple pleasure of reading. The Washington Post says 1 in 4 American’s didn’t even pick up a book last year.

If you or your family falls into that category, what is one to do?

Break the TV.

Yes, that’s what I said. And it will work.

Don’t believe me?

A few weeks ago, I ran into a 30 year old man I hadn’t seen in quite some time, a good family friend. When he asked what I’d been up to, I told him I’d been writing. He became very animated, telling me how recently he’d began reading again (after more than 10 years of not even sniffing at a book) and then launched into praise for a particular Sci-Fi series he was halfway through. Meaty, 800+ page books for a man I know spends more time in the bar than in the library, and yet here he was (at a bar, yes. What? I can go out now and again, can’t I?) animatedly extolling the virtues of reading.

When I asked him what had started this journey back to books, do you know what he told me?

“Well, my girlfriend left me and she took the TV. I couldn’t afford a new one, so I had to find something else to do.”

So simple. But let’s see another case.

I recently learned that getting rid of the television works on 2 year old boys, too. In our house, I must admit that I’d fallen into the “but it’s educational!” trap, and my toddler was getting a little too much “pre-school on TV”. I really began to feel that if it went on, his imagination development and creativity would suffer. So I put the TV “night night”.

It was hard, at first (although it did produce one very cute moment when I came into the room to see The Boy standing in front of the closed TV cabinet, begging the television to “Get up, TV! Get up!”)

But yesterday, I walked into the bedroom, and there was The Boy, reading aloud (as much as a two year old can) one of his Dr. Seuss books on the floor, his little face alight as he turned the pages…a far cry from the Zombie stare that so accompanied the television watching.

So there you go…it may not be scientific evidence, but it’s true all the same. Break it, take it, or put it “night night”, the best way to promote reading, in my estimation, is to say bye-bye to the TV.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about TV time in your life and family…

Doing My Part to Promote Literacy

My son is two. Since before he was born, I’ve been reading brainy baby books, trying to figure out how I am going to instill a love of reading and learning in his darling little mind. From the day I brought him home from the hospital, I read and read to him. I made him look at books when his little attention span could be measured in microseconds. I dragged him to the library for Mother Goose storytime when all he wanted to do was run around and yank books off of the shelves yelling “Yah!!!” like a Backyardigan Viking. I strapped him in his high chair and made him turn pages, naming what he saw, for ten minutes at a time. I followed the advice of Moose A. Moose on Noggin who says , “Read with your child for 20 minutes a day and promote a lifetime love of reading.” Yet he couldn't be bothered. I despaired that I was a writer raising the little boy who hated books.

So, much to my delight and joy, the boy has finally turned the corner. Books have become his new favorite past time. We read and read and read all day long, over and over and over again. I can recite the lines of Dr. Suess’s “The Foot Book” and Sandra Boyton’s “Moo, Baa La La La” and “But Not the Hippopotamus,” just to name a couple. Yay, Mom! I should be thrilled…

But have you ever tried to read Dr. Suess twenty times before your child goes to bed, get that rhythm and rhyme into your head and then try to write a sex scene?

He likes to do it on a train
He likes to do it in the rain
He likes to do it in a boat
He likes to do it with a goat?

Oh no, it’s not pretty…

:)