I was in the second grade when my habits of reading were shaped. The program was called \u201cBook-It\u201d and the method was designed around repetition and quantity. \u00a0The idea was that competition was the ideal lever to pull in order to generate children who were fond of reading. \u00a0That, if we learned to read, with expediency, every word of every page, with rewards lingering in the immediate future, we\u2019d become savvy readers and more thoughtful students. \u00a0The number of pages and books read were publicly tracked and those who read the most were rewarded generously with the applause of teachers, the admiration of peers, and access to free individual pizzas at the local pizza place. Ever a competitive individual, I won the \u201cPost-Gold\u201d award as the top reader in my grade level and was acknowledged and celebrated in front of the entire school at year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
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While the accolades were momentarily meaningful, three reading habits were formed that took years to undo. First, quantity reading trumped quality reading, leaving me as one who could consume a book quickly but could not offer thoughtful reflection on what I had just read. \u00a0Second, in order to win the competition, I learned to select accessible, entertaining literature rather than books that would challenge my reading ability and mature my thinking. Third, because the books that I consumed as a youngster were library books and because \u201cone never writes in these books!\u201d I learned to accept the details of the story or, later, the arguments of the author, at face value rather than to disagree or contrast it with other thoughts. In the hours spent learning to read, I had become savvy at elementary reading but had never cultivated the practice of, as Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren identify in How to Read a Book: The Ultimate Guide<\/em>, analytical reading.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until one fateful Saturday when I showed up as a Junior in High School to a testing sight with my two, yellow, well-sharpened, #2 pencils that I discovered my deficit in reading for meaning. \u00a0The ACT test was being administered and I thought that I had done everything necessary in order to prepare for success. \u00a0I had honed my arithmetic and science knowledge. \u00a0I had dusted off my bullet points on US American history. \u00a0My creative writing was on point. \u00a0I had gotten a good night\u2019s sleep and had consumed a nutritious breakfast. \u00a0I entered the room knowing what score I needed in order to make myself competitive for the University of my dreams and blew through the math, science, and writing sections with surprising ease.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My morning came to a standstill on the reading retention section. \u00a0I was on the clock, expected to read and analyze fairly complex pieces of literature of various genres, and then reflect on what I had just read in essay form. \u00a0I attacked the literature with elementary reading techniques as I had in second grade, mindlessly consuming the words and sentences with nary a circled word nor underlined phrase on the document. Done with the reading, I turned my attention to the essay questions and was stunned to an abrupt halt by my inability to offer any quality reflections. I was in trouble and time was running out. \u00a0The final thirty minutes of the ACT exposed my deficit.\u00a0 It was a terrifying moment that launched me into the journey of analytical reading.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dr. Black, my Freshmen English professor was the first to introduce me to How to Read a Book<\/em>. With this resource in hand, she taught me about genre and why it matters, schooled me in the art of annotation and building accurate summaries, invited me to interact with the author and her\/his main arguments, and exposed me to literature that, far from the leisure reading of my upbringing, forced me to reflect, respond, synthesize, and disagree. \u00a0Pulling from Adler & Van Doren’s principals, she demonstrated and then pushed me to prove to myself that his method for reading was not only efficient (I was healed of the need to read every word of a book) but effective in mining and engaging in conversation, if not arguing with, the very best of an author’s arguments. \u00a0By year\u2019s end, quality reading had replaced quantity reading as the new rule. \u00a0However, with the onset of the internet, the challenge became searching for quality in the quickly over-saturating milieu of the world-wide web.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was just when I was learning to admire thoughtfulness and critical thinking for the first time, that the onset of blogging and, in the years to come, with the inception of social media, un-researched, opinionated sound bites laden with strong emotion created a new norm for \u201cdiscourse.” It is no longer the thoughtful, deeply researched, and grounded idea that sets the pace, but the quick and eloquent provocative, often divisive phrase or sentence. A competitive war that is oversaturated with click-bait has replaced an invitation into true, thoughtful reading and discourse and seems to be the new industry standard for writing and, sadly, for reading, too. \u00a0Thoughtful writing and reading is still essential, however, it seems not inadequate in keeping pace with the fisty-cuffs and childish banter of dangerously thin sound bites.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n