Reading KeyNote

Everything you ever wanted
to know about
Reading*
*actually, possibly more than you wanted to know, although you will be blown away by
the information, including way too many awesome quotations about reading from some
VERY interesting and probably surprising sources
by Helen Turnbull, Balboa High School, San Francisco, California
Dedicated to the beautiful brains of my students,
who make my day every single day.

What do you think about READING?
Is it something you like to do?
Or is it something you try to avoid?

Ever wonder why people (especially your
teachers and parents) think reading is such a
BIG DEAL?
The truth is, ever since people have
been able to write, some of the most
brilliant and accomplished people from
all times and walks of life have been
celebrating the value of reading...

“A book is like a garden
carried in the pocket.”
--Chinese proverb

“Once you learn to read,
you will be forever free.”
--Frederick Douglass

“Once I got my library card, that was
when my life began.”
--Rita Mae Brown

“Never trust anyone who has not
brought a book with them.”
--Lemony Snicket

“It is not true that 'we have only one life to live'; if we
can read, we can live as many more lives and as
many kinds of lives as we wish.”
--S.I. Hayakawa

“I learned to dream through reading, learned to
create dreams through writing, and learned to
develop dreamers through teaching. I shall always
be a dreamer.”
--Sharon Draper

“Books are lighthouses erected in the
great sea of time.”
--E.P. Whipple

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to
read. One does not love breathing.”
--Harper Lee

“Books are the bees which carry the
quickening pollen from one to another mind.”
--James Russell Lowell

“And when I read, and really I
do not read so much, only a
few authors, - a few men that I
discovered by accident - I do
this because they look at
things in a broader, milder and
more affectionate way than I
do, and because they know life
better, so that I can learn from
them.”
--Vincent Van Gogh

“I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack
of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the
supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out
before the small hours.”
--Dorothy Parker

“If you have never said "Excuse me" to
a parking meter or bashed your shins
on a fireplug, you are probably wasting
too much valuable reading time.”
--Sherri Chasin Calvo
Ouch!!!

“To learn to read is to light a fire;
every syllable that is spelled out is a
spark.”
--Victor Hugo

“I think that when you read
about other people’s
suffering and they have
wound words around their
wounds like a bandage
that it can be healing, both
to the writer and the
reader. It’s like going to a
word hospital.”
--Margaret Cho

“When I get a little money, I buy books. If
any is left, I buy food and clothes.”
— Erasmus

“Through literacy you can begin to see the
universe. Through music you can reach
anybody. Between the two there is you,
unstoppable.”
— Grace Slick

“One glance at a book and you hear the
voice of another person, perhaps someone
dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage
through time.”
--Carl Sagan

“Reading is a discount ticket to
everywhere.”
--Mary Schmich

“You have to remember that it is
impossible to commit a crime while
reading a book.”
--John Waters

“Books, for me, are a home. Books don't make a
home - they are one, in the sense that just as you do
with a door, you open a book, and you go inside.
Inside there is a different kind of time and space.
There is warmth there too - a hearth. I sit down with
a book and I am warm.”
--Jeanette Winterson

“Man reading should be man
intensely alive. The book should be
a ball of light in one’s hand.”
--Ezra Pound

“No one who loves life can ignore
literature, and no one who loves
literature can ignore life.”
--Laura Esquivel

“Always read something that will
make you look good if you die in the
middle of it.”
--P.J. O’Rourke

“Life-transforming ideas have always
come to me through books.”
--bell hooks

“Some books are to be tasted, others to
be swallowed, and others to be chewed
and digested: that is, some books are to
be read only in parts, others to be read,
but not curiously, and some few to be
read wholly, and with diligence and
attention.”
--Sir Francis Bacon

“As a child, I read because books–violent and not,
blasphemous and not, terrifying and not–were the most loving
and trustworthy things in my life. I read widely, and loved
plenty of the classics so, yes, I recognized the domestic terrors
faced by Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters. But I became the
kid chased by werewolves, vampires, and evil clowns in
Stephen King’s books. I read books about monsters and
monstrous things, often written with monstrous language,
because they taught me how to battle the real monsters in my
life.
And now I write books for teenagers because I vividly
remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and
epic dangers. I don’t write to protect them. It’s far too late for
that. I write to give them weapons–in the form of words and
ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood
because I remember what it felt like to bleed.”
--Sherman Alexie

“It is nice that nobody
writes as they talk and
that the printed language
is different than the
spoken otherwise you
could not lose yourself in
books and of course you
do you completely do.”
--Gertrude Stein

“Outside of a dog, a book is
probably man’s best friend. Inside
of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
--Groucho Marx

NYF, though!
Maybe you didn’t have the right support at the right time. Maybe you haven’t
found the right books yet! We can fix that! And maybe you’re spending a lot
of time reading and writing online?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gokm9RUr4ME
Anyway, blame and shame don’t help anyone
become a better reader. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t
made reading a voluntary habit yet--lots of kids your age
haven’t, and getting reading assignments in class
doesn’t always encourage you, either. Check out the
video through the link below to learn about how common
it is for kids to “fake read” in high school English class.

What’s so SPECIAL about
READING?!
•Why do we do it?
•How do we do it?
•How do we get better at it?
SO
•Why should I care?

Why do people read?
There are as many answers to that
question as there are readers, but
here’s the short list:
•We read to learn--
•We read for enjoyment--
It’s really as simple as that. And if we’re lucky,
the two purposes converge!
To find out what scientists and historians have learned, how to do
things we want to do, to learn about the art, language, and cultures of
other people, and to understand the world we live in, etc., etc.
To laugh, to cry, to escape, to connect, to get inspiration, to find
comfort, to find more things to love about the world, or just to
appreciate a powerful or beautiful piece of writing, etc., etc.

How do people read?
Scientists in the field of language and literacy
learning have been finding out more and more
about how reading takes place in the brain, and
it’s really amazing what happens. Here are
some fascinating findings:
We are not born to read.
We were born to run, born to recognize
faces, and born to speak, but reading must
be learned. The brain has to recycle the
neuronal structures for language and visual
recognition to read.
Fascinating Finding #1:

Different types of written languages use
different parts of the brain for reading.
If you write with an alphabet (a
system where symbols stand for
sounds), your brain reads
differently than if you write with
characters (a system where
symbols stand for words).
SO
COOL!!!!!
Fascinating Finding #2:

While they may read differently, ALL
human beings (those with brains, anyway)
can learn to read.
Fascinating and EXTREMELY IMPORTANT Finding #3:

Reading is a complex task involving the coordination of
many cognitive processes. Every person who learns to read
goes through phases: novice reader, decoding reader,
fluent, comprehending reader, and expert reader.
It all starts with attention, of course,
first with the eyes. You learn to
recognize that letters correspond to
sounds and learn to sound out words.
Then you learn to recognize whole
words on sight.
The Novice Reader
So, what exactly is happening when
people learn to read?

Once you develop quick recognition of words,
your brain starts to pay more attention to other
things while you’re reading, things that build up
your knowledge about types of books, types of
sentences, and the types and parts of words.
As you read more and more, your brain
develops and strengthens the neuronal circuits
you use to store and access that information.
It’s like there’s a web inside your brain that
gets stronger and more intricate over time as
you gain more and more knowledge about
reading.
The Decoding Reader

The Fluent, Comprehending Reader
Once you can decode quickly and also understand what you
are reading, you have become a fluent, comprehending
reader. As you become automatic in your recognition of
letters, words, and parts of words, your brain doesn’t need to
pay so much attention to
those things and can pay more
attention to the ideas and
information in the text. As
this happens, the neuronal
structures in your brain
change even more. It’s like
your brain starts creating
shortcuts which allow you to
understand what you read
much more quickly.

What’s important about fluency is that it buys you time--the
time you need to really think about what you’re reading as
you read it. Once you have this extra time, you start to use a
set of cognitive and metacognitive processes to understand
what you read, such as questioning, inferring, predicting,
connecting, clarifying, monitoring and fixing comprehension,
imagining, determining importance, and synthesizing. These
cognitive processes are like a toolbox inside your brain, and
when you not only use these tools but can also actively
decide which tools to use and when, you have become an
expert reader.
The Expert Reader
Determining ImportanceChecking for UnderstandingInferring and PredictingImaginingAsking QuestionsMaking
Connections
Synthesizing

“And so to completely
analyze what we do when
we read would almost be
the acme of a
psychologist’s
achievements, for it
would be to describe very
many of the most intricate
workings of the human
mind, as well as to
unravel the tangled story
of the most remarkable
specific performance that
civilization has learned in
all its history.” --Sir
Edmund Huey

Whew! Reading is a brain workout! No
wonder I need all that energy! Anybody
have a power bar?

How do I get better at reading?
First, read more than you do right now
The more you read, the faster you will get to the fluent
reader stage, which is when you can read quickly and
understand what you read automatically. There is no way
other than reading to improve fluency, and without fluency,
reading can feel like trying
to run a marathon when you’ve barely
learned to walk. Remember, your
brain actually changes as you develop
fluency--without lots and lots of
reading experience, your brain will
never create those shortcuts that
save you time later.
(a LOT more)!

Second, read more widely than you do right now!
Reading more widely means reading lots of different types of books
and other materials. If you love reading fiction, trying reading some
non-fiction. If you already love one genre, such as realistic fiction, try
historical fiction or science fiction. Read everything! Read graphic
novels, blogs, comics, dictionaries, encyclopedias, magazines,
newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, reviews, plays, poetry--anything
that captures and keeps your attention. Read travel writing, history
writing, writing about art, music, politics, language, culture, food--
there’s no limit! You only need to make sure it’s just right for you--not
too hard, and not too easy. As you do this, you will create new
neuronal structures in your brain, and strengthen and connect old
ones to new information. You brain will grow like superelastic bubble
plastic--in all directions at once. So set some goals for yourself as a
reader and expand your mind--literally!

And finally, get
METACOGNITIVE!
Fluent, comprehending readers
have time to think while they’re
reading--but what do they think
about? Reading researchers have
discovered that good readers are
metacognitive--they use the
extra time they gain to think about the text and their own
understanding and reactions while they read. These scientists
have identified about 7 strategies that all proficient readers use
while they’re reading to make sense of the text:
Determining
Importance
Making Connections
Imagining
Asking
Questions
SynthesizingInferring and Predicting
Checking for
Understanding

is when you pay attention to whether you understand what
you’re reading and know how to fix it when you don’t.
Sometimes this means rereading, close reading, or looking
for clues to understand new or confusing words.
Sometimes it just means realizing that you’ve been ignoring
the reading voice in your head to think about something
else...
Checking for Understanding

Determining Importance
is when you decide what’s really significant in what you’re
reading. You use this strategy to summarize, highlight,
take notes, or take extra notice of key facts or events while
you read.
Cognitive scientists can track eye movement to
see how readers pay attention to text while they
read--the picture shows how some words got
more attention (time) than others.

Imagining
is when the text you’re reading causes you to imagine
something--a visual image, a sound, a smell, a touch, a
texture, an emotion, or any other sensory experience.

Making
Connectionsis when you connect something you’re reading to yourself,
other things you’ve read, or to the world around you.
Text to Self
Text to World
Text to Text

Asking Questions
is when you think of things you want to know more about
or ask questions about what you don’t understand.

Inferring and Predicting
is when you notice clues in the text and guess what they
mean, or figure out something that the author doesn’t
state explicitly.

Synthesizing
is when you take the information and ideas from the text,
combine them with your own knowledge and
interpretations, and combine them into something new:
an opinion, a point of view, or a new representation of
what you’ve learned.

Why should I care?
Because if you don’t, you will miss out!
On what, you ask?
But the worst thing is, you’ll miss opportunities for
joy, wonder, humor, love, friendship, adventure,
discovery, self-discovery, and the chance to learn
all the amazing things that are out in the world
waiting for you... (snif*)...
You’ll miss opportunities for education
You’ll miss opportunities for careers
OPPORTUNITY!

"The man who does not read good
books has no advantage over the man
who can't read them."
--Mark Twain

“My alma mater was
books, a good library... I
could spend the rest of my
life reading, just satisfying
my own curiosity.”
--Malcolm X

“There are two kinds of books in the world--the
boring kind they make you read in school and the
interesting kind that they won't let you read in school
because then they would have to talk about real stuff
like sex and divorce and is there a God and if there
isn't then what happens when you die, and how
come the history books have so many lies in them.”
--LouAnne Johnson

“Literacy is not a luxury, it is a right
and a responsibility. If our world is
to meet the challenges of the
twenty-first century, we must
harness the energy and creativity of
all our citizens.”
--Bill Clinton

“There are books so alive that you're
always afraid that while you weren't
reading, the book has gone and
changed, has shifted like a river;
while you went on living, it went on
living too, and like a river moved on
and moved away. No one has
stepped twice into the same
river. But did anyone ever step
twice into the same book?”
--Marina Tsvetaeva

“No matter how busy you may think
you are, you must find time for
reading, or surrender yourself to
self-chosen ignorance.”
--Confucius

”I have a passion for teaching kids
to become readers, to become
comfortable with a book, not
daunted. Books shouldn’t be
daunting, they should be funny,
exciting and wonderful; and
learning to be a reader gives a
terrific advantage.”
--Roald Dahl

“They should read books knowing that what
they are bringing to the book is as important
as what is in the book. Unless someone reads
a book, it is just a lot of black marks on paper;
it means nothing. A book only takes on
meaning when someone reads it. As an
author, I want students to think not just about
what I have to say, but also about what they
have to say now that they have read my book.
It is through their reflections that the book
becomes meaningful.”
--Alma Flor Ada

“It must be that people who read go on
more macrocosmic and microcosmic trips –
biblical god trips, the Tibetan Book of the
Dead, Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake trips.
Non-readers, what do they get? (They get
the munchies.)”
--Maxine Hong Kingston,
Tripmaster Monkey

“Reading is to the mind as
exercise is to the body.”
--Joseph Addison

“When I look back, I am so impressed
again with the life-giving power of
literature. If I were a young person
today, trying to gain a sense of myself
in the world, I would do that again by
reading, just as I did when I was
young.”
--Maya Angelou

“You think your pain and your
heartbreak are unprecedented in
the history of the world, but then
you read. It was books that taught
me that the things that tormented
me most were the very things that
connected me to all the people
who were alive, or who had ever
been alive.
--James Baldwin

“A book is not completed until
it’s read.”
--Salman Rushdie

“I’m always highly
irritated by people
who imply that
writing fiction is
an escape from
reality. It is a
plunge into
reality.”
-- Flannery
O’Connor

“A book is more than a verbal
structure or series of verbal
structures; it is the dialogue it
establishes with its reader and the
intonation it imposes upon his voice
and the changing and durable
images it leaves in his memory. A
book is not an isolated being: it is a
relationship, an axis of innumerable
relationships.”
--Jorge Luis Borges

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished
something, learned something, become a better person. Reading
makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later
on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit
disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of
escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making
things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s
imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is
bliss.”
--Nora Ephron

“I think we ought to read only the kind of
books that wound or stab us. If the book
we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a
blow to the head, what are we reading for?
So that it will make us happy, as you write?
Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if
we had no books, and the kind of books that
make us happy are the kind we could write
ourselves if we had to. But we need books
that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us
deeply, like the death of someone we loved
more than ourselves, like being banished
into forests far from everyone, like a suicide.
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea
within us. That is my belief.”
– Franz Kafka

“Do not, under any
circumstances, belittle a work
of fiction by trying to turn it
into a carbon copy of real life;
what we search for in fiction
is not so much reality but the
epiphany of truth.”
--Azar Nafisi

“I believe that reading and
writing are the most
nourishing forms of
meditation anyone has so
far found. By reading the
writings of the most
interesting minds in history,
we meditate with our own
minds and theirs as well.
This to me is a miracle.”
―Kurt Vonnegut

“I insist on a lot of time being
spent, almost every day, to
just sit and think. That is very
uncommon in American
business. I read and think. So
I do more reading and
thinking, and make less
impulse decisions than most
people in business. I do it
because I like this kind of
life.”
--Warren Buffett

“A classic is a book that has
never finished saying what it has
to say.”
--Italo Calvino

”It is only a novel... or, in short,
only some work in which the
greatest powers of the mind are
displayed, in which the most
thorough knowledge of human
nature, the happiest delineation
of its varieties, the liveliest
effusions of wit and humour, are
conveyed to the world in the
best-chosen language.”
--Jane Austen

So, beautiful brains, go forth and
READ! You have nothing to lose
and everything to gain...

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