Finding the “Right” Book is Not Enough

You’ve heard it and seen it a thousand times, you’ve probably said it just as many times. “If you don’t like reading, you just haven’t found the right book yet.”

And yes, I’ve said it, believed it, seen it. I’ve known non-readers, regular library users who just didn’t like to read, until I found them “their” book, the right book, the book that captured their attention and suddenly, they were hooked. It’s a story I’ve shared with my students hundreds of times. And I truly believe that finding the right book, the right story, the right format is key to unlocking a love of reading. The right book can open that doorway.

But I’ve also changed my view recently. Because I don’t believe finding the right book is the only key. It’s not enough and it’s not the magic bullet we hope it is. So, I’ve started to adjust my saying. Because this saying silences the perspective of all those out there that really struggle to read. That struggle to keep the lines still on the page, to decode sounds, to use word recognition to turn letters into pictures inside their heads. Because, yes the right book helps, but if you can’t read or read well, the perfect book is still unreadable. I’ve come to this understanding through getting to know my students better and understanding the challenges they face. Not all love reading and some of that’s due to not finding the right book, but some of it is due to long, hard slogs with learning to read, being told they were not good readers, being assigned levels they were not allowed to move on from, and struggling to get their brains to match letters to sounds to words to meaning.

I’ve also come to understand that trying to push a strong reading culture in a class and school is really hard when there are low literacy levels. I liken it to running. If you have a broken leg, running is going to be hard and that’s not going to be fun, no matter how wonderful, picturesque or perfect the running circuit.

So, to help take some of that pressure off, to start to make visible and recognise those struggles, I’ve started to change what I say to my students. Yes, I tell them that if they don’t like reading, they may not have found the right book, but I also suggest they may not have found the right format (ebooks, audiobooks, books with coloured pages and dyslexia font, graphic novels, poetry), and they may face challenges that make reading hard and might need extra help, or they may need to work through some of the things they’ve been told that are not true (like they are not a good reader, or that they shouldn’t read audiobooks). It’s through these discussions I’m having far more open, honest and helpful conversations with my students. Now I have a conversation with a student about finding just the right mystery book, alongside a conversation about selecting books in dyslexia font, alongside a conversation about how audiobooks are real reading and I can share some information that might help his dad to understand this. Students are sharing with my both their love for some formats and genres and the struggles they have with being assigned lexile levels and being dyslexic and wanting to get back to enjoying reading.

So, yes, if you don’t like reading, you might not have found the right book yet, but I think there is far more to it and I’m excited to work with my students to unlock a love of reading in a way that truly helps them.