Thank you to Sioux for mentioning this book and reminding
me that I need to finish it!

There is a section in which the author laments the fact
that so many teachers are not readers. She cites an article
that I had forgotten, "The Peter Effect: Reading habits and
attitudes of preservice teachers," by Anthony J. and Mary
Dekonty Applegate (Reading Teacher, 57/6).

We have, she writes, "created a culture of reading poverty
in which a vicious circle of aliteracy has the potential to
devolve into illiteracy for many students (p. 107).

Teachers who are NOT passionate readers "allow students to
pass through their classrooms" without learning to love to
read. They become adults (and parents) who don't read much
and therefore lack the ability to be positive role models
for children.

While the role of the parent is substantial, Miller asserts
that much responsibility lies in the role of the teacher to
model passionate reading so students can develop those
lifelong reading habits. The child with positive role
models in the home AND at school has the best chance of
having a reading life opened up for him/her.

She goes on to say something that I think is very powerful.
Teachers will "bemoan students' lack of reading experiences
before they enter school and their lack of support at
home," but forget that their parents, at one time, were
also our students.

Readers, she asserts, are MADE, not BORN. Few children
emerge from the ground "fully formed as readers."

:-)Kim

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