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I struggle with reading. It’s not that I can’t decode or that I am dyslexic or anything like that. It’s not even that my first language was Spanish and now I’m fluent in English (I can barely get out a complete thought in Spanish without having to switch to English, so English is my dominant language for sure). Nope, it’s just that I read slowly. When I read I say the words in my head as if I was saying them out loud. My mental reading speed is as fast as my slow out loud reading speed. I also need to stop and process often. What’s worse is that I just can’t read long passages of text! Yeah, that’s a problem. Again, it’s not that I cannot “read” the words and understand what I’m reading, it’s that I feel as if I cannot read it all. I get anxious and can’t focus on what I’m supposed to be reading. Then I procrastinate and end up spending my time sitting there with the text and not getting very far at all until I just have to stop. With regards to understanding, highlighting is very helpful for me otherwise I forget what I read or I have to keep coming back to it. It always seemed like a problem to me, to be a slow reader. So I’ve been giving it some thought after reading John Spencer’s I’m Slow blog post. It’s been very recent that I have been working on convincing myself that there’s nothing wrong with being a slow reader. That wording doesn’t quite sound right. It’s not that I thought there was anything “wrong” with reading slowly, it’s just that I’ve limited myself to not reading much because of my slow reading.
Why has being a slow reader been such a struggle for me? It has made reading a tedious task for me. I want the information but when there’s a lot of text I get anxious and give up. It’s almost like a block. I just can’t read anymore after a while. So I prefer short passages, which is why Twitter and blogs have been such great media for me. Before Twitter and my RSS feed, I didn’t read much. When I was a teenager I enjoyed reading fantasy novels, Piers Anthony was my favorite author, and comic books and graphic novels. At school though, I couldn’t read a whole book and no way could I keep up with the reading pace. Cliff’s Notes helped with that.
After Cliff’s Notes, movies and documentaries were my saving grace. Sure, the movie is never as good as the book but at least I get the gist of stories I may never read! I love history but couldn’t get through a whole history textbook. I couldn’t keep up with the reading pace so I watched historical movies. I relished finding the inaccuracies in historical piece films. When the Internet came out I loved it because I didn’t have to be daunted by a huge textbook and could look through several sources to see what was historically accurate. Why wasn’t there Internet when I was a kid?!
Because reading is a struggle for me I was never as well read as many of my friends and acquaintances. I’ve even been labeled a non-reader as an adult! I actually believed it until I thought that just because I don’t read as much as other people or just because I read snippets or shorter versions or just because I sometimes, yes, watch the movie and never read the book, I’m NOT a non-reader. It just isn’t a strength of mine and I don’t read as much but I do read! I do learn better by watching movies or discussing a topic with people than by reading about it. Reading about something is never enough for me to get it. Yes, in part because finishing was so tedious and because I often never finished the whole thing but also because I need to discuss it or somehow wrestle with the topic or content before I truly get it or feel confident that I get it. When I was at UCLA I jumped at the chance to take a Shakespeare class where we watched the plays in movie form instead of reading them. We were to visit the video library, watch a play, then discuss it in class. That was awesome but only one class out of all the classes I took offered that opportunity. So often I’d show up to class discussions not having done all, or any, of the reading. I would have to get all I needed to pass those classes from the lectures and class discussions. I read very little of what I was required to read. And yet I passed. Now people like me have many more options to learn something besides JUST reading about it and it’s not like we’re illiterate or anything like that. I’ve earned my place in society and in my career.
As an adult, I avoid book shares because I can never keep up with the reading pace. There isn’t enough time in a day for me to read a whole chapter or chapters. Even when I read fantasy novels it takes me a long time. So I catch up on my reading over the summer. I can read only about one or two books depending on how tedious it becomes and it’s way easier if everyone in my family is reading. The only entire series I’ve read as an adult is the Harry Potter series. When I attend workshops and we’re given an article to read I’m always last and I rarely get to finish it. I get so distracted when more and more people start talking, snacking and visiting the restroom because they’re done! Sometimes the group just starts discussing the article before I’m done. At least I highlighted and took notes on what I read, but so did everyone else! When I was a kid I bought speed reading books to try to learn how to speed read but I just couldn’t do it. I have to read every single word in my head to understand. And yet I can’t concentrate when books are read aloud to me. It’s like I have to be the one reading it aloud to myself. Is that weird that I can’t concentrate when being read to?
So before Twitter I barely read. As a kid, encyclopedias were great because there was lots of information in short snippets. As an adult, I use the Internet to learn because it’s like the encyclopedias I loved as a youth. I love getting to type anything into Google and learning about it quickly! Yes, quickly because after a few minutes I start to tire of reading! I can get a good idea about something by reading some of the websites I find. And sometimes I don’t even read the entire website! Currently, I read the blogs on my RSS feed and read through tweets every day in the morning and before bed. Since Twitter and blogs I now read every single day! That makes me feel better about myself as a reader.
So how does this affect me as a teacher? I never really thought about it because when I prepare for a class or topic I’m teaching I learn it enough to help my students if it’s a new topic to me. Reading through teacher’s guides is so tedious that I have to do it in chunks or just one lesson at a time. Then, frankly, I often learn with my kids. Many times I am really a side-by-side learner with my students. I guess I never suffered from know-it-all syndrome. One time though I wasn’t rehired to teach a 7th-grade language arts/social studies position I taught on a one-year replacement contract in part because one of the teachers on the hiring committee expressed concern about me as a language arts teacher even though I wasn’t a “reader” (his words). Wow, I guess you can’t trust some people! When I used to joke and say, “why read the book when there’s a movie?” I didn’t expect him to use that against me. The joke was on me in the end. I never thought of sharing my struggles with reading with my students. Maybe I can be a role model for those like me who struggle with reading for one reason or another. I’m not presumptuous enough to think I know how it feels to have a reading disability or anything like that, but at least I understand what it’s like to not WANT to read all the time or at all. I bet none of my students would expect that I struggle with reading. It just never seemed to be a problem (except for losing that job, but I don’t think I really stood a chance of getting rehired because I was going up against the vice principal’s wife! And I did get a much better job in a way better school).
So yeah, I’m a slow reader and I tire easily when I do sit and read. I struggle with reading large amounts of text because I get anxious and lose interest thereby feeling that it’s physically impossible to continue. So I read fewer books than many of my colleagues. And during the school year, I can’t even get through one book (I’ve been stuck on p. 70 of a formative assessment book and I started it in October of 2011!!). In order to cope with this, I save my reading for summer. I also give myself time and space. I can’t force it so I don’t. And I celebrate what I do read like my daily blog and Twitter reading. Maybe I’ll get better. I’m not dead yet. 🙂
