I read good!

     For most of my life, I've considered myself to be a pretty decent reader. I'm not the world's fastest reader, but I feel good about my comprehension skills. I've enjoyed reading since I was six or seven, starting with books like Bruce Coville's My Teacher Is an Alien, the Boxcar Children series, Goosebumps, and Animorphs. Those occupied a lot of my time until fourth or fifth grade, when I made it through nearly the entire Hardy Boys series. I've always really enjoyed fiction; nonfiction, even to this day, doesn't appeal to me much, with the exception of news articles on ESPN.com. Reading was a huge enjoyment for me until high school, when it became homework instead of a hobby. Don't get me wrong; I still enjoyed reading, and I read a lot of good novels and plays in high school, but it was something I had to do, not something I wanted to do. I can probably count on less than one hand the number of books I read for pleasure (okay, there's one exception; I read the entire Harry Potter series--the books that were already published--at least four or five times) during high school. If I would have been more awake and coherent during those four years (I was a chronic late-night homeworker and averaged less than four hours of sleep a night), I probably would have read more. But I wasn't. And, despite the fact that I consider myself to be a good reader, I don't read very well through closed eyelids.
     It wasn't actually until last summer that I really started reading for pleasure again. Because I've taken so many English classes in college, I was simply burned out when it came to literature. I couldn't take it any more. Thankfully, getting into some Education classes (as opposed to English classes) took my mind off of reading as homework, and I made it through some good books during the summer. My summer reading list for this year is already three miles long, including anything from The Lord of the Rings and Gulliver's Travels to the Percy Jackson series and Fablehaven (still not much nonfiction). Every time I hear about a good book, I write it down. I'm sure I'll read plenty of ESPN articles during the summer, too.
     I honestly don't know where my love of reading came from, but my parents have never been against it. If I wanted books growing up, they were always good about making sure I had something to read. My siblings read a lot, too, so maybe my parents drilled the idea of reading into us when we were one or two and we just don't remember it; it just stuck in our subconscious somewhere. It was also an alternative to video games, but we had plenty of those, too. Most of my friends didn't read, but I didn't care. I loved lying down on my bed and finishing an entire Hardy Boys mystery in a day, or staying up all night to finish the newest installment of Harry Potter. My friends could wait. Nowadays, I'm a lot busier spending time with my wife, going to school and work, and taking care of everything else that needs to get done, so I can't decide to spend a whole day or night reading. I still fit the time in, though.
     So, how does this novel apply to future students? I hope to instill into my students the idea that reading isn't just a smart thing to do, but it can be a lot of fun at the same time. Many students don't read because they have trouble understanding or comprehending, and I hope to help them overcome that by assigning books that are somewhat simple, engaging, and entertaining at the same time. If I can get them hooked on lower-level, higher-quality literature, then they'll be more willing to move up to the higher-level stuff. I might have to alternate some entertaining books with some tougher books to keep them going. I also don't want to assign them more material to read than I need to, because I don't want them to get burned out like I felt at times. Because I've always seen myself as a good reader, I'm a little worried about how I'll help my struggling students (because I haven't been in their shoes), but I'm sure I'll figure out ways as certain situations arise. My goal is to help them realize that, if they put a little effort into it, they can become great readers and comprehend things themselves.