Jennie Fitzkee (compressed)

Dollar General gives $50,000 in honor of longtime supporter Jennie Fitzkee

By Amanda Schwartz

Photo courtesy of The Kelly Clarkson Show, NBCUniversal Syndication Studios
Jennie Fitzkee, center, is surprised by the announcement of Dollar General’s generous donation on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

When The Kelly Clarkson Show chose to celebrate preschool teacher Jennie Fitzkee ­­— a West Virginia native and longtime Read Aloud WV supporter ­—Read Aloud’s Executive Director Dawn Miller was asked to video call in to the filming as a surprise.

“Anything for Jennie Fitzkee!” she replied.

Miller was excited to be part of recognizing a dedicated supporter and local literacy champion, but had no idea there was a surprise in store. Both Fitzkee and Miller were shocked and deeply touched by Dollar General’s announcement of a $50,000 gift to Read Aloud in honor of Fitzkee and World Teacher Day.

Fitzkee became involved with Read Aloud in 2012 after the passing of her childhood friend, Read Aloud champion Candy Galyean. Fitzkee (born Jennie Lively Lytton) grew up with Galyean in Huntington, but moved to Groton, Mass., where she has been a preschool teacher for almost 40 years. When her sister sent Galyeans’s obituary in 2012, Fitzkee saw it suggested donations to Read Aloud West Virginia.

“I thought, ‘This has got to be someplace else!’” Fitzkee recalled. “I just can’t believe this! I never knew about this wonderful place.”

Fitzkee called and spoke with Read Aloud founder and then Executive Director Mary Kay Bond. They had much in common, including an inspiration, Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, first published in 1979.

Eager to give back to her home state and support her friend’s legacy, Fitzkee began collecting books. She and her students and community gathered so many she and husband Steve Fitzkee rented a truck and drove them all the way from Groton, Mass. to Charleston.

After that momentous donation, Fitzkee has continued to support Read Aloud, nurtures readers through her blog “A Teacher’s Reflections,” and has contributed to this newsletter.

“This gift means so much to us,” said Executive Director Dawn Miller. “It is an acknowledgment of the lifelong value of our work to help children develop an intrinsic motivation to read, and it will help Read Aloud to stay strong and flexible, of course.

“But with this gift the Dollar General Literacy Foundation also recognizes the efforts of every volunteer, every teacher, every school coordinator, every principal, every donor ­­— every friend of Read Aloud who has contributed to the effort to help children discover joy in reading,” she said.

“On top of all that, we are touched and honored to still be part of remembering Candy Galyean, who even now plays such an important role in bringing us together in this cause.”

Over the past 28 years, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has donated more than $203 million to provide funding and resources to support literacy advancement and has helped more than 14.8 million individuals learn to read. In both 2020 and 2021, they granted funds to Read Aloud to support shipments of self-chosen books to low-income children across the Mountain state, keeping them reading through the pandemic and beyond.

Dollar General’s co-founder, J.L. Turner, was functionally illiterate and never completed a formal education. In 1993, J.L.’s grandson, Cal Turner, Jr., founded the Dollar General Literacy Foundation to honor him and support others’ educational journeys.

Dollar General and the Dollar General Literacy Foundation’s $4.5 million investment to help students, teachers, and nonprofit organizations working to support and improve youth literacy across the country includes more than $3 million in youth literacy grants from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and a new $1.45 million partnership with education nonprofit Donors Choose.

To watch the announcement and Fitzkee’s heartwarming reaction, click here.

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The next normal, whatever it is

Letter from the Executive Director, Dawn Miller

All year, Read Aloud chapters around the state have adapted and adapted again to best serve children, families and schools as conditions have changed. Volunteers read online when possible, by recording when desired, and ramped up book distributions. They handed out books with meals, at special drive-through events and increasingly, as schools have re-opened, first to students, then to guests, at more traditional in-person events.

Many volunteers have expressed interest in reading at programs this summer, they miss their classes so much. We are taking requests from summer programs and matching them with eager volunteer readers. (To arrange yours, contact your local chapter or email stateoffice@readaloudwv.org.)

While readers were cut off from their classrooms and students were cut off from their classroom libraries, Read Aloud doubled up on its usual book distribution efforts. In a good year, Read Aloud gives away 10,000 books and magazines to children around the state. Since Jan. 1, 2020 to this spring, Read Aloud has given out more than 25,000.

As regular volunteers know, Read Aloud is particular in how it gives out books. All of Read Aloud’s efforts emphasize choice because choice is an important factor in motivating children to read for pleasure, just as it is important to adults.

With the restrictions of the past year, volunteers sought and found new ways to engage students, to ask, “What are you reading?”

We adapted classroom “book tastings” where students get to discuss and recommend books. They, their teachers and volunteers may read excerpts. After a chance to “taste” a variety of books, children choose a book to keep.

Thanks to a windfall of books for middle- and high schoolers, we were able to offer a school wide book tasting at Buckhannon-Upshur High School. You can read the details on page 1.

Teachers and volunteers adapted events to their particular needs.

In Jackson County, Chapter President Janet McCauley organized half a dozen classroom book tastings in elementary schools. Teachers in those classrooms chose to lead the events themselves, sampling and reading books with children, and then giving students the opportunity to choose their books.

Just recently, Alban Elementary teacher Allison Stephens and her colleagues invited Kanawha Chapter President Derek Hudson and me to virtually attend their in-person classroom book tastings. Teachers gave children opportunities to preview the books. During the event, the children recommended books to us and to each other. When there was a lull, which was not often, Derek and I were available to build on the conversation about Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems, or The Lost Dinosaur Bone by Mercer Mayer, for example. It was a good time.

Berkeley County reader and chapter member Casey Willson and Kanawha County reader Jackie Thompson both tried a different approach, a “read along.” Every student in their classes one week received a copy of the book they read virtually.

Whatever the approach, all of these efforts give children opportunities to practice what they are learning, to find the words to express their thoughts, and to make connections with each other and with caring adults.

Even when they don’t admit it, children, even teens, are influenced by the adults who care for them. That means if parents, grandparents, teachers, and other mentors make time to discover good things to read and share their discoveries, young people will be influenced.

We will continue the stepped-up book distributions, because nothing beats summer learning loss like reading books for fun.

Looking ahead to fall, we are hopeful that schools will be able to welcome volunteer readers back to their classrooms. We are eager to be there, and plan to adapt to whatever the next normal is.

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Collaborations, events, and book giveaways

Our chapters have been hard at work! Here are some highlights of things they’ve accomplished recently or are working on right now:

Read Aloud of Greenbrier County plans to read aloud for Alderson Elementary students during their deliveries of school grown produce to a local farmer’s market.

Read Aloud of Fayette County is planning a Snuggle & Read event. They are also developing another partnership with a local drug recovery court to provide books to participants and their children.

Read Aloud of Mercer County held a COVID-conscious Snuggle & Read for 117 children at a local library.

Students at Ripley Elementary peruse options at their book tasting event.

Read Aloud of Wood County has a Summer Book Binge coming up at Jefferson Elementary Center, funded through support from Tri-State Roofing & Sheet Metal. Wood County schools are also planning to let volunteer readers return to the classroom in the fall, so the chapter is preparing for that.

Read Aloud of Kanawha County had classroom book tastings for all grades at Alban Elementary.

Read Aloud of Jackson County has a lot of great news! Second graders in the county received personal copies of the first in The Fantastic Frame series, while all the second-grade classrooms received the entire set of five books to complete the series. A volunteer recorded the first book in chapters, which were made available to classrooms for them to follow along. This project was funded through a grant from Jackson County Community Foundation.

Additionally, children of families who received Christmas packages from Epworth Church each received a new book through our Jackson chapter. Book tasting events were held at Ripley, Evans, and Kenna Elementary, including twelve classrooms covering first, second, and fourth grades. And finally, Read Aloud of Jackson Co. provided books for Jackson County Early Explorers to include in two sets of theme-based Read! Play! Grow! packets. This program was so well-received that Jackson County Schools is funding similar packets for students through the summer, and Read Aloud of Jackson County board member Cheryl Miller is helping create those packets for the youngest students.

Girl Scouts of Troop 1774 Madison Boylan, Isabelle Williamson, and Abby Mabley delivered books to Little Free Libraries from Barboursville to Kenova in Cabell County.

Read Aloud of Berkeley County is exploring partnership opportunities for book distributions with their local Boys and Girls Club and Norborne Daycare center. They are also planning to work with a sleepaway camp for children of families that have been impacted by drug abuse to provide books to participants. There may be upcoming opportunities for in-person read alouds for Berkeley county-wide summer school.

Read Aloud of Putnam County is rebuilding a local presence with a recent school-wide book tasting event at Poca Middle School, serving almost 300 students with books of their choice.

Read Aloud of Cabell County volunteer and troop leader Linda Beaver has been working with local Girl Scout Troop 1774 from Community of Grace United Methodist Church to stock Cabell Little Free Library boxes with gently used books.

To find contact information for your local chapter, visit readaloudwv.org/participating-counties.

Granting Book Wishes

‘Rich book talk,’ now more than ever

A letter from the Executive Director, Dawn Miller

Children need us now more than ever. By us, I mean Read Aloud West Virginia, formally, of course – our classroom readers, our book distributions. But children also need us in general, their community.

Every week we hear from teachers. In addition to everything they struggle with this year, they ask how they can fit it all in. How can we get children to engage with books outside of the school day?

This is where the community comes in.

Read Aloud works on this a lot. Our community volunteers take time each week not only to show up and be present to read to children, but also to read ahead and practice and stay on the lookout for books their classes will enjoy. Our chapters come together to plan events and book distributions that give children, their families, and their schools opportunities to find and share books to love.

Every child needs this – people around them who believe, and show that they believe, that books are important. They need people who set the example in busy, distracted times for the brain and soul nourishing activity of reading.

Learning to read is often thought of as a set of skills, write Pam Allyn and Ernest Morrell in Every Child a Super Reader (Scholastic, 2016).

“And while it’s certainly true that children must learn to orchestrate a complex set of strategic actions that enable comprehension and decoding, it’s equally true that learning to read is a social-cultural event,” they write. “In other words, learning to read is more than simple skill building. Children also become readers when they are immersed in a community of readers, surrounded by rich book talk and animated demonstrations of reading, and provided with the social-emotional support that enables them to become members of the ‘literacy club’.”

When they say, “super readers,” they don’t mean just a test score. They talk about academic achievement, but also personal fulfillment, social well-being and civic engagement. Super readers enter a text with a purpose. They grow confident. They take risks, and they learn to discuss and expound on what they read.

As you see throughout this newsletter, Read Aloud is helping to fill needs exacerbated by shortened and interrupted school schedules. We are offering our classrooms virtual “Book Tastings,” where students can have rich book talk, and then choose more books to keep. We have been building Read Aloud Families, to help children to build their home libraries and to nurture family habits that will grow super readers.

On January 13, thanks to Scholastic, our chapters will come together for a virtual conference featuring Pam Allyn. Here, our volunteers will share some rich book talk of their own and carry knowledge and inspiration out to their communities.

Children, their families, and teachers respond to these efforts. They send pictures and thank-you’s. They tell us children are eager when their packages arrive. Children ask for the next book in a series and recommend books to their friends, cousins, and to us. With our steady example, they are growing into a community of readers.

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Read Aloud WV Awarded 2020 NIP Tax Credits

Read Aloud West Virginia has received a sizeable number of Neighborhood Investment Program (NIP) Tax Credits. NIP credits are administered by the state to encourage donations to local nonprofits.

For example, a donation of $1,000 qualifies for up to $500 in NIP credits off of West Virginia personal income or corporate net income taxes. That means donors can have a $1,000 impact for a bottom-line cost of only $500.

Read Aloud’s mission is to motivate children to read for fun, which research shows makes kids better readers and has a large impact on academic and career success. Every dollar donated to Read Aloud results in more time spent coordinating with families, schools, and volunteers to get kids the tools they need to grow their reading skills. And the sooner donors give, the better, according to Communications & Development Director, Amanda Schwartz.

“Donations in the fall enable us to plan ahead for literacy projects in the spring and summer,” Schwartz says. “The earlier we have funding in hand, the more impact we can make. Also, credits are administered first-come, first-served, until they run out.”

Read Aloud has remained on mission throughout the pandemic, adapting book distributions and volunteer classroom reading efforts to meet the new conditions and needs. “We are busier than ever, and our donors make all this work possible,” says Executive Director Dawn Miller.

If you’re interested in giving early and helping Read Aloud improve the literacy climate in WV, you can:

  • Mail a check to Read Aloud WV, PO Box 1784, Charleston, WV 25326 (this is preferred, as there are no fees associated with your donation and Read Aloud receives the full amount to put towards programs).
  • Click the Donate button at readaloudwv.org to make a secure donation through Square.
  • Go to paypal.me/readaloudwv to make a secure donation through PayPal.

The minimum donation to qualify for a tax credit is $500 and the maximum is $200,000. Donors have five years to use their credits. The maximum tax credit allowed in any one year is $100,000. Donors cannot reduce their total state tax bill by more than 50%. If you have any questions, contact Read Aloud headquarters at (304)345-5212.

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What next?

Do your best to stay on mission, while keeping yourself and your communities safe. That is the advice Read Aloud volunteers, chapter leaders and colleagues have traded back and forth since spring. Keep up the good work.

By Dawn Miller

Read Aloud West Virginia continued to work all spring and summer toward the mission of motivating children to read for fun, to nourish their reading skills for life.

Here’s how we’ll keep doing it.


Classroom readers
Brooks Bower tries out one of the new reading hammocks on the first day of Coda Engage, a project of Coda Mountain Academy in Fayette County. Read Aloud West Virginia is a partner, offering books for children to choose and to keep, and for the academy’s growing library.

In our regular end-of-school survey, teachers overwhelmingly said that they would welcome live, virtual read alouds from a dedicated volunteer, if in-person visits were not possible. Most often, these would occur via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, though individual schools or counties may have other preferences.

To assist returning readers, Read Aloud chapters have been working on their own video-conferencing skills, and developing an updated orientation (delivered virtually, of course) to help readers grow confident for reading this fall.

Virtual orientations can also be scheduled for new readers. Anyone interested in attending either type of orientation may call 304-345-5212 or email stateoffice@readaloudwv.org. Registration is required.

Some readers and teachers have favored pre-recorded videos. The Fayette County Chapter is establishing a studio for making read aloud videos, but most readers simply use their smartphones. (See tips, right)


Book distribution

Schools closed just when it was time to start one of our most important efforts, a distribution project called Summer Book Binge. Based on research that shows a bag of freely chosen books given at the end of the school year does more to prevent summer learning loss than summer school, Read Aloud has developed this project over years, starting in Greenbrier County, and then Raleigh and Fayette and this year Wood and Berkeley. The pre-pandemic model relied on multiple visits to schools and much in-person contact, including a school assembly where the books were delivered with great activity and enthusiasm.

With those options closed, Read Aloud quickly reorganized an order process by mail. A $10,000 in-kind matching grant from First Book made it possible for Read Aloud to send more than 7,000 books to the homes of 870 children in the five counties. Children got to choose their books, a key ingredient in motivation, according to research.

Lessons from that project, combined with the prolonged interruption to school and uncertainty about fall, suggested a way to serve children and their families this summer and beyond.

In July, we softly launched Read Aloud Families (with the help of partner Energy Express). Based on the same data and methods as our Book Binge, combined with research on habits and motivation, Read Aloud Families delivers monthly books — that children choose — and materials to motivate families to read together through the pandemic and beyond.

Membership is by invitation only for now, but we plan to expand it as capacity allows. Each chapter identifies groups of families to be invited, through schools or other organizations they work with. At this writing, more than 125 families had joined, with more than 250 children, all over the state.

Marion County chapter president
Beverly Richards, loads her car up with magazines to distribute via local feeding sites.

In the future, chapters will organize events for members, virtually, as necessary, but perhaps outdoors if it can be done safely. These events will be opportunities for children and their families to share the books they love, recommend and receive recommendations, and grow their reading communities.

Meanwhile, chapters are distributing books by other means. Jefferson and Marion are among those providing books for families when they collect school meals. Nicholas and Jackson are making plans to restock Little Free Libraries or other community bookshelves.


Partnerships

Even before the pandemic WVU Extension and Read Aloud were exploring ways to work together on Energy Express, the federal program that provides both literacy opportunities, including reading aloud, and nutritional meals to children during summer break.

This summer, Energy Express staffers attended Read Aloud orientations (virtually, of course). Read Aloud offered the first memberships to Read Aloud Families to Energy Express participants. Families have joined from all over the state, even in counties where Read Aloud has no active chapter. Each one affirms their intention to read with children, just for fun, most days of each week. They agree to give children a choice of books to read and to protect children’s reading time.

In Fayette County, thanks to Fayette Chapter President Marion Tanner, Read Aloud has partnered with the Coda Mountain Academy. About 25 children had the opportunity to choose Read Aloud books of their own.
Coda started as a music camp, but has grown into many fields, including science and art. This summer the academy completed its outdoor classroom, just in time for the need for physically distanced and outdoor learning spaces.

Ten new reading hammocks invite elementary-age children during Coda Engage, a summer day camp run by Coda Mountain Academy. Elsewhere, masked and physically spaced, children engage in other activities, including robotics and violin lessons.

Coda President Esther Morey said children were happy and relieved to be outside and to be together, even with modifications and safety rules.

As they were walking toward the first circle game, Morey told us one girl said, “That looks funner than being on my iPad and phone all day.”

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How long does the coronavirus live on stuff?

From playgrounds to doorknobs to your mail, here’s the best we can find.

By Kristen LeFevers


Hard surfaces:

The virus that causes COVID-19 can survive on hard surfaces, such as plastic and stainless steel, for up to 72 hours, according to James Lloyd-Smith, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, NPR reports. This means that counters, tabletops, doorknobs, children’s hard toys, phones and devices and other flat, hard surfaces should be regularly disinfected. 

Cardboard:

The same unpublished study said the virus did not survive beyond 24 hours on cardboard.  

While it can last that long, people are not likely to catch COVID-19 by handling mail, Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, says.

Wash your hands after handling the mail to be sure, she said.  If you’re still concerned, however, there’s nothing wrong with wiping down packages and their contents once they’re delivered.

In the absence of more specific recommendations, Read Aloud treats glossy book covers like hard surfaces and regularly disinfects them.

Playgrounds:

Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental behavioral pediatrician at the University of Michigan, recommends against playgrounds, where germs can accumulate. Sunshine is a good disinfectant, but the effect of the sun’s rays on the new coronavirus is not yet known, reports the New York Times. However, all public health sources recommend children and adults go outside, for both physical and mental health, as long as they keep at least six feet from people from other households.

How to clean your house:

Clean high-traffic areas of your house daily with soapy water, a soap spray or disinfecting wipes, and then wash hands (and gloves, if you use them) afterward, recommends the New York Times

Think door knobs, light switches, refrigerator and microwave doors, drawer handles, remote controls, counters and table tops, toilet handles, faucet handles. 

Soap or hand sanitizer?

Hand sanitizer is great if you don’t have access to soap and water, but it turns out that old-fashioned soap and water are more effective, according to a recent article from Vox.

That’s because soap pulls the virus apart and makes it water-soluble, causing it to disintegrate, Palli Thordarson, a chemistry professor at the University of South Wales, has told several publications and posted on Twitter. 

Technique matters. As all the posters show, wash hands with soap for at least 20 seconds. Rub all parts of the hands, including fingernails, between fingers, and the backs of hands.


Kristen LeFevers is a senior in English at the University of Charleston.

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How Accelerated Reader turned my daughter off books

By Lynn Kessler

I’ve been reading to my daughter, who is now 12, since she was born. She always loved it. At 6 months old, she would sit for long stretches on my lap while we read Go, Dog. Go! and Bear Snores On. Her first full sentence, at 18 months, was “Read Dog Go.” I knew then she was destined to be a great reader.

Through preschool and kindergarten, her reading skills and scores were always above expectations for her age. We snuggled up and read together every night before bed.

When she started first grade and began using the Accelerated Reader (AR) program, she did well on the tests, scored a lot of points, and looked forward to taking tests and receiving rewards and recognition for her achievements.

I recall a conversation around this time with a friend in education who was not a fan of AR. The program, she said, was detrimental to the intrinsic motivation that is critical to develop lifelong, avid readers.

“I don’t know,” I responded. “She seems very motivated.”

Cut to the beginning of summer vacation. My 7-year-old is bored.

“Why don’t you read a book?” I suggest.

Then, the reply I never expected: “No way! School is out. I don’t have to read!”

After I collected my jaw and my heart from the floor, I called my AR-averse friend to say, “You were right.”

Accelerated Reader, commonly known as AR, is a computer-based program that seeks to encourage kids to read more independently, improve student comprehension and reading skills, and provide a tool for teachers to evaluate student progress and adjust instruction and interventions accordingly.

Renaissance, the for-profit company that owns and sells AR to schools, says on its website:

“Every student can become their most amazing self and discover a lifelong love of reading with the guidance of an expert teacher. Designed based on years of careful research to help teachers introduce students to the magic of books and reading, Accelerated Reader products are the most widely used K–12 reading practice programs.”

I was not able to find pricing information on the Renaissance website, but my general research found that it can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 a year to implement and maintain the AR program, depending on the size of the school and the package selected.

Renaissance offers plenty of research to support their product, and it seems that the company has attempted to improve upon areas that have received critical feedback. However, there are many literacy experts who feel the program undermines intrinsic motivation and the development of a genuine love of reading.

A report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) found only two studies that met the agency’s research design standards and evaluated those results. The Institute concluded: “Accelerated Reader was found to have mixed effects on comprehension and no discernible effects on reading fluency for beginning readers.”

The research above focused on measurable academic outcomes — changes for which students can be tested. But what about motivation?

Studies examining intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have shown that rewarding children for a certain behavior can produce immediate results, but then backfire. After an initial period of improvement, students begin to perceive the activity they are completing for a reward as a chore. It is something to be done so they can move on to something they enjoy.

That research is parallel with my personal experience with Accelerated Reader. I believe that this program — now a part of students’ grade calculations in our elementary and middle school — inflicted significant damage upon the years of success I had in encouraging a love of reading in my daughter.

That does not mean, of course, that this will be the case for every child. My younger daughter, a voracious reader, excelled in the AR program until third grade when she struggled to get enough points. That challenge has continued in fourth grade. It concerns me that the goals set for students by the program, and the requirements for grading, become more difficult just as children reach the critical age in third to fourth grade that is widely acknowledged in education as a make-or-break point for reading skills.

I was a Read Aloud volunteer in my 9-yearold daughter’s class. We finished reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. The kids thoroughly enjoyed it. They were engaged in the story and always excited to recap each week, discuss the book, and read more. They were gratified by the ending. After considerable sorrow and hard times for Ivan and his friends, the kids were delighted that the characters found peace and happiness.

Then they reached for their tablets and asked if they could take the AR test.


Lynn Kessler, former Read Aloud staffer, is a reader, writer, mother of two and a Read Aloud volunteer in Kanawha County.

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James Patterson: ‘It’s not the school’s job to get our kids reading’

To prepare for James Patterson’s appearance at the West Virginia Book Festival in October, Kanawha Circuit Judge Carrie Webster printed a letter the bestselling author had written to his son Jack back in 2007. It was a loving letter at Christmas, urging his son to read for the joy of it, not just to get into Harvard. Patterson promised to give his son at least one book every Christmas and several for the summer.

Webster served as host and moderator of the author Q&A, and confided to him that she wished her own daughter read more.

“It’s your moms’ job,” he said to the judge’s daughter and to the crowd. “She says you are smart, but you could read more.

“It really is,” he said. “It’s not the school’s job to get our kids reading. It’s our job. It’s on the parents, the grandparents, aunts and uncles, all that stuff.”

Patterson didn’t read much as a kid. He thinks it is because his parents and the nuns at his school did not put enticing books in his hands. He discovered reading as a young adult working night shifts at a mental hospital.

Then years later his own son was uninspired by books.

“I said, ‘Jack, you have to read over the summer.’

He said, ‘Do I have to?’

I said, ‘Yeah, unless you want to live in the garage.’”

But the key thing is, he said, kids must have books they really enjoy.

“We went to the local library and got about a dozen books, and by the end of the summer he had read 12 books. It’s going to vary with your kids. He went from being not very interested to going to the library in his school.”

A reader told Patterson that her 7-year-old came running in after a visit to his school library saying: “Nana! Nana! Look what I found. It’s James Patterson!”

“He didn’t know you were a children’s book author,” she said.

Many people don’t know it, he said. One reason he writes for kids: to give them the kind of page-turners that keep them coming back.

“As I say, I think the important thing is if you are a mom or dad or whatever, it really is your job. We’re the ones who are responsible. It’s great to teach your kid how to ride a bike and how to throw a ball, but if they’re not at least competent readers, we’re putting them behind the eight-ball.

Patterson’s son Jack, now 21, is a reader and has since collaborated with his dad on a picture book, Penguins of America.

“Look. We have rules in the house. You can’t come in and track mud on the rug. You’ve got to show up to meals. It just needs to be a rule,” Patterson said.

Afterward, Webster thought back. “I loved reading as a child — Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden,” she said. As an adult, she enjoyed Patterson’s Alex Cross series, though thanks to her phone, she doesn’t read like she used to.

Her daughter loved reading in the early grades (and was a big Accelerated Reader fan). “Now she reads only when she has to,” Webster said.

Around the time of Patterson’s appearance, her daughter asked if they could read together like they used to.

“We need to do that,” Webster said. “I’m going to take her to the bookstore.”

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Are you raising a reader?

The more time we spend reading to the babies and children in our lives, the better their young brains organize themselves, forming networks essential to learning to read around age 6.

Dr. John Hutton can see it in their brain scans.

The more we pacify babies and children with screens, even supposedly educational apps, the more screen time short circuits essential connections that the brain is primed to develop in the first years of life.

He can see that, too.

A pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and “spokes doctor” for the national campaign, Read Aloud 15 Minutes, Hutton presented some of his findings to doctors and educators at Marshall University in October at an event sponsored by Marshall’s June Harless Center for Rural Educational Research and Development.

“Why does this matter to pediatricians?” he asked. “Reading we know is a major public health concern. It is considered a social determinant of health.”

First, some background

Human brains are born ready to do certain things, such as see and speak.

“But out of the box, there’s not an actual network in the brain that automatically knows how to read. We have to make it,” Hutton said.

Human beings do this by using brain networks that evolved for other things. So, as parents talk and sing with babies, their language networks are stimulated.

“This tends to happen in a predictable sequence,” Hutton said. As parents show picture books to babies and toddlers, other brain networks are engaged – vision, attention and executive function, for example.

“All these areas need to be stimulated during early childhood. The more you stimulate them, the more they form networks to work together. The more you stimulate them, the stronger they get.

“If all that goes well, that’s how this emerging literacy process is fueled,” he said.

Long before the ABCs

Emerging literacy is a collection of skills – how to read, background knowledge, and attitude, Hutton said.

The how-to includes how a book works.

Turning pages. We read from left to right. Children learn these details years before it is time to learn ABCs or to sound out words.

As children listen to books, look at pictures and converse with others, they build up a store of words and ideas. Later, when it is time to “learn to read,” children draw on those words, matching them to words they are learning to decode in school.

Children who hear and learn fewer words during their first four years do not read as easily as children with more words.

And then there is attitude.

“This is the underrated part,” Hutton said. “Do I like to read? Did I grow up in a home that valued reading? Is reading fun? Or is reading more of a chore?

“That’s one of the challenges we have, to really reinforce the idea that reading is something that should be seen as a fun and nurturing and positive thing, not just something that is all about how you are going to do on the test later.”

The brain, on books

Earlier surveys counting books and reading time, for example, showed that children who spent more time with books from an early age had better readings skills and scores. But could you observe a physiological difference?

Hutton and colleagues did MRI scans on healthy preschoolers. They scanned brains while children listened to stories, and again when they heard random noises.

“What we found was there was a difference,” he said. In children who had been read to more, there was more activity, including in the part of the brain associated with vision. Doctors think that is the child’s imagination.

“It’s pretty amazing,” he said. “Kids who have more practice, more experience with books and reading, have more ability to activate the part of the brain that’s involved in imagining what’s going on in the story and then understanding what it means.”

“This is pretty exciting. It’s really the first study to show reading early on makes a difference in how their brains function,” he said.

Quality counts

So, the number and frequency of books is important. What about quality of the experience?

Hutton’s team watched parents read to children and scored the range of their behaviors. Some read in a monotone. Some made sound effects and involved children. One even looked at a phone while reading.

They scanned children’s brains and found that children of parents who read more interactively, where children had turns at talking about the story, had more activity in both the back and front of the brain. These areas are associated with imagination, chronology, expressive language, and understanding emotions.

Parents, teachers and doctors have long observed that kids who interact more with stories have stronger language skills. Hutton’s research corroborates that observation.

“More interactive reading experience leads to stronger activation in the part of the brain that’s involved in knowing how to talk,” he said. “And also integrating what they hear in the story with how they feel about it.

“It really is a pretty powerful parallel with what behavioral research has shown in terms of the benefits of interactive reading.”

Lost in a good book

Was there a difference in the brains of children who were visibly engrossed in a book compared to those who weren’t?

Yes.

Kids who showed greater interest in the story had more activation in the cerebellum, a rear section associated with helping the whole brain learn new things.

“We call it a storytime turbocharger for learning,” Hutton said. Children who were most interested were probably more likely to be learning something. He could see their brains doing it.

“We should be coaching families to get kids involved in the story, sharing the process, to talk about it, to ask questions,” he said.

Goldilocks effect

Then they looked at brains receiving stories in different formats – audio only, an animated story app, and a traditional picture book. They evaluated how much the different parts of the brain were working together.

Small children who listened to audio only without pictures had much less network activity. There were no pictures to help with unfamiliar words.

“Too cold,” Hutton said.

When children looked at the same story animated, there was a lot of activity associated with visual processing, but little else.

“All the sudden the networks stopped talking to each other. “When animation happens, there is a 37 percent drop-off in cooperation between these networks. The imagination part is less needed, so there is more focus on the visual processing part.

“When you animate a story, it short circuits the child’s imagination.”

“Too hot,” Hutton said.

The old-fashioned picture book?

“When you put pictures with the audio, there is greater cooperation among parts of brain,” he said.

“It was just right.”

But wait, there’s more

“Books are also a way to learn about feelings,” Hutton said.

“It’s a way to really exchange emotions with a child, from promoting early experiences of nurturing and feeling cared for to relating to what characters in books are feeling.

“This is how kids learn a lot of these feelings. They are able to put themselves into the minds of other characters.”

Social and emotional maturity is also a predictor of school success. Learning to think about the world from another’s point of view helps.

“All those things involve practice, and they start early,” Hutton said.

“That’s another real benefit of reading with a child. You’re not only building their vocabulary but also their ability to process their feelings and to put themselves in other people’s shoes. I think that’s another benefit that may be underrecognized.”

NAEP scores

Shortly after Hutton’s visit, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released its 2019 scores. West Virginia fourth graders dropped four points in reading to 213 on the 500-point scale. The national average is 240. No one was surprised.

Read Aloud West Virginia sees three main reasons. Poverty interferes with children’s learning and exacerbates other problems, and West Virginia children are disproportionately poor. Opioid addiction has killed parents and destroyed families, further harming children and their ability to learn. And then there is screen time.

In another study, Hutton said, most parents were reading to their infants frequently, and 34 percent read once or twice a week.

But at two months, 68 percent of babies were watching TV regularly, and TV time turned into hours, not minutes.

Read Aloud 15 Minutes surveyed parents and found that reading to children every day dropped between 2018 and 2016, with the biggest drops among kids ages 6 to 8.

“I would argue that kids at this age still need to be read to,” Hutton said. “Even if they can read, the content of the book leads to lots of questions, lots of things the parent can really talk to them about.”

West Virginia teachers have been telling Read Aloud that they are seeing more language delays among children entering school in recent years.

The state Department of Education reports 2,122 children had an identified developmental delay in 2018, up 9 percent from 1,946 children in 2013.

‘Neurons that fire together wire together.’

Then in November, Dr. Hutton’s latest research appeared in the journal JAMAPediatrics.

He studied preschoolers who were exposed to more digital media than the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends. Those guidelines include no digital media before age 2 except for video chatting and no more than an hour of high-quality children’s programming a day for ages 2 to 5.

This time, scans showed brains exposed to more screen time were associated with less of the desirable fat coating of nerve cell connectors – a process called myelinization. Myelin is what makes the brain’s white matter white. It insulates nerve cells and makes them more efficient at signalling each other, like the insulation on electrical wires.

There is an old adage in neuroscience, Dr. Hutton said: “Neurons that fire together wire together.”

“The more these areas are encouraged to talk to one another, whether language areas or executive function, the more that coating of the wires is stimulated,” Dr. Hutton told the New York Times. “The amount of myelin around a nerve fiber is directly related to how often it’s stimulated, how often it’s used.”

Possibly, he said, kids with more screen time have less myelinization of networks important for language and literacy because the screens crowd out other things that are shown to stimulate healthy brain development.

Back in Huntington, Hutton told doctors and educators that the number of books, the frequency, the quality of reading and the format are all important to children’s brain development.

“I would interpret this as saying you need books, you need to read them pretty often, read them interactively, and as boring as possible in terms of the format. Boring being straight up picture books.

“I really would argue there’s not a better invention. We haven’t invented a better mousetrap at that age if we want to stimulate brain networks to develop in the most strong and functional way.”