I love to read. Books are kind of the best thing on the face of the planet, and there's a reason we've kept them around for hundreds of years. Someone decided to sit down and create (or recreate) a story where there wasn't one before. All you have to do is open up a cardboard cover and you're nose deep in that story. It's incredible and I am so glad it's a part of our culture!
Except I suck at actually reading.
Not in the "I physically cannot read these words" type of way. I always met any required reading standard set before me. I excel in analyzing stuff and making intense connections in books. I assure you, I am completely competent when it comes to the act of physically reading.
Talking about reading? Love it. I like to hear what other people are reading. I tell others about things I've either read before or are planning to read. Sometimes if I'm lucky, I'll tell them about the book I just started and how fantastic the first ten pages are.
I'll spend hours in Barnes and Noble. I seldom go into that store without leaving with a novel of some sort. I get super excited when I buy new books. I carry them to my car and set them on the passenger seat beside me. I know right off the bat, that these books are going to be fantastic and that it will be completely worth the read.
And yet, I never finish them.
They will sit on my bedside table, glaring at me in their bookish way. It's not like I don't want to read them! I just...can't.
There's always a reason why.
I'm too tired.
This is the only free time I'll have for a while, and I don't want to do anything that requires too much thinking. If I start reading, I'll probably have to put my book down soon anyway. I should be studying right now (yes, I even use that logic during the summer). There's always something better to do than reading.
I think my reading issues formed at some point in high school. Pathetic, I know. I don't know how familiar everyone is with the Accelerated Reader (AR) program? Where you read books for points to meet this mystical goal that somehow determined how good of a reader you were? Anyway, I had to partake in this point-system for about eight of my 12 years of schooling and I think that was the death of my reading career.
In elementary school, this system was awesome. I was driven to read so that I could get my points and prove that I was one of the top students in class (I was an annoying little know-- it-- all as a child). We had ice cream parties for those who read the most and trips to the library were the best parts of the week. AR had turned me into a lean, mean reading machine.
Then high school hit and everything went downhill.
After a brief two-year hiatus from AR in middle school, the program was reintroduced when I started the ninth grade. By that point, I had a full schedule and I was learning how AP classes worked. I was dealing with actual stress for the first time in my academic career and suddenly this reading program from my childhood was thrown back into the mix.
The AR program was nearly identical to how I remembered it in elementary school. Nothing had really changed, except that there was a minimum number of points you had to get to maintain an "A" in English. As I was still that know-it-all in ninth grade, I always tried to take the hardest classes available to me, including English. Thus, the number of points to get an "A" was ridiculously high and I was still floundering under the stress of trying to keep up in all of my hard classes. Reading became something I did the last week of the term (usually because I had forgotten it was a requirement until that point). I had to power through books and try to pick out the important parts, when I really had no idea what I was reading.
Reading had become a chore.
If I didn't read a certain number of points, I lost my A. All of the work that I had done throughout the term was bumped down a level if I didn't read enough books. At this point, I felt as if they were teaching me to read through negative reinforcement. It didn't matter what book was in my hands; I needed to finish it before I was zapped with the cruelty of a B that I didn't feel I deserved. I missed the positive reinforcement of my youth.
When senior year hit, I no longer had the AR requirement. We read novels, plays, epic poetry and so much more in my literature class. I was ridiculously happy. I was able to read for quality, not quantity. The ability to focus on a singular book and discuss it in class gave me the same pleasure that elementary school me had. I remembered what it was like to immerse myself in a story. It was one of the best feelings of last year.
You’d think that I’d be back in the swing of reading but I’m not. Despite the pleasure that reading gave me my senior year, I still cannot separate it from the stress I had the rest of the time. Unfortunately, if I’m not in a study group or a book club, I can’t finish a book. I need incentive. I need a tangible reason to finish the book. I’d been trained to read for points, not for me.
Maybe I’m the only person with this issue (I am sort of weird). Regardless of the fact, I still try to force myself to read. It’s one of the best hobbies I could have and I don’t want to lose my love for it. For the time being, I’ll stick to the smaller books. One day, though, I’ll get there.
I’ll learn to love books and I won’t suck at reading them.
