Read to Achieve

READ TO ACHIEVE

As an author, the topic of literacy is ever important in my life. I write for many reasons, but the primary one is to educate through entertainment. Reading… at least, reading well… is a dying art and, if a person is not a good reader, they will not be well informed no matter how many diplomas and degrees they may acquire.

During the last school year, I had the privilege of mentoring seven gifted students at J.D. Parker Elementary School in Stuart. Three girls and four boys aged nine to 11 spent 90 minutes with me every Tuesday. Cliché as it may sound, I learned so much more from them than they learned from me. There wasn’t a day I left school without a big smile spread across my face.

When children are raised in a home where reading is a focal point, their manner of speaking and writing… their vocabulary and sentence structure… is a dead giveaway that their parents know the importance of books. When children are exposed to literature, they grow emotionally and intellectually because they are better able to grasp the deeper meanings in all that they see and hear. When good readers speak, you can bet they have something important to say and will say it well.

The first assignment these boys and girls were given was to write about a topic for which they felt passion. It could be a sport, a hobby, a place they had visited... anything that got them excited. The only No! No! was that they could not write about video games.

Oh, the groans I heard when I delivered that instruction. Guess what. Once video games were no longer a choice, those seven students found that they actually had many other activities in their lives that brought them pleasure. The few short paragraphs they were asked to write became page upon page of excited expressions about sports, dance, singing, travel and, yes, even school. Each student was asked to read his/her piece out loud and doing so generated a barrage of questions from their peers. We all learned a lot about each other that day and deeper friendships were born.

Over the past year, I have produced a number of Author Meet and Greets in our community. With the help of sponsors like Harbourside Place, I have been able to introduce many local writers to our residents. The talented men and women who join me at these events write in a variety of genres and each one of them stresses the importance of books in our lives. They are dedicated to promoting literacy. I am honored to call them friends and privileged to share a stage with them.

I am also a proud member of the Woman’s Club of Stuart. You might wonder why, living as far away as I do, I chose to join this organization. The reason is that the Club’s mission statement focuses heavily on education. With literacy all important in my life, I am willing to travel near and far to work with like minded people.

I would like to share with you an experience I recently had while dining out. A  friend and I were enjoying a leisurely lunch in a busy restaurant. All around us professional men and women carrying the requisite iPhone were engaged in animated conversations that rivaled Japanese katakana. Well-groomed and, seemingly, well-educated, their manicured fingers poked the air as if it was the Pillsbury Doughboy’s belly.

Overhearing other people’s conversations is an unavoidable part of the dining experience. As my friend and I reviewed the specials of the day, words -- or rather one word -- began to vie for attention with our growling stomachs. Making eye contact over the tops of the menus, we uttered the same thought aloud, “Gene Weingarten.”

In September 2010, Weingarten, a journalist with the Washington Post, wrote an article entitled, Goodbye, cruel words: English. It's dead to me. To quote from his essay:

“Signs of its (the English language) failing health had been evident for some time on the pages of America's daily newspapers, the flexible yet linguistically authoritative forums through which the day-to-day state of the language has traditionally been measured. Beset by the need to cut costs, and influenced by decreased public attention to grammar, punctuation and syntax in an era of unedited blogs and abbreviated instant communication, newspaper publishers have been cutting back on the use of copy editing, sometimes eliminating it entirely.”

Prior to Weingarten’s post, I often wondered if anyone except me noticed the poor sentence structure, misspellings and improper grammar used by reporters, public speakers, teachers, students and everyday people.  As I compose this editorial, I fear I am writing more of a eulogy than an opinion piece.  How can it be that, with all the words Webster has put at our disposal, the utterance we heard used most often that day to specify an object or action was a word that did not specifically identify an object or action at all?

No matter the topic under discussion, this one word was significant for its insignificance. The actual definition is “an object or entity not precisely designated or capable of being designated.” Is it even possible for a known object or action not to be “precisely designated?”

Spotlighting something we want and nothing we need, this single syllable word is all encompassing. Lovers know it as the touch that sets their souls aquiver. It is sometimes stupid, sometimes rash, and often funny. Without it, pipes would leak, chairs wobble and doors squeak.

I can only presume that the action or object requested is so sacrosanct that it must be referred to in code. At times, it is something that is missing, nothing that is wrong and anything that is a possibility. It can define an object that resembles something, remind us of something, sound like something but is never the thing itself. Landfills, basements, attics and garages are piled high with discards defined by these six letters. Every day we outgrow its usefulness. Not the word… the object defined.

Here are snippets from conversations overheard:

A female diner: “Ewwww! Look at the size of that thing! Kill it! Kill it!” (palmetto bug)

An attorney: “I am so frustrated writing that damned thing, um, the brief but I have to get it to the judge this afternoon.” (He gets points for self-correcting.) 

We are all guilty of maiming the language we speak. I have no doubt Webster is spinning in his, well, you know.

At the time Weingarten published his article, he claimed that the English language “… succumbed at the age of 1,617 after a long illness. It is survived by an ignominiously diminished form of itself.”

I would have to agree, but I am not willing to bid a final farewell just yet; at least, not until I have found the ever-elusive thing. How hard could it be to find? Everyone knows of its existence. People constantly talk about it. We carry it, but can never find it, in our purses, pockets, and briefcases. We store things in the trunk of our car and in kitchen cabinets. There are random things in tool boxes, sewing kits and junk drawers.

Weingarten said it better than I ever could in his closing paragraph:

“English has become increasingly irrelevant, particularly among young adults. Once the most popular major at the nation's leading colleges and universities, it now often trails more pragmatic disciplines, such as economics, politics, government and, ironically, "communications," which increasingly involves learning to write mobile-device-friendly ads for products like Cheez Doodles.”

That explains the orange hue staining so many keyboards and smart phones.

Don’t allow yourself and your children to fall into the cracks left by empty book shelves. Reading, writing and speaking go hand and hand. Your children will never achieve their dreams if they are not enthusiastic readers. Parents are their children’s first and most important teachers. It is by example that good (and bad) behaviors are learned.

Open a book tonight. Sit down with your child and share not just the words on the page but the message within the narrative. Encourage a love of reading in your children because books, whether they are comedies or dramas, not only entertain, they teach many of life’s important lessons. Reading improves language skills and helps with critical thinking.

Books are your passport to other places and times. Give your children every advantage in an ever increasingly competitive world. Read every day!