Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, with their strong narratives and engaging characters, once provided the pleasures and, inevitably, the learning that film and television at their best do today. Too many believe that learning must always be solemn, formal, even uncomfortable, like medicine. No pain, no gain. A U.S. Department of Education study found that about a quarter of 8th and 12th grade students rarely read for plain fun. It also reported that students who had the highest reading scores talked over the books they read instead of just answering workbook questions about them.
Alert teachers know how animated classes can get when they allow free discussion of reading.
Parents and teachers keep forgetting that fun is exactly what reading is supposed to give. Good reading, like any satisfying work, produces fun. We whistle when we like our work. Tom Sawyer realized this when he conned his buddies into white-washing Aunt Polly's picket fence, turning a chore into fun. Like any effort, reading a new text may at first be a labor but should also quickly change to pleasure.