Most of us could spend more time reading - for business or pleasure

I’ve finally found something suggested by the governor of New Mexico that I agree with. Children in our state would benefit from what she called during the legislative session a summer literacy bootcamp for kids that would provide four hours of reading instruction per day.

The idea was to give kids from kindergarten through eighth grade a free summer school focused specifically on literacy. With only 38% of our children proficient at reading it’s well past time to do something.

The program limits the group size to four children with each instructor and the Public Education Department says it is available across the state. The only problem I see with the plan is that it is voluntary and maybe this sort of thing should be required.

If you’re proficient enough that you’re reading a newspaper column it is likely you figure that if you were working with a child for four hours a day on his or her reading you could turn that kid into a pretty good reader. With our reading scores slipping for decades now we now have parents who never learned to read and don’t feel they’re capable of helping their child.

Just like drugs or teen pregnancy or any number of other social ills, the secret to changing our literacy problem is in breaking the cycle.

While I like the idea in principle, it is going to cost the state a bundle. To be more precise, a $30 million bundle.

With a limit of 10,000 students, that is $3,000 per student or $150 per hour per student. The instructors will be paid up to $35 an hour. I guess if it were my child and I either had the $150 an hour to pay or had a free program it would be a bargain. Kids deserve a chance for literacy.

My concern is that not enough of the right parents will feel that way and send their kid to bootcamp. If we get kids that already have a desire to read instead of those without the itch we may not move the needle. Incentives are said to be provided but I haven’t seen anything about new bikes or the latest gaming station in the ads about the program.

My parents and grandparents read to me as I was growing up and I clearly remember having favorite books before starting school. Once I got to school, I had great teachers like Sue Harmon in first grade, who read our favorite story books and taught us phonics, and Brian Arnold in fifth grade who read the classic Ralph Moody “Little Britches” books to us every day after noon recess.

Those teachers weren’t totally entrapped in record keeping and testing, their goal was simply to start children on the right path. They did just that with me. After hearing those Ralph Moody stories I wanted more and I found it in my school library during the school year and the public library located in the dank basement of our courthouse in the summer.

I read all those Ralph Moody books, the Hardy Boys series and then graduated to mystery action novels and science fiction in junior high and high school.

In retirement I have once again picked up novel reading for pleasure. When I was working, my reading time was taken up primarily by reading current affairs. I also had a little issue with cataracts for a time there.

We all need to read more for pleasure and for business.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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