Reluctant Readers - Beginning the Battle

Know Your "Enemy"

Reluctant readers.  While these patrons may be hard to please or even infrequent visitors to the library, they are an important part of the community and it is a librarian's duty to help anyone and everyone find their niche and begin on a road for a lifetime of self-teaching and improvement through a love of reading.

I was recently lucky enough to read an article about two terms: Creative Reading and Readicide.  This article was written by Small and Arnone (2011) and, while it addressed school libraries, brought up plenty of ideas that could be implemented in a public library for reluctant readers.  Their brief article inspired me to scrutinize my own practices and improve them little by little so this post is dedicated to these authors.

First, let's start with some definitions:

Readicide - (n.) The death or a love of reading in a person, often brought about by escalating "required reading" within the school system.

Creative reading - (v.) The act of becoming a participant in the text one reads, often by just imagining the world the story creates.  These activities can be expanded by critical thinking and appreciation through discussion or activities.

Most librarians are familiar with these situations, if not this terminology, but what can we do to decrease readicide and increase creative reading?  I, for one, am starting with my collection and Reader's Advisory, two intricately linked parts of the YA librarian gig.

Dawning Your Armor

In order to have a chance at defeating readicide and turning reluctant readers into avid readers, libraries need to have a collection that varies in reading levels and interest topics.  One important sub-collection to pay close attention to is the number and variety of Hi-Lo books (high interest, low reading level).  Perhaps this is even a great time to re-evaluate the nonfiction section as curiosity can inspire reading on a number of topics.

My Armor

Hi-Lo books designed to be Hi-Lo books are often passed over in the collection as they simply look or feel too generic to the teens in our area.  This meant it was time for some thinking and research.  With our small budget, I started with a series that fit the bill with high action, an easy vocabulary, and a cover/title that promised readers a bit of adventure: The Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer A. Nielsen.  This is really a small addition, but it is a start in building a stronger collection geared toward reluctant readers.

Now to turn attention to nonfiction, graphic novels, and manga...

These are sections I have have worked with as though they were specially made for reluctant readers, but these were often overshadowed by needs in the fiction collection.  With this in mind, I began planning to add to the collection with renewed fervor: short nonfiction adventures and collections of odd facts, manga series that spanned from the action-packed to the weird to the romantic, and graphic novels that added a bit of color (pun intended) to the shelves with fight scenes and coming-of-age scenes galore.

Give it a few months and we'll know if I was successful with my new acquisitions.

Charge!

Finally, after developing the collection to cater to reluctant readers, I can now perform Reader's Advisory on an even deeper level for this group.  I will not go into details about how to perform RA as there are whole books on the subject and every librarian has something that works for them.  I will tackle this issue head-on, however, and hope to draw in even more reluctant readers by trying a few different things.