Community Readings: A Way to Encourage Families to Give Expression to and Play with Reading

by Hugh McGuire
1996 World Conference on Literacy, International Literacy Institute, University of Pennsylvania, March 12-15, 1996

INTRODUCTION

The 1993 National Adult Literacy Survey revealed that approximately fifty percent of individuals over the age of sixteen fell in the two lowest levels of literacy, comprehension, and quantitative proficiencies. But what is most disturbing about these findings, is that most of these people do not recognize their own functional illiteracy. It is not surprising that those falling in the two lowest categories are also in the lower categories of socioeconomic status. Today, as in the past, family socioeconomic background is the primary predictor of educational achievement (Shapiro 1994). It is discouraging that at the end of the 20th century you can take a new-born baby and predict with some accuracy its future level of educational achievement, solely on the basis of the economic circumstances of its family.

We were not always so illiterate. According to the Census, the literacy rate among the white adult population in the U.S. was about 90 percent in 1860, a rate higher than that of Scotland, Germany, England, France, Ireland, or Italy (Greiger, Lagemann and Woloch 1991). After manumission in 1865, African American newspapers began to appear across the South, as people sought to find relatives lost during the enslavement period. How was it possible that so many African Americans were able to read given the severe sanctions imposed by the Slave Codes on anyone teaching a slave to read, as well as on the person being taught? If the desire to read was so strong at one time in our history, then we have lost something very fundamental to the way in which people are motivated to learn. One reason for this high rate of literacy, was that families valued reading the Bible, and so learning to read was important for children, as modeled by their parents (Tindall & Shi 1993). With the economic and social structural changes occurring, the family becomes increasingly important as the source of motivation.

Corporate employment and high volume manufacturing no longer provide high paying jobs for marginally educated people. A prosperous standard of living is becoming increasingly dependent on what people contribute to the world economy. Recent Census Bureau data confirm the structural change in our national economy. The economy didn't bounce back from the 1990-1991 recession. Traditional measures like job growth and production of manufactured goods show the economy is growing, but household incomes have fallen. Traditional labor intensive employment is fast disappearing in favor of work that requires a much higher level of skill and mental acuity.

Such skill and mental acuity are not solely a function of formal education. The ability to identify needs and creatively develop ways to serve those needs, is available to anyone with insight, resourcefulness and the ability to think in an orderly manner. In a time of major economic and social structural change with its accompanying anxieties, opportunities are created for working and lower income people that would not exist in more stable and predictable times. To identify opportunities that can be pursued requires an active, exploring and participatory attitude. For example, the computer mediated Internet is the most democratic medium ever developed. It permits the possibility for immediate and intimate global relationships for the least advantaged as for the most advantaged. As the cost of information and access continues to decline, the unlimited possibilities for the exploration and discovery of opportunities becomes available to everyone. What restricts that availability is cognitive blindness more than the cost of access. The medium of the Internet demands literacy and a participatory attitude for an unlimited range of possibilities to become visible.

Today, with television, videos, movies, and many other forms of passive entertainment, it is very easy not to read at all. But more importantly, with the loss of reading as a primary source of entertainment, especially among working class and lower income parents and children, there is an accompanying loss of the ability to mentally visualize, which is essential to thinking and creativity.

Low levels of educational achievement, and the resulting economic poverty and family dysfunction, are a major cause of the social pathologies of crime, violence and drug addiction. With television and other forms of passive entertainment, families are losing their ability to connect with each other in positive, nurturing, stimulating and supportive ways. There are many economic and social forces that are destabilizing and fragmenting families, adding to passive forms of entertainment. The result becomes individual and collective isolation on a scale that is destabilizing to our entire society.

If any improvement in functional literacy is to be achieved, it needs to begin with understanding that education, at its core, is not about the transmission of information or skills, but is the quest for lives lived together more fully and meaningfully by both parents and children (Shapiro 1994; Salinski 1995; Forest 1995). The approach of Community Reading is to encourage reading as a family and community activity that can be stimulating, enjoyable, and fun. It will encourage families and people to engage each other cooperatively and supportively. Public and private educational institutions are not the only sources for engaging parents and children to experience imagination and discovery. Public libraries, public housing authorities, municipal police departments, girl and boy scouts, and many other community organizations can become engaged in stimulating a hunger for discovery, meaningfulness, community, family cohesion, and fun.

In the primary grades, first through sixth, education is more a community encounter than the product of deliberative, self-disciplined learning. During these early years, the value of discovery and learning is nurtured as much in the family, if not more so, as by professional educators. By encouraging parents to participate with their school age children in the discovery, visualization, and literary imaginings, it is possible to nurture positive family values that encourage mindful pursuits: verbalization, conceptualization and social encounters. Further, organized activities that encourage parents and children to work cooperatively can indirectly contribute toward reinforcing a partnership among teachers and parents in the education of children. Teachers can be more effective promoting participatory learning environments that engage both parents and children in playful activities.

COMMUNITY READINGS

Reading aloud is one of the most joyous and intimate things that people can do together. We have never experienced any drama as profoundly as when we attempt to give expression to the characters ourselves and directly confront the experience of the story. By selecting the appropriate work, parents and children, older people and younger people, married people and single people, in other words, all of us, can engage and enjoy each other by giving life to some of the most beautiful stories and language ever written.

A Community Reading involves organizing parents and children to actively visualize and perform children's stories within a limited context. Such performances are limited in scope and expectations, permit an unlimited range of styles of presentation, and limit the audience solely to the other performers to encourage feelings of emotional safety and reassurance. Each person is reading from the script in their hand as they are performing. Memorization of lines is not encouraged or desirable.

A work such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is selected. About 60 people, of any age, but concentrating on families with primary school age children, are invited to participate. These families are divided into the various chapters by the number of characters in each chapter. Each sub-group is instructed to present its approximately ten page chapter in any way it likes: as a play with one person being the narrator, as a mime, as a dance, reading it paragraph by paragraph, or as an improvisation. Anything each group wants to do is acceptable. They are advised to rehearse on their own a maximum of two or three times. Then on the designated day, all the smaller groups come together to present their chapters for each other. Costumes and props are optional and up to the individual sub-groups or chapters.

Objectives

There are a number of objectives that a community reading seeks to accomplish:

First. To encourage the simple fun of playing with beautiful language and literature in an expressive way. Reading aloud is a participatory activity that can be engaged in pleasurably by the entire family. By expressively using language well, people may become more familiar and comfortable with a more elegant use of language, which they may incorporate into their regular usage.

Second. Regardless of whether or not the parents or children come to the experience of reading aloud naturally, short and readily understandable children's stories that are challenging yet unthreatening can be selected for presentation. It is possible to learn to read one story, or a segment of a longer story, well and expressively, and to present that as a dramatic reading in a context that is emotionally safe, supportive, and fun. As long as the organization and requirements for participation are kept simple, people will be more likely to take a risk in attempting something new.

Third. Such Community Readings are an opportunity for families to plan and play together. They encourage fun, cooperation and intimacy in a way where each contributes according to his/her own ability. The atmosphere is non-authoritarian; the organization is non-hierarchical. If people see through rehearsing how simply and easily this can be done, they may take the initiative to attempt other works as readings.

Fourth. There is no emotional risk in engaging in such community readings. The challenge of presenting a children's story is limited in context and length. The audience consists of the other performers who are sharing a mutual challenge and experience. By parents actively engaging in the playfulness of visualizing and expressing joyful characters and story situations, the value of the pursuit is validated in ways the classroom teacher cannot accomplish.

Fifth. Because there are no requirements or expectations with regard to style, manner or competence of presentations, an unlimited range of possibilities is encouraged and supported. Parents and children can present their story in many different ways: with costumes or without, with props or without, simply or elaborately, using dance and movement, or merely sitting in chairs. The cost to a family is no greater than costuming for Halloween or other similar occasions.

Sixth. By encouraging families to work together on a project, values of cooperation, intimacy, sharing, teamwork, playfulness, and positive self-esteem are encouraged that will go a long way to teach parents and children how to engage with each other and their peers in a similar way. And they can experience learning as a cooperative team effort.

Seventh. By attempting to present these stories in a simple participatory way, both parents and children are challenged to confront the experience of the story's conflict and resolution. This can enable both parents and children to learn new ways to articulate the experience of dealing with social and emotional interactions that are depicted in children's stories. And it will help both parents and children learn to become more emotionally articulate.

Eighth. Through the leadership, encouragement and example provided by the organization of a Community Reading, parents and children will discover a new, creative way to play and interact with each other. They will see that such Community Readings can be initiated by families simply and independently, and they may continue to do so on their own.

In general, the objective of these Community Readings is to encourage harmony, balance, cooperation, integration, discovery and play in a simple and emotionally safe way. This process will show parents new ways to play and interact with their children that will encourage the development of positive social skills and the discovery that is learning. Community Readings are not restricted to children's stories. There are many plays that can be performed as informal readings. The Bible can be adapted as a community reading.

Community Reading Presentation

Depending on the characteristics of the audience being targeted, it might be useful to have a volunteer work with each small group as it reads through its chapter and informally discuss and plan ways in which to present that chapter. Simplicity, ease of presentation and fun are the primary focus. Therefore, costumes and props need to be minimal and easily developed. The purpose is to have fun easily and, so, elaborate presentations are undesirable. Costumes and props are not even necessary. A chapter can be presented just as enjoyably with people wearing normal casual clothing because one's imagination can fill in the ancillary details.

The simpler the presentation the more likely people will want to do it again and possibly even explore other stories, and that is the ultimate goal. Thus, simplicity needs always to be emphasized and encouraged.

Stories selected need to have certain characteristics. They must:

a) be simply written;

b) have the prospect for simple dramatization;

c) have short chapters with a clear focus. Especially when introducing this as a new activity, people need to see it as doable by them. Anything that appears too complicated will alienate people;

d) have short dialogue passages. Lengthy monologues need to be avoided because the performers won't be able to effectively present a long monologue; narratives can be adapted for this purpose.

e) have interaction among the characters, as well as conflict and resolution of some kind;

f) be gender neutral. This avoids the organizers having to match story characters with family gender distribution.

Lewis Carroll's stories are ideal for this purpose because the chapters of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, or Through The Looking Glass, are basically independent of each other. If for some reason one or more chapters are lost due to the failure of participants to follow-through, the cumulative reading could still proceed. Therefore, Community Readings need to be structured in a way that the individual presentations can be more or less independent of each other. Separate individual stories could achieve this, or identifying longer stories that consist of independent chapters.

A family can adapt each story to the skills and abilities of its members. Stories can be edited to accommodate the ability of the performers. Words or passages can be added or eliminated as needed. Further, a community reading does not have to be performed as a play with each person having a speaking/reading role. Presentations can be danced or mimed, improvised or presented using a combination of methods as determined by the family. One's imagination is free to visualize and create in whatever way a family finds workable and enjoyable.

Stories and plays work equally well. Further, there are many ways to create roles for young children or adults who either can't or are reluctant to read aloud. The objective is to have fun playing together while including everyone in the effort. People's imaginations are free to create additional characters and/or dialogue to accommodate the number of people included. Spontaneity and ad-libbing are encouraged as people become consumed by the realism of the scenes and give expression to their instinctive reactions. Remember, the goal is not to present a polished stage production, but to play with each other. It is impossible to perform such children's stories poorly. Anything that is humorous can be presented successfully irrespective of errors made, because even the errors are funny.

CHILDREN'S STORIES THAT CAN BE PRESENTED AS COMMUNITY READINGS

There are many children's stories that can be presented as Community Readings, including ethnic stories. Among those I have presented as Community Readings are:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
Wind in the Willows
Charlotte's Web
Peter Pan

ORGANIZATION

Boards of education, schools or a single class can sponsor Community Readings, as well as public housing authorities, tenant's councils, public libraries, municipal parks and recreation departments, community associations, community action agencies, churches, and individual families or extended families.

Depending on the number of people who wish to participate, multiple performances of the same story can be organized. Imagine devoting a day in a primary school to Lewis Carroll. Each teacher could organize the parents and children in a performance of a Lewis Carroll story. At the conclusion, a huge tea party could be given with everyone in costume. The entire school staff could become involved. The art teachers could create theme projects, and all the teachers and students could be focusing on different aspects of Lewis Carroll's work. Similar efforts could be achieved with other authors by various community institutions and agencies.

To create an emotionally safe environment, and reduce tension among participants, no audience is encouraged beyond the participants themselves. As a result, the space needed to present a Community Reading does not have to be very large. Depending on the work being presented and the total number of participants, a large classroom or a community room, or someone's living room would be sufficient.

Orientation Session

It is helpful to hold an orientation session with parents. The purpose of the orientation session is to explain the organization and goals of a Community Reading, as well as to encourage participation, cooperation and enthusiasm. The simplicity of a Community Reading will be emphasized, and efforts will be made to discourage values of competitiveness and encourage the free range of spirit and imagination. The humor and fun of what is being attempted is stressed, as well as the emotional safety and the support and encouragement of the organizers and all the other performers. It is important to stress that uniformly excellent presentations are not expected or even desired. The whole idea is to actively play together and to smile and laugh from the deepest parts within us. It is impossible to perform something humorous poorly. As people become involved in the fun and joy of reading aloud expressively, they will, to some extent, lose their self-consciousness and discover the experience, even if just for a moment, of seeing through the eyes of their character. If the characters are using a vernacular with which the reader is familiar, then the experience can be even more electrifying. In my view, the experience of connecting with a character can motivate people to seek new opportunities, and in that are the seeds of learning and growth.

Selection of Stories

Depending on the number of parents agreeing to participate with their children, either a single story, or a collection of stories would be selected in collaboration with the families. Stories and/or chapters of stories are assigned to individual families based on the number of characters and the number of family members or groups of family members. In combining families to work cooperatively on a presentation, it is important to combine families who are in geographic proximity to each other. It is important that this be made as easy and convenient as possible for the participants with the least number of expectations and requirements.

Photocopying

In order for each reader to have the script in their hand, it is necessary to photocopy individual chapters or stories for as many performers as are reading. The cost of photocopying can be left to the families or provided by the sponsoring organization.

Rehearsal

Each family or group of families will be expected to plan and rehearse its presentation no more than two or three times. The simplicity of these performances will be continually stressed, as well as their being no expectation of perfection. Rehearsals are central to the objectives of this program. The performance is less important than parents and children discovering, on their own, that they can give life to and have fun playing with the action of children's stories in a non-structured, non-directed way. It might be useful to have a volunteer work with these smaller groups to facilitate planning and rehearsal. My experience with working class families has been that this was not necessary.

Performance

The only time any of the individual families will discover what the other families are planning is at the single performance when all the families come together for one time only. Depending on the length of the total work being presented, such a performance should not take longer than a maximum of three to four hours and can be presented on one weekend day. But the importance of this project is not the final performance. It is the rehearsal time as families experience working on a project cooperatively, and experience playing with each other in their homes.

Expectations and Outcome

With the success of one or more large scale Community Readings, families will discover that they can engage in such readings on their own, and can have fun and fulfillment playing with literature and with each other. Families will discover a new way to share time together without the structure of formal events or television which undermine imagination and destroy creativity and personal expression. At least a few families will be inspired to look for other stories that they can perform on their own.

My experience in doing this over seven times in churches is that people become very excited and energized by the process of planning and rehearsing their presentations. The one difficulty I have encountered is with the drop-out rate. In general, my experience has been that the drop-out rate doesn't exceed ten percent. In some instances, however, those who dropped out threatened our ability to present their chapter. When that occurred, the participants themselves found substitute readers; in some instances, I found substitute readers. The problem with a high drop-out rate is not losing a chapter of the story. It is that some who want to participate may be unable to do so because they no longer have enough people. Generally, this has not been a large problem and there was never an instance in which someone wanted to perform but was unable to do so.

Once the word gets out about how much fun and the feeling of accomplishment that can be had playing with Community Readings, finding committed participants for future readings becomes easier.

Motivational Influence of Families

The values that motivate students to want to learn originate in the values and attitudes they learn at home. Students enter school ready to learn because parents place a positive value on learning, not solely through words but through actions. If children see their parent(s) read, they are more likely to want to learn to read themselves. If reading can be re-introduced as a family activity to the extent that it replaces television and other passive and non-participatory forms of entertainment, then the motivation of people to desire to learn to read will be significantly enhanced. Reading as a recreational activity does not have to be solely the interest of more economically advantaged families.

There are many informal, community based, non-institutional ways to encourage families to become engaged in reading as a recreational activity. If a focus is placed on encouraging families, then children are more likely to come to school motivated to learn even under adverse social and economic conditions.

REFERENCES

Beckett, Joyce O.; Daly, Alfrieda; Jennings, Jeanette; Leashore, Bogart R. Effective coping strategies of African Americans. Social Work, March 1995.

Chaskin, Robert J.; Rauner, Diana Mendley. Youth and caring: an introduction. Phi Delta Kappan, May 1995.

Cooney, Margaret H. Readiness for school or for school culture?. Childhood Education, Spring,1995.

Coontz, Stephanie The American family and the nostalgia trap. Phi Delta Kappan, March 1995.

Fletcher, Bill, Jr. From gang members to union members? Dollars & Sense, July-August 1995.

Forest, Diane. Ben Wicks' born to read: literacy begins at home. Maclean's, April 241995.

Freire, Paulo, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum, 1993.

Geiger, Roger L.; Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe; Woloch, Nancy. Education. (history in US). The Reader's Companion to American History, 1991.

Jencks, Christopher. Inequality: a reassessment of family and schooling in America. New York: Basic Books, 1972.

Johnson, David W, Roger T. Hohnson, and Edythe Johnson Holubec. Circles of Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom. Edina, Minnesota: Interaction Book Company, 1986.

Keller, Beth M. Accelerated schools: hands-on learning in a unified community. Educational Leadership, Feb 1995.

Knapp, Michael S.; Shields, Patrick M.; Turnbull, Brenda J., Academic challenge in high-poverty classrooms. Phi Delta Kappan, June 1995.

Marjoribanks, Kevin. Factors affecting the learning environments and school-related outcomes of Australian adolescents. The Journal of Social Psychology, Feb 1995.

Rogers, Carl. Freedom To Learn for the 80's. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1983.

Slinski, Margaret D., Sparks, Stacy, A new way of working with youth in high risk environments. Children Today, Summer-Fall 1995.

Shapiro, Svi. Clinton and Education: Policies Without Meaning. Tikkun, May/June, 1994.

Tindall, George Brown and David E. Shi, America: A Narrative History. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1993.

Hugh McGuire is a research consultant and program developer in West Hartford, Connecticut.

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