We marked National Reading Day with activities of its own, although at PlusKids the day is hardly an exception: we read every day.
This time the children were not only readers but authors: they created their own stories and were very proud of them.
Moving from reader to author changes the way a child looks at a book. Once you have had to decide for yourself how the story begins, who the character is, what happens to them and how it all ends, you discover that a book does not simply appear — someone made exactly the same decisions, only better. From then on the questions about what we read change too: why did the author choose this ending, what would have happened otherwise.
There is something else you notice at once about a text a child has written: it gets read aloud without the slightest resistance. Children who hang back when they have to read a page of the textbook in front of the class read their own story gladly, because it is theirs and because they already know what comes next.
Daily reading remains, in the end, the only exercise that works on speed, comprehension and vocabulary all at once. A day dedicated to it is a good occasion to celebrate it, not to begin it.