I haven’t been so great at reading for pleasure lately. Most of my reading is informational, and mostly for work. I can’t really blame myself. I have had a hard time finding a book I am willing to stick with. Thank goodness for my Kindle so I can download portions of a book and then decide if I want to continue reading or not. But, recently even reading a sample doesn’t guarantee a book will capture my interest. I can be chapters in to a book and never really get caught up in a story. Often I push through (because I have purchased an entire book) and my reading becomes strained. I don’t comprehend all of what I am reading because I am not thoroughly interested.

There were plenty of times when I was teaching that I told my students to keep going, to give a book a good chance, even when they were obviously disinterested or struggling with a book. Now I feel guilty about encouraging them to continue reading a book that wasn’t for them.

There is a bit of an art to abandoning a book and a certain sense of self that comes with abandoning a book. This is something I am learning with time as I filter my reading. Abandoning a book means you are aware. It doesn’t mean you are giving up. It’s a skill that needs to be explicitly modeled in the classroom, even in primary grades.

I wish I had been taught this skill at a young age.