Can the Boston Celtics’ Ray Allen make reading cool?
So it’s important that you read, because you understand what’s going on with the world, you understand the economy. . . . There’s so much that we need to know, and we’re not getting it from playing basketball, says Boston Celtic Ray Allen in Amalie Benjamin’s May 6th Boston Globe front page story Ray Allen Shares His Love of Books.
The Globe profile of prolific reader Ray Allen traces his love of books and reading to first grade, when he won three books in a guessing contest at his Oklahoma elementary school. Thirty years later, Allen is described as the guy whose nose is always in a book in the locker room. (Doug Flutie described New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady in exactly the same way at a recent Raising A Reader MA event hosted by the United Way and Eastern Bank in Lowell.) Allen’s reasons for reading, according to the article, go deeper than expanding his knowledge beyond the world of basketball. I’ve always been a reader, Allen said. Once I got to the NBA, I picked it up again because I had so many lonely nights where I was on a plane, we lost, my mind just kind of was blank. So I started…”
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A neighborhood dad in the upper middle class community where I live recently asked, “I understand how important your work with young children and their families is. But my son is 14 years old. What can I do to inspire him to fall in love with reading for readings sake?”
Raising A Reader MA did not exist ten years ago when my neighbor’s son was in preschool. So he was not able to reap the benefits of our signature red bag book rotation program and evidence-based parent workshops and training DVD. And now my neighbor’s son, like most adolescent boys (and girls), is going through the process of separating from their parents. This is a developmentally appropriate phase for most youth that may be characterized by them radically changing their style of clothing, or making different choices about how and where to spend their free time. They are exploring different types of potential adult identities. Reading at the insistence of their mom or dad is not likely to foster a love of books among adolescents and teens.
That is why the Boston Globe article last week about the Celtics’ Ray Allen is such a delight. When teens can see the public figures they admire (whether they are sports heroes, musicians or other artists, religious leaders, etc.) reading it is likely to make a difference in their perception of how “cool” it is to read.
I am going to make sure my neighbor sees this article from the April 6th edition of the Boston Globe. I will suggest that he casually leave it out for his son to find. If there is evidence that his son reads the article then dad now has a hook for a low-pressure conversation about why Ray Allen reads that I hope that helps my young neighbor spring into reading!
Reflect and Take Action:
Read the Boston Globe piece about Ray Allen’s love for books and consider:
- Who are the celebrity role models who could inspire your child’s love of reading?
- Who were the role models who inspired YOU to love reading?
- What else could Ray Allen, Tom Brady, or other celebrity readers do to inspire young children, teens, or even adults, to read?