Sometimes a Break is Good

Over the first few days of summer vacation (our last day of school here was Wednesday, May 20th), I've been watching a lot of movies with my family and have not done much reading. Let me change that, I have not done any reading. Although I am a voracious reader who can put away a dozen books in a week if I so please, I have found that it's good to take a break sometimes. Part of it is that my eyes start to hurt (I have horrible vision), and part of it is that I start to over-read and have nothing else in the house left to read.

I tend to read by grabbing a stack of things I want to read, sitting them on the shelf, and plucking them off one at a time. I'm sure I will start attacking my stack sometime later this week, but it's good to get a chance to relax and enjoy some movies.

Of course, if you hold a similar definition of literacy as I do, then movies are literacy, but most of you know what I mean when I say that watching a movie is different than reading a book.

This extends into the world of the classroom by knowing that this is magnified in the lives of children, most of whom aren't big time readers the way that we are (I'm assuming that a lot of my readers are big "literacy people"). Kids need a break sometimes, and it's easy to gauge this. Give the child some free time, and if they pick a book, fine, if they don't, let them get away from it for awhile. It is difficult, coming back to a new school year, seeing a little regression in skills, but this is natural. School years are long and hard (for students and for teachers), and everyone needs a break.

There isn't really any greater purpose today other than that, sometimes a break is good.