What I Learned About Literacy from (AR)ainbow Loveseat

It starts with a rainbow loveseat. My mother made my colorful loveseat when I was in elementary school. She had harvested an old beaten up Salvation Army drop off from town and splurged a little on a colorful, comfy fleece material. A few staples and a bit of sewing was all it took to give me what would prove to be the most loved piece of furniture in my life.

That relic of my childhood is long gone, but the memory of all the countless hours spent reading in that loveseat are anything but. I can remember leisurely snuggling up with a blanket and whatever book I decided to read at that moment. I remember savoring each page, sometimes even reading my favorites again and again. From Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events to the classic Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, I spent my childhood surrounded by a colorful rainbow loveseat and stark, black-and-white pages.

At school, I was as close to a regular in our little library as you could be. Each day, I would take out two or three books, and each night, I would stay up and read all two or three of those books. Come the next day, I’d visit the library and do it all over again. The weekends were spent playing outside and waiting to read again on Monday.

My teachers often commented during Parent-Teacher Conferences about my reading habits to my mother. She’d smile and listen, but her mind was imagining me curled up on the loveseat, her arms wrapping around my shoulders briefly as she dropped off a snack or another blanket. The teachers were not imagining a rainbow loveseat. They themselves were not impressed by my actual reading. In fact, most were probably ignorant of it as I never actually read my novels in class. They were merely impressed by what I did after I read: I took dozens and dozens of AR tests.

My educational culture became dominated by the ever present Accelerated Reader Program: a system designed to calculate children’s reading ability and comprehension using a computer system to administer a multiple-choice test about any given book. The better score you achieve on the test, the more “AR Points” you are granted. Accumulating points was required as a part of your grade. But points could also be redeemed for prizes: candy, toys, pencils, erasers, all distributed in front of the entire class each week.

It wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to say that my every waking thought was pinpointed on AR tests. The rainbow loveseat was no longer a safe haven for relaxed reading- I read with a ferocity now and in no particular place. In fact, I read everywhere in the house to insure that I read as much as I possibly could each day. I would even sneak my book to the dinner table and read a little in my lap when my mother was not paying attention to me. I had to fill as much time as I could with AR reading. I would be tucked into bed, and when the book was shut behind my mother, I would flip the switch on my lamp and continue to accumulate points.

I would choose books to read by factoring in how many points a book was worth and how long it was. Smaller but more advanced reads were my go to. I could read them quickly and take more tests each day, ultimately gaining exceptionally more and more AR points as fast as possible. While many of my classmates struggled to meet the measly minimum requirements of 20 to 40 points, I was amassing hundreds of points each month. Content mattered minimally to me when it came to choosing a book, and rarely can I even recall any of the stories that I read during that time. They didn't really matter to me; I enjoyed the feeling of finishing each book like a shopaholic enjoys the swipe of his credit card. Reading the books was not what kept me going; it was watching the numbers and the stark astonishment of my teachers’ faces simultaneously grow. I was not reading for pleasure. I was reading solely for points.

When middle school turned into the same AR song and dance as elementary school, I continued to thrive in point satisfaction. AR had already become a defining element of my identity by this point. My literacy self-worth was based on AR point accumulation. Students would compare points earned and categorize other students based on AR performance. I can remember having a “competition” with another girl who read voraciously and had 100 points over my total. On the bus, a group of mutual friends had challenged us to read the same novel and see who finished first. That night, I skimmed through each page like a hurricane sweeping through a city- hurriedly knocking over the physical words in my way of reaching the back cover of the novel. I barely remember the book’s protagonist, let alone the any other content of the story. And when I entered the computer lab to victoriously be the first to take the AR test, I ended up failing miserably.

I can remember staring at the red tinted screen, in pure disbelief of what I saw. I was not a student who failed an AR test! What had I done? I felt that I had ruined everything that I had worked so hard on for years. Thomas Osborne eloquently describes his similar experience when he failed to write a first draft of his essay by saying, “I think it was at that moment that the weight of my failure finally crushed me. I had put so much heart and soul into what I had written that I didn’t want to admit to myself that it was awful. I didn’t want to, but… I had to” (Osborne 648-649). In my own moment, failure similarly opened my eyes to the reality of the atrocity of my reading habits. Like Osborn, I had put so much effort and time into AR that I didn’t want to admit to myself that what I was doing might not be right. I was winning prizes and had the admiration of my teachers and peers, but this reading was nothing like the reading I used to do on the rainbow loveseat. Like Osborne’s realization that writing papers to be a “cutout of the perfect student” only led to him writing a miserable essay, I realized that I hadn’t just failed an AR test, I had failed myself by trying to be a “perfect student” (Osborne 650). I needed to embrace my own way of reading like Osborne came to embrace his own way of writing. This AR ravaging was not the literary experience that came naturally to me. My true literary style included the rainbow love seat, a cozy soft blanket, and a leisurely pace that let me really soak up a story and all its ideas.

Luckily for me, high school was not only right around the corner, but it was an oasis of freedom in the dry desert of mandatory AR reading. No longer was AR used in the classroom. Required reading became only a few novels given to you in your English period that the whole class would savor and study in detail. With that lessening of the bulk of reading expectations that I had experienced in my education up until that point, I found the power to choose books that I wanted to read. I wasn’t persuaded by levels or points but by content, author, and my personal interests of the time. I was able to appreciate my own unique tastes and develop my own kind of reading style.

I can remember clearly a particularly fulfilling read I had at the end of my freshman year. After months of assigned readings and projects, I had a night of no homework. It was a Thursday, so I was sitting on the second floor commons area waiting for my brother to be done with band practice and for our mother to pick us up. I was all alone surrounded by rows of lockers, bright windows, and the stark stillness of a place that is usually bustling with human interactions. On a whim, I decided to visit the library and pick the first book that looked interesting to me. There were no AR stickers on the spines to influence my choice; there were only cover photos and back cover blurbs. I found it harder to find a book, and I ended up spending a good half hour just roaming the shelves. Back in the hallway, I curled up against my locker with The Alchemist in my hands. The spine of the book cracked open, and I unknowingly entered a magical world I had long since forgotten about. I found myself focusing less and less on what was around my body, and more and more on the story that was playing out in my mind. The world melted away and all that was left was the story. It was like I forgot I was reading. The characters once again became vibrant and meaningful; I felt myself become a part of the story unfolding in a way that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I didn’t have the thought of a test distracting me in the back of my mind. I was reading to simply be reading. I could have sworn right then and there that those red tiles below me and the tall metal locker frames behind me were covered in bright flannel material. The world and its many colors meshed together with the black and white pages in my mind. I was finally back on my rainbow loveseat, all these years later.

In the autobiography of Malcolm X, he explains how he came to mature in his reading and writing abilities. While in prison, Malcolm X devoured books in the library in a way that he had never done in school or at home. He read about everything that interested him and became intelligent in a way that he had never been before. It got  to the point that people took notice and would ask him, “What’s your alma mater?” (Malcolm X 126). Reading this account of how another person came to love books, I couldn’t help but smile sadly as I thought of my own literary maturing. I wished that I had read that way when I was in elementary and middle school. Do not misunderstand, I definitely devoured books in a similar fashion, but I did so merely to finish my books. While Malcolm X’s reading gained him knowledge and substance for his life, my reading only gained imaginary AR points redeemable for stickers and pencils. Never again do I want to be imprisoned by reading. I want books to open doors for my mind, not give me artificial satisfaction or a temporary ego boost.  

Today, I have found a love of slow, thoughtful reading once again. I have found that, released of oppressive pressures placed on my reading, I am able to expand my interests and really know what it is like to savor a good book. My shelves are full of books that I have picked to read of my own free will. No longer do I value a book based on its ability to provide points, but rather for its ability to take me somewhere new and show me something amazing. Sometimes I feel the old urge to read for quantity again, especially when I look at my short reading log in my daily journal or see the yearly Reading Challenge on my Goodreads account, but I resist. I try to value what I have learned from reading and appreciate my enjoyment of a story rather than worry about the amount of books I have read. I have learned that, for me especially, literacy is something that is best enjoyed at my own pace, curled up in the feeling of a comfy, colorful loveseat.

Works Cited

Malcolm X. “Learning to Read.” Writing About Writing A College Reader, 2nd. ed., edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St.Martin's, pp. 119–127.

Osborne, Thomas. “Late Nights, Last Rites, and the Rain-Slick Road to Self-Destruction.” Writing About Writing A College Reader, 2nd ed., edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St.Martin's, pp. 647–652.