GOOD READING HABITS LEARNED EARLY PAY LIFELONG DIVIDENDS
DEAR ABBY: I wrote your mother back in 1985, asking her to encourage my eighth-grade students to establish the wonderful habit of reading. My letter was published in The Portland Oregonian.
I still teach eighth-graders, but now I do it in California. It has been 23 years since your mother wrote my students about the importance of reading.
Today we have computers, text messaging and cell phones. It's a different world now, but reading is still important. Would you write a couple of paragraphs about the joys of reading in your column? Your advice will be heeded by my students and many other students in the country who read your column. Kids relate to celebrities, and you are definitely famous. Thank you for your help. -- RAY SMYTHE, PALM SPRINGS, CALIF.
DEAR ABBY: I wrote your mother back in 1985, asking her to encourage my eighth-grade students to establish the wonderful habit of reading. My letter was published in The Portland Oregonian.
I still teach eighth-graders, but now I do it in California. It has been 23 years since your mother wrote my students about the importance of reading.
Today we have computers, text messaging and cell phones. It's a different world now, but reading is still important. Would you write a couple of paragraphs about the joys of reading in your column? Your advice will be heeded by my students and many other students in the country who read your column. Kids relate to celebrities, and you are definitely famous. Thank you for your help. -- RAY SMYTHE, PALM SPRINGS, CALIF.
Dear Ichabod In Indio,
Tiny flaw in your communication strategy...you are writing to Dear Abby to post in a newspaper in order to message school aged children the importance of reading. First, the demographic of readers of her column are not 8Th graders. Also, as you point out kids aren't or can't read today (unless it's cyberspace or text messages. Hence, you are writing to talk to people who don't read in a venue they wouldn't open even if they stumbled across a newspaper.
Now Cr-Abby understands why the test scores in California come in right above Mississippi!
Fortunately for you and the unread masses, Cr-Abby intercepted this "spit in the wind" and I'll give you a hand.
This is going out to all my homies in the digital hood...
Yo, Pablo, Chewy, and Flavor Flav,
Put down your piece, drop you ho, and pick up Tolstoy's War and Peace. Otherwise whitey will roll one over on you when you hit the streets.
Out,
Cr-Abby
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