Daniel Bernstrom on Teaching and Writing

From Teaching to Writing

TeachingBooks asks each author or illustrator to reflect on their journey from teaching to writing. Enjoy the following from Daniel Bernstrom.

Beneath the Surface: Why I Will Always Spend Time Teaching My Students How to Read

by Daniel Bernstrom

“Dad?” My son asked me, “Am I stupid?” My son asked this heartbreaking question after a disastrous reading lesson where he struggled to read. As a full-time college English instructor and a father of two struggling readers, I understand the frustration and fear that comes with teaching someone how to read. My wife and I are both educators, yet our sons still struggle. There were points when I wanted to yell at them, but I realized that their brains were working overtime, trying to rearrange shapeshifting letters according to shapeshifting rules. It was too much for them. 
 
After my son asked me, “Am I stupid?” I returned his open gaze and said, “You’re struggling. Your mind doesn’t understand. I don’t know if you will read, but I love you. I will always love you.” 
 
We continued to work with our son, using a 100-day reading curriculum. He was especially distraught when, on day 87, we had him start over at the beginning. It destroyed his confidence, but we could see that he struggled to read independently without much help. We began again and reminded him that we had time. “We have eleven years to teach you to read. We have time.” 
 
As a writer, I wrote a book for struggling readers entitled A Bear, a Bee, and a Honey Tree (Astra, 2024). The book ends with a dejected bear… unless you turn the page and see that the bear didn’t give up. The second follow-up book, entitled A Bear, a Fish, and a Fishy Wish (Astra, 2024), captures the tender heart of my struggling seven-year-old son. It is a story about empathy, walking in each other’s shoes. 
 
In the book, a hungry bear chases and catches a homesick fish. However, before he can eat it, the bear gets swept away in a stream of running fish! The bear plunges beneath the water, where he experiences a wondrous new world. Please permit me to shamelessly quote myself: 
 
“A slip, a flip, a little dip, in a world of silver fish.” 
 
I think of that book and that bear as I teach my seven-year-old to read. These days, as he struggles to decode words, I think of all the wondrous things going on beneath the surface of my son. I know that within him is a wondrous world. His world contains fears, triumphs, and magical word-vistas. And, like the fish in my latest book, I must remember that as he evolves from living in a world without words to a world with words, he will struggle to breathe the air of my world. Evolving takes time. 
 
My son is beginning to read, and though it may take him longer than other children, we are not afraid. Reading happens in our home from infancy to adulthood. Now, because of my sons, I teach reading to my college students because I’ve learned that, like a sport or the physical health of a body, it requires time to practice and time to heal and grow. 
 
Reading is hard work. (Growth requires struggle.) Reading takes time. (Time should be the reader’s dear friend.) But the joy of reading is that it comes letter by letter, word by word, minute by minute, moment by moment, experience by experience until that strange mystical vehicle/process/evolution plunges us into a new and wondrous world. But when we get there, we will realize that the part we loved the most was the journey. Luckily, reading is an endless country with no final destination. There is so much to explore. Thank goodness it will require time.