Let's start at the base: Why is it important to learn and teach to read well?

CAMPA MARIASUN Reading is highly prestigious, but it is declining. And above all, from the adult world, I believe that society has a very hypocritical attitude towards reading. Little is read, but much is praised, and less and less, I would say that young people no longer care to say that they are not lovers of reading. Having said that, there is no doubt that if the school is to be trained in reading, it should be one of the major responsibilities of the school that students leave with linguistic and literary competence. In view of the results of the external tests carried out on the students, it should be emphasized that understanding what is read is fundamental, and it is true that the school is required everything, that it has to remove from it almost perfect citizens, but it is one of its functions to get the young people reading and writing well, that is the basis. Once this has been achieved, another thing is literature, because you can know how to read well and understand what you have read and do not like literature, there is no need to be literate. Now, I've been very good at being a lover of literature, and I'd sell it like this, the literary experience has contributed to my life, me, me.

XABI SALABERRIA Sometimes, in this eagerness to cultivate reading comprehension or reading comprehension, the treatment of texts and evaluations can lead to a loss of interest in reading. We should achieve a balance, taking advantage of this literary experience, as we will bring children and young people closer to reading from enjoyment, and in this way, those who approach and those who are immersed in literature many hours will also improve their reading comprehension.

NORA URIBEETXEBERRIA: That is, they are not opposed and the challenge is to seek balance. I've been going around reading plans for a long time, and what Mariasun says is the starting point, if there's no understanding, without that basis, it's useless to build more capacities. But because you do that teaching, you can get some people to get lost on the road, if all the students have to read the same book, or if after reading the book they have to make an incredible token, they're not going to like it. It takes training among teachers, because many want to, but they don't know how to do it. You have 25 students in class and finding the right reading for everyone is not easy, you have to do more than one essay.

What do you think about the current (and not current) children's and youth literature, the fashion of pedagogical books? What do you have to ask for a good book?

URIBEETXEBERRIA: Fortunately, we have more and more production and extraordinary books are published, there is muscle. Another thing is how this production reaches families and schools, and there I see more difficulties, it is not easy to know everything that is published, mediation is essential, and the book lists published annually by the Galtzagorri Children's Literature Seminar are helpful. Working with the faculty, I feel that a lot of people don't know what's published and what's out there. Families are increasingly demanding a book to remove the pacifier, a book to explain that my grandfather has died, a book to assimilate that I cannot go on vacation… and we are all a bit lost: on the one hand, literature is asked to be a tool to solve the main problems of life, and on the other, we have an amazing production, but it does not always reach everyone.

RURAL: It would differentiate between children's books and children's literature. The space of the children's book has opened up a lot, wonderful books are made, treasures, to work on everything: the senses, the fear, the music… but that is not literature. The first line would be put by me, and people usually don't distinguish it. Teachers should be clear about the distinction, because literature is something else, it has other characteristics.

SALABERRIA: We are experiencing a good time in children's literature, but as in all cases, there is a lack of training to make the filter, to know what literature is and what not, what is good and what is bad. Responding to the fashion of pedagogical books, I take an artificial touch, as with chemical drugs: a drug for every symptom. And next to that would be the literature, like medicinal plants, more natural; if the literature is good, it can be used in the same way to arouse reflections, debates, talk about death, etc., although it is not expressly written to deal with this topic.

Do children's books and children's literature have their point of arrival? Have you been thinking about children or thinking about parents?

URIBEETXEBERRIA: Who asks them? Parents. They should know how to remove the pacifier from the child. In this fashion there is a request to respond to the needs of adults, which has nothing to do with literature.

RURAL: What happens to literature in general to children's literature: The murmur of the question “What is it for?” And how do you explain what literature is for? Roland Barthes said: literature is useless, it only helps to breathe. And so we claim: this is not for the child to leave the pacifier or to wash his teeth, because this should not be requested from the literature. Even in these books to work something, the relationship that is established between the adult and the child, which you're reading the book, is important. Literature adds to that that a story can contact you, it speaks to you, it excites you, it changes you… From there you don’t go out the same way.

SALABERRIA: That is, after reading, you're not the same as before. Beat it or stroke it, but it's about a book doing it.

RURAL: And they're not all going to be affected by the same book, but that's also an obsession with teachers, that we all feel the same emotion with the same book, and that's not possible. In these cases, the binomial experiences: the experience is what literature can offer and the experiment, the desire that comes from science, “to see if it works”. You have to try it out with the books.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: So in schools, we have so many difficulties in choosing books, and not everyone knows what to do with them, and the résumé says, for example, that you have to read two books, directly take two of those who have come to class and offer them to everyone, often generates an opposite effect in the students.

“Young people don’t read,” it’s an unfashionable statement.

SALABERRIA: Do we adults read it? I know more young people than adults who read. And it's also selling more children's and juvenile literature than adults's.

RURAL: That is, what do parents read? What about teachers? Let's say clearly at once, I've been a teacher at the Magisterium School and I know some of it. Humbly.

On the other hand, when we talk about young people, what age are we referring to? In this period of 12-16 years, in the segment of Compulsory Secondary Education, there may be a crisis, but before that, in Primary, children are passionate, enthusiastic readers.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: Well, less and less, I would say ...

RURAL: My impression is that at this stage of DBH-Bachillerato you lose your reading fondness, among other things because school responsibilities are enormous, and then whoever wants to get it back.

SALABERRIA: As curiosity, creativity and interest in what we work in general are lost at this stage. However, the way you've worked for years, as you move forward in Primary Education, reading is something that boys and girls associate, and often, reading with a job, a comprehension tab, or an exam. Then we can tell them that literature changes your life, opens up the world and a thousand things, but if in practice you do not dedicate to reading the time needed to enjoy and marvel, and if, on the contrary, every time you read it is to do some work, you assimilate it. The work that has been done on reading has consequences.

RURAL: Indeed, free spaces should be created in the school in order to be able to read and enjoy calmly.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: We spend time reading in our class, and in short, sometimes I get the feeling that we're losing too much time, because the résumé states that you have to do this and so on. We're reading at ease, talking, enjoying, without having to fill out a file or a job, but the school doesn't usually have time for it. We teachers have great pressure from the curriculum and that doesn't leave room for literary education.

Reflection of our production culture?

URIBEETXEBERRIA: Totally.

RURAL: And as I said before, behind the eternal question: “What is this for?” The biggest problem you will find in teachers: “How are we going to take half an hour to read what everyone wants?” The school is such a hierarchical institution, with its schedules and subjects…

SALABERRIA: Because you have to do a thousand things. The centre draws up a reading plan, but also a co-education plan, an IKT plan and a plan I do not know what.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: In Navarre, for example, there is a mandatory reading time per week, at the request of the resume, but it is not well defined. Then comes the external tests, which measure the comprehension and coding strategies, and if you haven't trained, you can see the results.

Do you detect difficulties in students to understand the texts?

URIBEETXEBERRIA: I do, no doubt. They're not used to reading, and that has to do with the fact that today's society doesn't help at all: what I see around it is that from a very young age, accustomed to mobiles and tablets, to very fast, noisy stimuli, then you sit down calmly and have a hard time reading them. And it's hard to start with Early Childhood Education. The trend in recent years is evident.

RURAL: It is also important to take the context into account. We are immersed in the digital age, in the midst of the tsunami, in the midst of a great change, in communication, at the human level. And it's all tied.

SALABERRIA: In Oiartzun we have given the opportunity to set up children's reading groups in the local library, and 66 children have signed up, and Oiartzun is not a big village. We have formed four groups from 2nd Primary to 4th Compulsory Secondary Education, it is once a month and do not fail, they come very comfortable. Some have more fondness and more literary education (many have received it from their homes), but everyone wants to enter that world. In Zarautz, in Getaria and in other towns they are also, and when they are offered they are complied with, what happens is that we do not offer them. Also in school, in the mornings, sitting around the carpet, we tend to start the day reading a poem or a shift story, and that moment is magical, the day you're not asked. I'm in the LH3-4 courses, I mean children 9-10 years old, not the younger ones. What happens at that moment is not measurable, what they live, what they comment… And when we make the reading plan, as you also have to evaluate it, we will ask you how many literary genres you know, etc., but what is worth is another.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: That’s right, those in sixth grade [children between 11 and 12 years old] I read out loud and everyone is attracted. It's a parenthesis for them.

RURAL: You're right, Xabi, how do you evaluate all this? How do you express it, how do you prove the magic and all that profit? All this delicacy, sensitivity, emotion...? We must demand it: we are getting a lot of things that cannot be measured.

SALABERRIA: To offer it is what needs to be done to know what is going on there. And I think the most important thing is to link the reading experience with that pleasure: if I don't know how to read well, but if I see what others enjoy with reading, what emotions arise in the group, I also want to read, it gets infected, it's not what the professor is forcing me to read. At home, the same thing happens: if parents read, it's easier to spread that desire. And we're going to have to work understanding, of course, and qualify, etc., but let's not forget this, we're going to have to put our strength into it. The point is that when we make the reading plan of the center, the objectives must be evaluable, so imagine what plans for reading will be made.

In fact, schools have to make a reading plan (for the future, schools will be asked for a reading strategy). What keys does a good reading plan need?

SALABERRIA: To begin with, there has to be a reflexive reading plan elaborated by everyone, since it has often been elaborated by the school reading officer, and then it is expected to be complied with by other teachers. The reality is that there's no time, that you do as you can and then you stay there, saved on the Drive.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: Yes, the entire educational community has to get involved in the reading plan and, of course, it has to be cross-cutting. The objectives to be set must also be realistic and not all measurable. There are competencies that need to be trained and that is the case with reading and understanding, as well as literary education. To do this, there has to be a space, a school library, money to buy books, the person responsible for managing all that, and there has to be a trapicheus booklet, because otherwise you can write everything you want on paper, but it stays in nothing, if we don't have time and resources and if we don't go all together. If I “lose” two sessions on something that is not measured, everyone has to know what we are doing and everyone has to protect it to work quietly.

Instead, I'm responsible for the school library, but I don't have a spare hour for this function and I have 150 euros to spend on books all year round. What do I do? With the cart we have gone to the library and 50 books to the bag, then we return to the month and again to 50 other centers (the centers have the possibility to ask for a bag of books in the municipal libraries and we have to take advantage of this kind of opportunities). It is also important to know the existing resources, which are working to promote all this as well as the Galtzagorri Association, and I do not know if all that is needed is known in schools.

SALABERRIA: Speaking of resources, we have EUR 300 for the whole year and we buy a book every fifteen days. I take care of the corner of the book because I like it, but it is a job: we have to change the books, fix the deteriorated, we organize readings between boys and girls of different ages, we invite writers, we make literary choices… All this requires resources, yes.

RURAL: As you say, it needs everyone's involvement, because reading should be at the base of school. For example, reading is very much related to language; how do we speak? How bad we speak! These are capabilities that are on the trunk, key to understanding the world.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: And another key: it has to be worked on systematically, because today it is not enough to perform a spectacular activity, there has to be a path that may break new crossroads and paths, but no one becomes a competent reader reading five minutes a week. We have to devote time, a follow-up of years, and on that we all have to agree: Child Education, Primary Education and Compulsory Secondary Education.

Is enough time spent reading in schools?

URIBEETXEBERRIA: It wasn't enough.

SALABERRIA: That's not enough, although every college is a world.

Asked otherwise: Is it widespread in schools where readings are offered at class time like an hour a week?

SALABERRIA: We have three half-hour spaces a week, around reading, and one of those sessions is held in the txoko of the book (school library).

URIBEETXEBERRIA: We also offer you a space in school, but I think many other schools have a lot of difficulty accessing it.

SALABERRIA: It is true that also in the schools where we have reading spaces, which is the first thing to take away: that it is a tour, that it is an absurd week… if you need hours, you will take them away to read, not to mathematics. If in the book of mathematics a sheet is empty, an eye, but the reading has not been done, nobody will notice. And it also depends on each teacher: if for some reason a teacher wants to put half an hour more math in a week, the easiest thing is to take it away from reading. It seems that these reading moments are free time.

How is the reading list prepared (and should be prepared) in schools? How does the teacher make the selection and recommendations?

RURAL: The teacher has to read, that's what I put as a starting point. From there, a number of possibilities should be made available to students, not an infinite range, but those that, in the teacher's opinion, can work. Each group of students is different, they have different linguistic and literary competences, and the teacher can choose and give about eight or ten books to choose from. I have made recommendations to the students, “read this, you’ll like it”, and sometimes I’ve got it right and sometimes I haven’t. The point is that literary experience is required to work the same everywhere, every year, in all groups. When I was a professor many years ago, there was a book that worked beautifully, Fray Perico and his Borrico, all the children were happy, and I understand the teachers who repeated that reading book year after year: this professor is asked for a thousand things and has found a book that works well year after year, group by group. But we should not defend it, even if it works, change the book, try others and offer it to children and young people as in gastronomy: vegetables, fruit, chickpeas, sushi… and each one will discover what they like the most, as in their life.

On the other hand, at the School of Magisterium those who prepared to be teachers were right for me, but in the works they gave me they made me see that this book was very useful for the children to overcome shame and that for something else. The need to argue again for what it serves, asking for a utility to literature. It saddens me, year after year, the most difficult thing is to claim that literature will not serve you to solve this or that problem.

SALABERRIA: Regarding the list of books, we take into account the list of recommendations made annually by the Galtzagorri Association, as it is a great guarantee in the literature of children in Euskera. To this we can add what Mariasun says: the teachers have to mediate, we know the students and we can advise and recommend them a book or another. To do this, of course, we have to read and know the books.

On the other hand, making a varied offer is good, but not everything is free; if we want to develop a literary education, also in this mediation, it is up to us to reach those books that do not arrive otherwise: some books get easily, like with movies and others, and other books will not reach them so easily, but if the teachers know that it is very appropriate for that student, we also have to make proposals, because if you do not always read books or books, they won't. And to read the book we have offered you, you may need an accompaniment, create a conversation, work through the reading group… In literary education this way you will advance.

RURAL: I changed my mind about that chewed literature that we think is bad and they like, because I realized that those books play a very important role: they reinforce the reader's self-esteem, that children think they're readers, and that's also very important. When I was a professor, I struggled not to be read by the Five, Happy Hollisters -- and then I realized that those who have written are precisely those mediocre or bad books. The writer Enid Blyton has a bad name, the label of a bad writer, but he has made a great contribution to the dissemination of literature. And now, when I see that you're reading books that I don't like, I think, well, those books serve to reinforce self-esteem as a reader, you're going to jump on to other kinds of books, as we've all done.

Like Fray Perico and his Borrico, is there a book in Basque that has a guaranteed success among children and young people?

RURAL: When I was a professor, Nicolás Txiki. And there's also the Harry Potter phenomenon: we can discuss whether to read, if not, which library to turn to to hobbies us... but suddenly there comes a phenomenon like this and shakes everything that is said. Imagine that these are volumes without illustrations, many pages long, and children 7-8 years old have been very competing to read more.

SALABERRIA: Katta's books, Miren Agur Meabe's collection, are also widely read. They are successful among children 4 to 7 years of age.

How many books do your students read in a course?

SALABERRIA: Lots of albums. If there are 23 students in class, they each bring an album to school and in return they will all read in two months, in total about 40 albums to the course. And books, like the Xaguxar collection, in four or five courses.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: I say “take and try, and if you didn’t like it, leave it, but first try.”

How to make a proper reading workshop at school?

SALABERRIA: The reading workshop should offer the possibility of living the reading in different ways: reading adults, reading themselves, silently, aloud, in a group, mixing people of different ages, bringing the writer or illustrator to school…

URIBEETXEBERRIA: Reading by pairs works really well, together. For example, older students prepare at home and then read the younger ones, aloud, motivates them a lot.

SALABERRIA: It's about creating emotion. Finishing the workshop with a creative exercise is also a good opportunity to complete the session: briefly represent what was read, do a poem, change the end of the story read…

URIBEETXEBERRIA: And create a dialogue about reading, sharing impressions. How many interpretations, what excited this book, what it has seen, what it has realized… It enriches a lot the reading.

SALABERRIA: We now want to start making meetings between peoples. Many meetings are held around sport, also around the literature these kinds of activities and dynamics, related to relationships and experiences, can be carried out to share an experience. It would be a question of readers' workshops from different locations reading the same book and making meetings once a year.

It is clear, listening to you, that you can enjoy yourself and that children and young people enjoy the hours dedicated to literature. Isn't it true that they're not readers?

RURAL: We have already said it before, I see reading fondness more linked to elementary school children, boys and girls read much more than adults and at ease. But then in Compulsory Secondary Education a thousand stories pass and literature is not a priority.

SALABERRIA: These moments, spaces and experiences that we mentioned should also be created in the ESO, as on their own they would not approach books. They arrive without doing anything, social media, Youtube, etc. ESO classrooms are regrettable: Why aren't there books on the shelves, why isn't there a corner to read?

What enemies does the hobby of reading have?

URIBEETXEBERRIA: We live in the society of speed, in the society of screens, stimuli and image, and it's almost revolutionary to stand, take calm and read.

SALABERRIA: Everything goes very fast and in small doses. Poetry, for example, demands another body, another time and a rhythm, something that is not contemplated in the educational model we have. Our way of living, and more and more, is going in the other direction, and we need time to address literature with foundation, but what we lack is time. We want critical students, but everything goes in line, without a moment to think or to think.

RURAL: If politicians wanted to, how many things could be done to encourage reading. Television, for example, is a great tool to defend the book, but nothing is done, because they are not really interested, the discourse they use is a little hypocritical.

SALABERRIA: After all, it's also said discursively that it's good to think, but they're not interested in thinking about citizens, and in addition to making them feel literature and reading, it gives you tools to think and change the world.

The school librarian figure does exist, but it is no longer either in the CAV or in Navarra. Do schools have a library and in what situation?

URIBEETXEBERRIA: The picture is black. There are libraries in some centers, but with shelves formed many years ago. There is no money to renovate the books, many times there is no professor freed to turn it around, sometimes a few hours of dedication are given to some professor by decision of the center, and often you don't know very well how to do it, where to go to supply the library. I've seen the libraries of abandoned schools. On several occasions, the library has been removed directly because another room was needed.

SALABERRIA: In general, school libraries are abandoned. The corner of the book of our ikastola is an attractive space, they are organized by genders and ages, all classrooms go weekly at specific times, special activities are organized there… and yet, there is a jump from what I do to what can be done.

Well, looking at the situation of school libraries, let's go to village libraries. Are they attractive places for children and young people, well-maintained and dynamic spaces? Do you know positive examples?

RURAL: Three decades ago, one from Salamanca and the Haurtxoteka from the Old Donostia Party were the most important children's libraries in the Spanish State, when libraries lived a golden age. They have now spread to more countries.

SALABERRIA: There are very different models, in space, for example, of traditional and more flexible models, with more mobile furniture, but I would say that the most common is the library that is limited to the loan: taking the book, translating it… For me it is important, as we have said before, that things happen: relationships, places of creation, shared experiences… If what you do in the library you do nothing but choose and bring the book. Therefore, it is interesting that libraries have reading clubs, writing and reading workshops, meeting spaces for families, spaces that need silence to be able to speak peacefully... And the librarian should not only do the administrative work, but also the one who goes to small businesses or small bookstores: recommend this or the other, act as an intermediary, walk on the other side of the counter, be, talk, animate.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: Children's and youth reading clubs are also starting to open their doors in libraries. In Pamplona, for example, the youngest have a comic book reading club.

SALABERRIA: In Getaria and Zarautz, for example, children’s reading clubs have also been launched this year, in addition to the local writers themselves, Uxue Alberdi and Nerea Loiola. Peru Magdalena, Julen Gabiria, Amaia Egidazu, Ainhoa Aldazabal… are also in it.

***

At the round table we have Izaskun Jauregi, technical secretary of the Galtzagorri association. He has taken the floor to stress that there are two keys that greatly influence the dynamics of the library: the library’s budget, and who directs or works on it, how it is implied. He has also reported that many libraries have direct contact with schools, as students come to the village library to visit us. On the other hand, he states that the teaching staff is thirsty to work on the theme: “Thanks to an agreement with the Basque Government, Galtzagorri offers workshops to promote reading in CAV schools. In it, we present the new books to elementary and high school teachers and give them some keys on what to do with them. Well, every year we have more than a hundred requests (the first year there were up to 180), but, for the moment, the convention only gives us access to 72 centers.”

***

Finally, what recommendations would you give your parents jumping out of schools and libraries home?

URIBEETXEBERRIA: As simple as to put it to read with the children.

RURAL: The first step is to count on the smallest, to count, just oral, words, musicality… To have connection with the child, as we speak less among ourselves. And then, step by step, introduce it into the books. I would also tell parents that if they want their reading children, they read it themselves.

SALABERRIA: Knowing what to see, to learn what, to be an example is, without a doubt, the basis. And I would add that I take time to be quiet, to count, to read and to live what is created. Sitting with the child and dedicating five minutes to the book makes no sense, choosing the book you like the most and entering really, enjoying, because whoever has enjoyed it will convey that you can enjoy reading.

URIBEETXEBERRIA: Sometimes we're by our side, but we're not, and as Xabi says, you actually have to get to it. We need quality time, but for everything, because I see absent fathers and mothers, and we're worried at school, children feel nervous, you can't pay attention to them... The restlessness is above, there is no peace of mind. Outside all the stimuli and acting calm, happy, you don't need any more, you don't have to be an expert.

 

VOCALS:

Mariasun Landa Etxebeste, writer

Born in Errenteria in 1949. Graduated in social work studies, he studied philosophy in Paris. He was a professor of children, and since there were few materials in Basque at that time, he began writing stories in Basque for his students. During the 25 years prior to his retirement he has been a professor of Teaching Literature at the University School of Teaching at the UPV/EHU. As a writer he has received several awards: Lizardi Award (Txan fantasma), HGL Euskadi Award (Alex), National Prize of Spain (Crocodile under bed). Eusko Ikaskuntza Prize, Emakunde Prize, Carta Saria. His books have been translated into many languages. They have just been appointed honorary member of the Basque Language Academy.

Xabi Salaberria Gonzalez, Professor

Born in Oiartzun in 1983. Graduated in Master's Degree in Primary Education and a student of the Degree in Philosophy from the UPV/EHU. He has received training in children's and youth literature and children's philosophy. Since 2005 he has been a professor at the Ikastola de Infancy, where he is a member of the Pedagogical Reflection group and responsible for the Rincón del Libro. He is a member of the Literary Association and Editorial 1545 that unites literature and thought. In both cases, the main objective is the literature on children and youth. Guide children's and youth reading groups in the Oiartzun library and energizes philosophical conversations in the Agora of Questions project. Interestingly, he is also a member of the Hitzen Linoa and Ku-ku associations.

Nora Uribeetxeberria Iriarte, Professor

Born in Legazpi in 1972. As soon as he finished his studies in Magisterium at the Public University of Navarra, he began working as a professor at the Ikastola Arangoiti in Lumbier, where he has worked since 1994. Among other things, he is responsible for the reading plan and the library at ikastola. He has completed the Master's Degree in Reading, Books and Literature for Children and Youth at the University of Zaragoza and the School of Literature for Children and Youth at the UPV. He is also a member of the Galtzagorri Association and a member of the Children's Seminar. She organizes the Lumbier Feminist Reading Club and is a member of the Civican Tales Lookout Club.