#2 of 15 Ways to Teach Your Child to Write Using Books - Uninterrupted Silent Reading

Our family always had this informally because my brother broke the TV when he was 7 and, in a  house full of introverts, books were our entertainment. But, when I was 11, our Ogden Elementary School instituted Uninterrupted Silent Reading. From 1:05-1:25 everyone in the school, including the janitor and school secretary, read. There were 20 minutes of profound blessed peace. The only rule was that the book had to have words. There was some discussion at first but comic books were finally allowed. You could read anything you want except "Spy Vs. Spy" (a wordless comic strip.) You could read Hardy Boys, Little House on the Prairie (very popular among pre-teen girls at the time), or Judy Blume  (though there were some questions about the immorality of some of her books.) Personally, I went to the English teacher's glass-fronted shelves and, in 20 minutes a day, over a 9-month period I read Dickens's Oliver Twist and Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.

What did USR accomplish? It developed the habit of reading. The students saw that reading was valuable, not busy work, because even grown-ups did it. They were given the opportunity to start making their own choices in books. It brought a moment of rest to an inherently busy and chaotic institution. Students learned that they could accomplish something -- actually finish a book! -- in 20 minutes a day. They began to develop a fund of stories that gave them something to write about. Let's face it, no matter what the art -- fishing,computers, chess, figure skating or music -- you don't develop the desire to do it yourself until you see someone else do it, and that includes using words.