Books Do Not Make a Reader: Rethinking Literacy, Literature, and the Myth of the “Book Lover”

Here’s a truth people don’t expect to hear from a reading teacher:

I’m a literacy expert who hates reading.

Not literacy—I adore literacy.  I live in language. I read constantly: texts, emails, captions, research, messages, transcripts, student writing, digital stories, and social media threads.

I consume text all day long.

But physical books?
Traditional sit-still-and-read-a-novel reading?
That has never been my joy.  For a long time, I felt like that made me a fraud in a profession obsessed with books.

Now I realize:
I’m not the contradiction—our definition of reading is.

We Must Separate Literacy From Literature

Educators, parents, and society at large keep acting as if “reading books” is the same thing as “being literate.”

It isn’t.

• Literacy is a skill: decoding, comprehending, analyzing, and making meaning.
  
  

• Literature is the story: the content, the ideas, the narrative, the human expression.
  
  

Books are only one way to access literature—not the gold standard, not the gatekeeper, not the test of intelligence.

A child who reads captions, comics, transcripts, interactive text, audiobooks with print, graphic novels, or digital snippets is still reading.

A person who doesn’t love books can still be a deeply literate and thoughtful human.

I’m living proof.

My Own Children Showed Me How Different the Path Can Be

I gave birth to two dyslexic kids—two children with the same parents, the same home, the same bedtime routines, the same exposure to language—and they each took a completely different path to literacy and literature.

My son loved books from the beginning.

He couldn’t read enough.  Books were his safe place, his hobby, his comfort item, his portal.

My daughter, on the other hand, needed something totally different.

I had to stop reading to her.
She didn’t want the pressure of books.
She didn’t respond to printed words the way her brother did.
Books felt like stress, not joy.

So I stepped back.
I stopped forcing.
I stopped pushing the “right” way to read.

And she found her own path—to literature first, through audiobooks.

She devoured stories with her ears long before she could decode them with her eyes. She built vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and stamina through listening.

And eventually—on her own timeline—she reached for the books themselves.

Today, she has read all seven physical Harry Potter books cover to cover.

Not because I made her.
Because she was ready.

Because we got out of her way.

Kids guide themselves to literature if we stop blocking the path with our expectations.

Books Do Not Make a Reader—Confidence Does

We treat books like sacred objects, the ultimate proof of intelligence:

• “Good readers love books.”
  
  

• “Bookworms are the smart kids.”
  
  

• “You must read more!”
  
  

We praise book reading as if it’s the only legitimate form of intellectual engagement.

But reading books is just one way to interact with text.
It isn’t superior.
It isn’t morally elevated.
It isn’t the only “real” reading.

And for many kids—especially struggling readers—books represent shame, anxiety, and fear of failure.

No wonder they avoid them.

At My Tutoring Company, We Don’t Use Books—On Purpose

This surprises people every time I say it:

Lammers Scholars is a book-free tutoring company.

We don’t avoid books because they aren’t valuable.
We avoid traditional books because they can scare kids away from literacy before they even get started.

Books are often symbols of:

• past struggles
  
  

• embarrassment
  
  

• teacher disappointment
  
  

• anxiety
  
  

• comparison
  
  

• “I’m behind.”
  
  

So we don’t start there.

We start with:

• pictures
  
  

• captions
  
  

• jokes
  
  

• digital language
  
  

• audio
  
  

• tiny text snippets
  
  

• student-created writing
  Materially, they choose, not material we impose.
  
  

We build confidence and skill first.
Books come later—when kids feel safe enough to welcome them.

And here’s the funniest, most repeated feedback I get from parents:

“After Lammers Scholars, my kid loves books.”

That’s not an accident.
When you remove the fear, books stop being monsters and start being companions.

Books are the end goal, not the beginning.

The Goal Isn’t Book Lovers—It’s Literate Humans

When we define reading as “sitting with a book,” we fail millions of kids—kids who think they are broken, when really the system is.

When we define literacy as “the ability to access, understand, and use language,” everything opens up.

Because:

• Stories exist beyond pages.
  
  

• Meaning exists beyond print.
  
  

• Literature exists everywhere humans express themselves.
  
  

Children find their own way to literature when we stop insisting there is only one path.

Some run toward books.
Some stroll toward them.
Some approach them from the side through audio, comics, or digital text.
Some don’t pick them up until years later.

Every one of those approaches is valid.

I’m a Literacy Expert Who Hates Reading—and That’s What Makes Me Good at This

Because I don’t love books, I don’t assume every child should.
Because reading isn’t my hobby, I don’t teach it like a hobby.
I teach it like a skill—a tool for unlocking the world.

And that’s why my students eventually love books:

Not because I force books into their hands,
But because I removed everything that made books feel scary in the first place.

Books don’t create readers.
Literacy creates readers.
Confidence creates readers.
Access creates readers.
Curiosity creates readers.

And literature—available in infinite forms—waits patiently for every child to find it in their own time, in their own way.