Sigmund Brouwer gets MC Knoll reading

Getting kids to read is a challenge, but it is possible that you just have to sell it to them in the right way. Author Sigmund Brouwer wants to hook kids in, and was at MC Knoll School to get them excited about reading this summer through a mix of music, stories and fun.

Brouwer wants kids to think of themselves as story ninjas, presenting reading and writing as delivery methods for stories, and filling his presentation with many stories to hook kids – and he went for the pre-teen favorites of all things gross, whether it was hockey equipment filled with cockroaches or a preschooler rubbing chap stick on a cat’s rear end.

“I was just trying to get the kids excited about the fact that books deliver story. Too often we ask them or expect them to read, but always forget to put that one word in, read stories. If some of our reluctant readers walk away today knowing that books are there to deliver stories, then I am happy, and hopefully the teachers are happy.”

Free, voluntary reading might be the best way to increase school skills, but Brouwer emphasizes that it has to be free and voluntary, rather than something viewed as forced or as work.

The presentation was heavy on music, whether it was popular hits from the present, songs from the past, music that kids would love, or even music that some kids in the audience would definitely hate – the briefest clip of a Justin Bieber song getting some of the male students to react with abject horror.

“Humans connect through feelings, which is why music works and which is why story works. Making the point that they are both powerful and using music to grab them emotionally the same time that stories do is a lot more fun.”

Impressed with his time in Yorkton, Brouwer believes the kids at MC Knoll were a great crowd.

“The energy was fun, the kids were great, they were respectful and enthusiastic. This was one of the best schools I’ve been at.”

Now that they left the room, he hopes that they take the message from his presentation and intend to read at least two or three books over the summer season. But he wants them to read because it’s fun, and he hopes that they received that message as well.

Brouwer himself can be found at www.rockandrolllitercay.com or www.sigmundbrouwer.com