Seattle Press on Line - New Reading Strategy: Sonics

New Reading Strategy: Sonics

By Patricia Stambor

Jan 24, 2001 -- According to a glossy flyer distributed this month to Seattle's public school children, reading 20 minutes for 20 days guarantees success.

This bold message is delivered courtesy of the Sonics, Starbucks, and Airborne Express, and it sounds like a good deal for children who want to be "eligible to receive outstanding Sonics stuff." All a kid needs to do is to find a responsible "coach" to sign their name next to the 20 basketballs pictured on the flyer, one for each day he or she reads.

Basketball is fun to watch and play, and the wealthy sports hero pictured on the flyer probably will inspire some children to read. Makes sense to me, but seven-plus hours of reading for one month won't lead to the kind of success I had in mind for my own kids when they learned to read. These days all kinds of kid-centered marketing seem to be justified under the educational sacred cow--but I certainly don't want to be booed for being a poor sport.

I like the game of basketball. Growing up in the Palouse hills of Eastern Washington, we looked forward to weekend high school basketball games during the dreary winter months when farmers couldn't work their fields. We didn't mince words, though--winning scores led to the State B League basketball tournament, not to better reading skills.

No doubt this good deed by the Sonics is a way to reach out to kids who like sports but are "underachievers" as readers. Anything that gets them to read is a good thing--even an "outstanding" Sonics toy dangling at the end of the stick. So what if at the same time it reminds parents to buy Starbucks lattes and take their kids to Sonics games. (Of course, kids who read for the joy of reading may also participate.)

Do we really think this quick-fix, flashy flyer is going to make thoughtful readers out of our children, or is this a cheap promotional platform for the Sonics? Perhaps it's a little of both, but we would be fools to think school kids will gain anything beyond Sonics toys from such an ill-conceived and oversimplified reading assignment. Meanwhile, the Sonics walk away more closely bonded to their young customers.

Our schools deserve an F-minus for cultivating a relationship between young students and a professional sports team, a relationship that does far more for the billion-dollar pro-sports industry than it does for reading standards in our schools.

The big news of the month (which sadly upstaged more pressing issues, like Sound Transit and Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday) was the sale of the Sonics to a team of investors led by Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, who paid $200 million dollars for the ball club. The former owner, the Ackerley Group, paid $11 million for the team in 1983. Thanks in part to a risky $74 million investment by the city (that's you and me) for the renovation of KeyArena, the Sonics' home, the value of the team has increased eighteenfold. All this profit went into Barry Ackerley's pocket, and none came back to the citizens who financed it.

Parents, teachers, tutors, librarians, writers and all who have managed to inspire young children to enjoy books without the help of professional sports teams: Give yourselves a pat on the back.

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