The Child Is More Than a Reading Level

By Noel Galon de Leon

This is the third and final part of my reflections on the National Training of Community Librarians of Room to Read’s Partner Children’s Libraries, organized by Aklat Lunduyan of Room to Read and the National Library of the Philippines. One of the sessions that left the deepest impression on me was Understanding the Child Reader, facilitated by Mr. Al Santos, Senior Advisor of Room to Read. While my previous columns reflected on the importance of libraries and what makes them work, this session reminded me of the most important reason they exist: the child.

For years, we have measured children’s reading through numbers, levels, assessments, and standardized expectations. We ask whether a child is reading above grade level or below it, whether they have mastered phonics, whether they can answer comprehension questions correctly, or whether they have reached the next reading benchmark. These measurements certainly have their place, but somewhere along the way, I began to wonder if we have become so preoccupied with measuring children that we have forgotten to understand them. We often treat reading as an academic destination instead of a deeply personal journey. Mr. Al Santos challenged that assumption from the very beginning of his session.

He reminded us that every child enters a library carrying a different story. Some children grow up surrounded by books while others encounter their very first story inside a community library. Some are encouraged by parents who read to them every night, while others learn to love stories entirely on their own. Some come from neighborhoods where books are common, while others have never owned one. If every child’s journey is different, why do we insist on expecting them to travel exactly the same path? That question stayed with me throughout the morning because it extends far beyond libraries and into the way we think about education itself.

One of the most beautiful ideas introduced during the session was the concept of Mirrors and Windows. Children need books that function as mirrors, allowing them to recognize themselves, their language, their family, their culture, and their everyday experiences within the pages they read. At the same time, they also need windows that open toward unfamiliar places, different cultures, new professions, and lives far beyond their own communities. Reading should affirm identity while also expanding imagination. A library that offers only mirrors limits curiosity, while one filled only with windows risks making children feel invisible. Good collections balance both because every child deserves to feel seen before they are invited to see the world.

As a publisher committed to regional literature and children’s books, this idea resonated deeply with me. I have long believed that Filipino children deserve stories written in the languages they speak at home and rooted in landscapes they immediately recognize. A child from Guimaras should occasionally find Guimaras inside a book. A Hiligaynon-speaking child should discover characters who speak like their grandparents. Yet representation alone is not enough. Those same children should also encounter stories from Mindanao, Batanes, Africa, Japan, and countless other places because literature allows us to travel without leaving our seats. The best children’s libraries make both journeys possible.

Perhaps the most provocative conversation centered on reading levels. Many schools continue classifying books according to rigid systems that determine what children are supposedly allowed to read. While these systems are designed to guide instruction, they often become barriers instead of bridges. Advanced readers become bored because they are confined to books that no longer challenge them, while struggling readers become embarrassed when everyone knows they have been assigned the “easy” shelf. Labels that are meant to help sometimes become quiet reminders of difference. Instead of encouraging curiosity, they risk turning reading into another classroom test.

Mr. Al Santos offered an alternative perspective that I found both refreshing and liberating. He reminded us that the purpose of a library is not to examine children but to nurture readers. One statement drew immediate applause from the participants: “In field testing, we test the book and not the child’s intellect.” That single sentence completely reframed the conversation. The responsibility lies not in proving whether children are intelligent enough for books but in asking whether books are meaningful enough for children. Libraries should never become spaces where children feel judged. They should become places where they are free to explore, make unexpected choices, and discover books that surprise them.

The discussion that followed became even more enlightening because it moved beyond theory into lived experience. Librarians from Baguio, Cebu, Davao, Palawan, Guimaras, and other communities shared stories that challenged long-held assumptions about children’s reading habits. One librarian observed Grade 6 pupils joyfully reading simple picture books without embarrassment. Another described younger children confidently borrowing more complex books simply because they were fascinated by the illustrations or curious about the topic. A teacher from Palawan defended the value of wordless picture books, explaining that children who cannot yet decode text still create powerful stories through images. Listening to these experiences reminded me that curiosity has never followed grade levels, and imagination has never respected classification systems.

During the conversation, I also found myself sharing a reflection that had been quietly forming in my mind throughout the session. I remarked that perhaps the preferences of children should carry more weight than the preferences of adults deciding what children ought to read. Adults often select books based on educational outcomes, moral lessons, or curriculum objectives. Children, on the other hand, choose books because they are funny, mysterious, beautiful, frightening, adventurous, or simply impossible to put down. We sometimes dismiss those motivations as unimportant, yet they are precisely what transform reluctant readers into lifelong ones. Reading begins with desire long before it becomes achievement.

The more I reflected on the session, the more I realized that our educational culture often celebrates compliance rather than curiosity. We praise children for reading the “right” books instead of encouraging them to discover books that genuinely speak to them. We ask whether they have finished a title before asking whether they loved it. We evaluate comprehension before celebrating wonder. Somewhere between assessment forms and reading checklists, the joy of reading quietly disappears. Perhaps this explains why so many children stop reading voluntarily the moment school no longer requires it.

I left the session convinced that the future of children’s libraries depends not only on stronger collections or better buildings but also on a profound shift in philosophy. Libraries should be among the few places where children are trusted to follow their curiosity without fear of failure or judgment. They should encounter books that reflect their identities while also introducing them to worlds they have never imagined. Most importantly, they should leave believing that reading is not another school requirement but a lifelong source of pleasure, discovery, and belonging. After all, the child reader is never just a reading level. Every child enters the library carrying an entire world, and perhaps the greatest responsibility of every librarian is to honor that world before asking the child to enter another.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a writer and professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas, where he teaches in the Division of Professional Education and at UP High School in Iloilo. He is also the secretary of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts’ National Committee on Literary Arts.