Scary stories offer a fantastic and often-neglected opportunity to improve and cultivate student literacy. They have an inherent and powerful hook that most genres lack: They are simply fun to read. And nothing is as strong as this fun factor in education. It can inspire, encourage, and entice even the most reluctant child to devour a book. It can create a passion for reading. Just imagine. Students who love to read!

Unfortunately, imagining is what we are left with in too many cases. More than one million students drop out of high school every year in the United States. Why? It’s a complicated question. But we can be sure that reading too many scary stories does not make the top ten list of reasons. It doesn’t even make the top one million list. On the other hand, poor reading skills – and accompanying low self-esteem – does rank near the top. (There’s your scary story right there.)

Perhaps related to this is the fact that a lot of boys aren’t wild about reading. For a variety of reasons, they end up looking at reading as something women and girls do. According to best-selling children’s author Jon Scieszka, “Boys often have to read books they don't really like. They don't get to choose what they want to read. And what they do like to read, people often tell them is not really reading.”

Storyteller and author O. Penn-Coughin serves as a positive male role model for reading and writing. And his scary stories + boys = a match made in horror heaven! But scary stories don’t discriminate: girls love them too.

Strangely enough, it’s adults who are sometimes scared of scary stories. They worry children will get too scared. Is Johnny’s inner child being scared and scarred beyond recognition and repair? Hardly. The biggest complaint coming from kids about most scary story books is that they’re not scary enough. In any case, a little fright now and again is a very healthy thing.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” FDR said. Well, when it comes to scary stories, we should actually embrace the fear. That’s because aside from their incredible language arts benefits, scary stories help children learn to deal with fear. And that is an essential part of growing up. The frightening aspects of scary stories provide a much-needed and safe arena in which children encounter danger and walk away unscathed and emotionally stronger.

If children are going to be successful in this scary, wonderful world, these are two great skills to have: being a good reader and knowing how to control fear.

The only question you have to ask yourself now is are your students getting enough scary stories in their diet?

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