NY Times article on kids' summer reading

 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/summer-must-read-for-kids-any-book=
/

Last 40% of article:

.........One of the most notable findings was that children improved
their reading scores even though they typically weren’t selecting the
curriculum books or classics that teachers normally assigned for
summer reading. That conclusion confirms other studies suggesting that
children learn best when they are allowed to select their own books.

Surprisingly, the most popular book during the first year of the
Florida study was a biography of Britney Spears.

“What that said to me was that there is a kid culture and a media
culture that transcends what we think kids should be reading,” Dr.
McGill-Franzen said. “I don’t think the majority of these kids ever
read during the summer, but given the opportunity to select their own
books and discuss what they knew about, ‘The Rock’ or Hannah Montana
or Junie B. Jones was, in itself, motivating to them.”

Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute and
author of a new book about how children learn, “Mind in the Making,”
said she hoped that the findings would encourage parents and teachers
to allow children to select their own reading material.

“A child’s interests are a door into the room of reading,” said Ms.
Galinsky, who said her own son turned away from books during grade
school. Because he liked music, she encouraged him to read music
magazines or books about musicians. Her son later regained an interest
in reading and has a Ph.D.

“If your child is turned off by reading, getting them to read anything
is better than nothing,” she said.

But giving children a choice in the books they read is a message many
parents resist.

At a bookstore recently, Dr. McGill-Franzen said she witnessed an
exchange between some mothers encouraging their fifth- and sixth-grade
daughters to read biographies of historical figures, when the girls
wanted to select books about Hannah Montana, a character played by the
pop star Miley Cyrus.

“If those books get them into reading, that has great repercussions
for making them smarter,” Dr. McGill-Franzen said. “Teachers and
middle-class parents undervalue kids’ preferences, but I think we need
to give up being so uptight about children’s choices in books.”

(end)

There are well over 100 comments so far.

Call it a hunch, but I suspect that one reason the parents you see in
BOOKSTORES are so resistant to let kids pick and choose what to read
is the high cost of new books! (I buy maybe one brand-new book per
year - and that's usually for someone else.) If parents relied more on
libraries, thrift stores and free book  exchanges (often at the local
recycling center), chances are there'd be fewer power struggles and
more focus on slowly cultivating an EVOLVING love of reading.

Lenona.

 

In article <30ed1298-8f86-4066-9f9b-
5ebe230eea0d@l14g2000yql.googlegroups.com>, lenona321@yahoo.com
says...

Yeah-but... I sometimes feel that, it is cool when other people
don't read, and stay stupid.  Because then, they won't be able to
compete with me.  Like for jobs.

I am not joking.  On a certain level, I actually want for other
people to be stupid, ignorant, and lazy.  With poor attitudes.  
Because then, I can look superior.  And, in fact, will be
superior.

If the masses get their act together, I will have to work harder
to keep up.


--
Get Credit Where Credit Is Due
http://www.cardreport.com/
Credit Tools, Reference, and Forum

 

Here's comment # 84:

 August 3, 2010 10:01 am

As some one who has experienced poverty, I can tell you all from
personal experience that there are many reasons poor people avoid
libraries. One is transportation. The second is fines. I’ve had kids
lose books for weeks only to find that when we returned them we could
have purchased the paperback copy of the book for the cost of the
fines.

I once checked out two videos from the local library, got sick, and
forgot to return them for several weeks. I was charged $60 in fines. I
could have bought the videos for $10 a piece on Amazon (I checked).

Another time, I thought I had renewed the books online, but the
renewal didn’t go through for some reason. That was 15 books (there
are three of us in the household) several weeks late.

Library fines seem small to the middle class, but for people who are
struggling to get by (and more likely to be delayed returning the
book), they can be a big enough burden to discourage library use. We
eventually stopped going.

— drk

(end)

Well, that's something to think about, anyway.

One thing to remember, I think, is that it's Not That Hard to keep
undesirable books COMPLETELY out of the house until the child is about
5 or 6! Preschoolers will happily absorb, say, "Aesop's Fables" as
eagerly as they do trash.

Which is why the following passage puzzles me. It's from the otherwise
very good, no-nonsense book "Reading for the Love of It," written in
1986 by the well-known Canadian journalist Michele Landsberg.  Quote:
"....if the child insists on hearing Care Bear stories read aloud,
read them, but follow up with something as vibrant as William Steig."

I mean, how many kids over 6 would WANT to hear anything like a Care
Bears story anyway? Also, what is so hard about saying to a younger
child "no, we are not going to look for that book at the library,
because I've seen it and I don't enjoy it, and it's not nice to ask me
(or anyone else) to read something aloud to you unless we can BOTH
enjoy it."

Plus, in bookstores, kids with their own money should probably be
asked to pay for their own books if the parents don't want to. It
would make them think twice.


Lenona.

 

On 08/06/10 14:13, Lenona quoted a NYT article...:


It's nice to know that SOMETIMES there are penalties for carelessness
and stupidity.  No sympathy at all.  I think that was just an excuse,
anyway.  It seems insane to pay $20 for a book that you'll only read
once and then either store for a lifetime or contribute to the library
or  Goodwill.

Perhaps that's the reason that some people are "struggling"...

--
Cheers, Bev
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Nothing in the universe can withstand the relentless application
  of brute force and ignorance."         -- Frd, via Dennis (evil)