From: Anne C Oelke <acoelke>
Date: Sun, 5 May 1996 19:12:40 -0500

Ruth Gordon wrote :

Yes, I do think that some of the very simple biographies are important for young children. I purchased a set of "Picture Biography of" for the elementary library. (Sorry, I can't give you the publisher etc. without checking at school). These work well for the "Holiday" questions, and are a good source of basic information for those students whose reading is not at a Gr 4-5 level. Often their assignments are not for in?pth information, yet we do want to encourage students to move beyond the encyclopedia. We also want to encourage the students to read and glean information, then use it. When the students are confronted with longer books, particularly those that they may find more difficult to read, they cannot find and synthesize the information.

Additionallly, these "easy" biographies answer the questions that the young student has about names/people they hear about. The young student may not wish to have a lot of information at this particular time. As s/he grows older, s/he may wish to return to the quest of information about a particular individual again--and then may wish more in?pth information. At this point the "easy" biography is not what they need. Indeed, libraries need biographies at a variety of levels, because the youth need information at a variety of levels.



Anne Oelke | "Some days are like that, acoelke at peoples.net | even in Australia!" Cambria-Friesland School Dst. | Judith Viorst in _Alexander Cambria, WI | & the Terrible, Horrible,
                               | No Good, Very Bad Day_.
Received on Sun 05 May 1996 07:12:40 PM CDT