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Re: Trying to define "reluctant readers"
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From: bookmarch_at_aol.com
Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2011 10:01:59 -0500 (EST)
"So from my perspective - what the "system" wanted my children to read turn ed them off to reading (peruse a school's summer reading list and see what I mean). What my children wanted to read turned them "on." We emphasize bot h since required reading is just that - required to get the needed "grade" . But I wanted to raise children with a lifelong love of reading. That's why there are so many books on our shelves and in a library and in a bookst ore. Because somewhere in that pile is a story that will captivate a child and not let them go.
But if reading is a chore - then turn them on with an audio that has a good reader. I tell urban parents to do that when they are too tired to read to their child at night, or use them at bath time, or in the car.
Maybe if we worked harder to match the right book to the right child - ones they love instead of the ones WE love, this conversation about reluctant r eaders would be less urgent......Christine"
Not to belabor the obvious, but what Christine says here about summer readi ng lists, and the contrast between our expectations and the actual interest s of young people applies to many boys and to nonfiction. Summer reading li sts rarely, if ever, feature the kind of practical how-to books a kid might want to read over the summer in order to learn specific camping, sports, g aming, skills. And yet that is engaged, active, reading. So long as we tell practical, do-it-yourself-oriented boys that our so-called "fun reading" m eans fiction, we convince them that their interests cannot be found in book s.
Received on Sat 05 Feb 2011 10:01:59 AM CST
Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2011 10:01:59 -0500 (EST)
"So from my perspective - what the "system" wanted my children to read turn ed them off to reading (peruse a school's summer reading list and see what I mean). What my children wanted to read turned them "on." We emphasize bot h since required reading is just that - required to get the needed "grade" . But I wanted to raise children with a lifelong love of reading. That's why there are so many books on our shelves and in a library and in a bookst ore. Because somewhere in that pile is a story that will captivate a child and not let them go.
But if reading is a chore - then turn them on with an audio that has a good reader. I tell urban parents to do that when they are too tired to read to their child at night, or use them at bath time, or in the car.
Maybe if we worked harder to match the right book to the right child - ones they love instead of the ones WE love, this conversation about reluctant r eaders would be less urgent......Christine"
Not to belabor the obvious, but what Christine says here about summer readi ng lists, and the contrast between our expectations and the actual interest s of young people applies to many boys and to nonfiction. Summer reading li sts rarely, if ever, feature the kind of practical how-to books a kid might want to read over the summer in order to learn specific camping, sports, g aming, skills. And yet that is engaged, active, reading. So long as we tell practical, do-it-yourself-oriented boys that our so-called "fun reading" m eans fiction, we convince them that their interests cannot be found in book s.
Received on Sat 05 Feb 2011 10:01:59 AM CST
