tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27241267.post5886201354528656628..comments2023-10-14T03:02:29.968-05:00Comments on Buns of Strudel: Why Kids Don’t ReadBoShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411220480236471756noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27241267.post-73301307359088546062008-09-03T08:14:00.000-05:002008-09-03T08:14:00.000-05:00I think it takes more than introducing them to rea...I think it takes more than introducing them to reading when they are little -- sorry I wasn't clearer about that. I think kids also need to learn to read for fun, on their own, so that they don't get soured on reading and consider it a "chore" or "assignment". And, I think that encouraging children to become lifelong readers can be enhanced by changes in the boundaries in assigned reading.<BR/><BR/>My point in including the link to the article by an English teacher was just that -- that assigned reading does not help to make children eager readers; instead it often turns them off of reading for pleasure because so much of assigned reading is heavy-duty and socially meaningful without being entertaining or engaging for the children.<BR/><BR/>It is a conundrum -- we parents get our kids are charged up and eager to read, we haul them to the library, we stock their shelves with juicy, fun books, and the school clobbers them with depressing literature (not always but often), thereby pulling all the joy and fun out of reading that we parents spent so much time infusing into them.<BR/><BR/>I think there's a happy medium with room for reading for pleasure, reading for academic purposes, and reading for literary enlightenment somewhere in there -- and it's not being successfully achieved all that often.<BR/><BR/>I don't have the magic key to it, and if anyone else does, I'd be glad to hear what they feel it is.BoShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05411220480236471756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27241267.post-22352289926531851312008-09-01T11:50:00.000-05:002008-09-01T11:50:00.000-05:00My kids read b/c I introduced literature to them a...My kids read b/c I introduced literature to them at an early age. i am paraphrasing your first line. My question is, what if they still didn't like to read? i too introduced them to literature, took them to reading time at the library and book stores, read to them, introduced them to comics, etc. i love to read, always have several books around, plus newspapers and my kids hate to read!! I don't know why! They do. and they do not struggle to read either. I am writing this because the inference is that your kids love to read because you introduced reading to them at an early age, therefore if my kids hate reading I must not have done so, or at least not the right way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27241267.post-62348662313553503422008-08-25T10:53:00.000-05:002008-08-25T10:53:00.000-05:00Must've been a good post. I'm still thinking. I'm ...Must've been a good post. I'm still thinking. I'm thinking about the Pandora's box. Can we teach kids "literature appreciation" without the classics (or with less reliance on them) and what do we lose (or gain) by eliminating the classics from the teaching of literature?<BR/><BR/>I think we can teach "literature appreciation" without relying on the classics too much. That might free up teachers to find novels, poems, and plays that resonate with today's young readers. I could see offering a class in the "nuts and bolts" where the teacher used some of his or her own selections as examples, but encouraged the students to analyze what engaged them.<BR/><BR/>While I respect the "turning a living, breathing work of art into a lab experiment" sentiment presented in the Washington Post article. It's too easy for students to use this as a cop out...as an excuse for not doing the intellectual work necessary for explaining why their selection is literature and not garbage (I hope we can agree that, genre aside, some writing just stinks).<BR/><BR/>I was asking myself what we would lose, in terms of cultural literacy, if we simply focused on the nuts and bolts and getting kids to read and be able to both write well (creatively or otherwise) and tell the difference between good writing and bad. I'm afraid lots of folks aren't going to like the answer. It's nothing. We lose nothing. In the age of Google or Wikipedia, literary references and analysis of the classics are available with a few strokes on the keyboard and clicks of the mouse. Quite frankly, I've come to the same conclusion about learning to tell time on an analog clock. It's becoming arcane.<BR/><BR/>The important thing, in the age of Google and Wikipedia, is being able to read and being able to sift the wheat from the chaff. To tell the good writing from the bad. To distinguish what is factual information and what is marketing. To evaluate subtle metaphors and recognize when someone is bludgeoing you with one and to ask yourself why they would be doing such a thing (to sell you something, to influence your vote)?<BR/><BR/>Some kids will eventually want to read the classics and there's nothing wrong with that either. But if we're truly trying to educate today's kids we need to acknowledge how the world has changed and, rather than longing for some educational/literary Mayberry, address the importance of literary learning while offering reading material that helps rather than hinders the learning process.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27241267.post-40394187871584387082008-08-25T10:29:00.000-05:002008-08-25T10:29:00.000-05:00I'm pretty much in agreement here although, as an ...I'm pretty much in agreement here although, as an English Lit major, I prefer shall we say "the standards" to sci-fi. That, however, is a personal preference not a judgment on the merits of any given author. I would take Janet Evanovich, Isaac Assimov, or Borges over J.D. Salinger any day any way.<BR/><BR/>What your daughter said also makes a lot of sense. I've been giving a great deal of thought to current arguments for raising/lowering the drinking age. My answer is "raise them all" (drinking, voting, driving, military service, etc.) because as our life expectancy is extended, so is our youth (or so it seems to me). Fifty is the new forty and all that. With that in mind, I just don't feel that many people (let's say my age on down) have the life experience to really appreciate some of "the classics" until they are older. I've been revisiting some of them on audiobook recently and I've found that for both the ones I enjoyed in high school and the ones I didn't most of them resonated much more now that I have loved not wisely but too well, lost loved ones, had children, etc. I think we're expecting too much from today's (and my generation's) high school students to have them really 'get' The Good Earth (and that ASSUMES it's even worth 'getting'). It would be much better for both getting kids reading more and understanding literature better (the hows and whys) if they could read decent writing without all of the 'dead white guy' baggage.<BR/><BR/>This opens a Pandora's Box of who is a 'decent' writer and who is a hack, but at least that would get people (kids and teachers) reading and thinking.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com