Reading: Pleasure or Pain?
My brothers used to hide their comic books. Under the mattress, in the closet, among their school books - I would find these hidden treasures, surreptitiously scan them and quickly return them to their secret lair.
Oh how I loved to read!
As my pulse raced with excitement and my throat tightened with fear that I might be found out, I read whatever I could find. I didn't understand all the words but the pictures helped. My brothers had hundreds of comics - Archie and Veronica, Superman, Batman, to name a few - all gone now. These characters introduced me to reading.
And how I loved to read!
I soon graduated to reading the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift, books in which the action engendered pictures in my mind. I no longer needed pictures on the page. I had entered the world of imagination.
I still love to read.
There is so much concern nowadays about our children's reading ability. Are they reading on grade level? Are they reading fast enough? Do they comprehend the text? Is the material sufficiently complex? Maybe they need more practice, more teaching, more homework!
This anxiety has seeped down to the preschool level. As depicted in a recent NY Times article, "Parents have begun pressing their kindergartners and first graders to leave the picture book behind and move on to more text-heavy chapter books. Publishers cite pressures from parents who are mindful of increasingly rigorous standardized testing in schools."
The message that little kids hear, ‘You can do better than this, you can do more than this,’ immediately sets off alarm bells: Reading is work. It is no longer fun. I can't proceed at my own pace because that might not be good enough. If I don't understand what I'm reading then I must be dumb because Mommy/Daddy expects me to do more.
Reading has become, for many children, an activity to be avoided.
One of the most cited outcomes of the publication of the Harry Potter books is that children became excited once again about reading. When did they lose this excitement? What steers them away from children's literature?
Reading competes with the most advanced technology available to capture our children's attention. If we want them to open a book and turn away from the computer or set aside their phones/ipads, we'll need to re-introduce them to Wonderland. It's time to line their shelves with books of their choosing, step out of their way and allow them to find their own Yellow Brick Road.
Oh how I loved to read!
As my pulse raced with excitement and my throat tightened with fear that I might be found out, I read whatever I could find. I didn't understand all the words but the pictures helped. My brothers had hundreds of comics - Archie and Veronica, Superman, Batman, to name a few - all gone now. These characters introduced me to reading.
And how I loved to read!
I soon graduated to reading the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift, books in which the action engendered pictures in my mind. I no longer needed pictures on the page. I had entered the world of imagination.
I still love to read.
There is so much concern nowadays about our children's reading ability. Are they reading on grade level? Are they reading fast enough? Do they comprehend the text? Is the material sufficiently complex? Maybe they need more practice, more teaching, more homework!
This anxiety has seeped down to the preschool level. As depicted in a recent NY Times article, "Parents have begun pressing their kindergartners and first graders to leave the picture book behind and move on to more text-heavy chapter books. Publishers cite pressures from parents who are mindful of increasingly rigorous standardized testing in schools."
The message that little kids hear, ‘You can do better than this, you can do more than this,’ immediately sets off alarm bells: Reading is work. It is no longer fun. I can't proceed at my own pace because that might not be good enough. If I don't understand what I'm reading then I must be dumb because Mommy/Daddy expects me to do more.
Reading has become, for many children, an activity to be avoided.
One of the most cited outcomes of the publication of the Harry Potter books is that children became excited once again about reading. When did they lose this excitement? What steers them away from children's literature?
Reading competes with the most advanced technology available to capture our children's attention. If we want them to open a book and turn away from the computer or set aside their phones/ipads, we'll need to re-introduce them to Wonderland. It's time to line their shelves with books of their choosing, step out of their way and allow them to find their own Yellow Brick Road.
posted by Dr. Spiegel at
10:37 AM
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