Children's Reading Habits in the UK
The December 19th issue of The Economist had an interesting article on the value of reading and recent literacy efforts, entitled “What to do about children who don’t like books.”
The Bad News:
The British-focused article discussed the alarming trend of an increasing number of children who lack interest in reading. A study in 2003 by the National Foundation for Education Research found that 35% of children “said they didn’t like reading at all,” up markedly from 23% in 1997. That is more than 1 in 3 children.
The (Potentially) Good News:
Britain plans to implement Reading Recovery, a literacy program that matches six year olds with a specialist teacher for four months of individual, 30 minute reading sessions. This program will replace past efforts of rigidly structured lessons focused on the mechanics of reading.
Given my childhood experiences as a reader, I am hopeful for the Reading Recovery program and its ability to instill reading as a lifetime interest for this generation of students. I loved the evening ritual with my mom of sitting in bed and listening as she read to me. This soon led to me reading on my own, going nearly everywhere with a book in my hands. At the same time, I despised the reading sets in my 1st and 2nd grade classroom that we had to read and progress through. A checkbox for each one: 1A, 1B,…8D. They were bland. I was scarfing down Beverly Cleary’s stuff and lots of other children’s books, but I avoided these prescribed classroom reading sets like the plague. Turns out, it hurt my reading grade (I got an S for Satisfactory) but not my lifelong passion for reading something good.
And if we didn’t need more incentive to inspire the next set of young readers, the Economist article also points out that “being a regular and enthusiastic reader is more of an advantage (for future educational success) than having well-educated parents in good jobs.”
Click here to link to the article (registration is required to access the full article):
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RQGNNJD
The Bad News:
The British-focused article discussed the alarming trend of an increasing number of children who lack interest in reading. A study in 2003 by the National Foundation for Education Research found that 35% of children “said they didn’t like reading at all,” up markedly from 23% in 1997. That is more than 1 in 3 children.
The (Potentially) Good News:
Britain plans to implement Reading Recovery, a literacy program that matches six year olds with a specialist teacher for four months of individual, 30 minute reading sessions. This program will replace past efforts of rigidly structured lessons focused on the mechanics of reading.
Given my childhood experiences as a reader, I am hopeful for the Reading Recovery program and its ability to instill reading as a lifetime interest for this generation of students. I loved the evening ritual with my mom of sitting in bed and listening as she read to me. This soon led to me reading on my own, going nearly everywhere with a book in my hands. At the same time, I despised the reading sets in my 1st and 2nd grade classroom that we had to read and progress through. A checkbox for each one: 1A, 1B,…8D. They were bland. I was scarfing down Beverly Cleary’s stuff and lots of other children’s books, but I avoided these prescribed classroom reading sets like the plague. Turns out, it hurt my reading grade (I got an S for Satisfactory) but not my lifelong passion for reading something good.
And if we didn’t need more incentive to inspire the next set of young readers, the Economist article also points out that “being a regular and enthusiastic reader is more of an advantage (for future educational success) than having well-educated parents in good jobs.”
Click here to link to the article (registration is required to access the full article):
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RQGNNJD