Children are made readers on the laps of their parents--Emilie Buchwald

[lunabee34]

karmageddon asked me to talk about what books kids should read at what ages. ELementary school must-reads, Middle school must reads. How/what to teach kids about literature.

This is a very timely topic as Josh and I have been pondering recently how to handle this very issue with Emma.

I suppose I should begin with a brief discussion of my own childhood as a reader. Even though I grew up in the pre-Internet era and my choices for reading material were confined to actual, physical books, I had access to a wide variety of books, and my reading was rarely curtailed. My house was full of hundreds of books, and I had access to them all. I had free rein of the school library, and I was allowed to buy whatever I wanted at the bookstore (Oh, Walden Books, you died such a sad death decades ago) without Mom even checking to see what I'd bought. Only once did my parents try to curtail what I read. My mother had a collection of more than 100 romance novels, and we're not talking Harlequins here. These were sexually explicit, epic tomes of historical romantic fiction. Once she realized I was reading these books, she tried to keep me from them (but I'd already pretty much read them all at that point) with limited success.

I would like for Emma to have that same lack of restriction, and I truly don't think there is anything that she *shouldn't* read. There are no books that we have hidden anywhere. They're all out in the open, and she could technically take any of them without telling us and I probably wouldn't know she was reading it unless she told me. I think Josh did put the only copy of Playboy we own (mmmmmmm, Charisma Carpenter) in our bedroom at one point, but it was on the shelf for years before he did that, and I put it back when I realized what he'd done.

I only have two concerns with what Emma reads. The first is that I don't want her to scare herself and inconvenience me by having nightmares/being scared of the dark, to be a blunt and selfish parent. LOL In the past few months, she's expressed a lot of interest in reading Stephen King, and I'm hesitant to let her read something that turns me into a whimpering ninny. I told her she could read The Langoliers and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, but she hasn't taken me up on it yet. She wants to read Skeleton Crew instead, of course. LOL

The second is that I don't want her to read something she's not ready for. We like angst and violence and dystopias, Josh and I, and I don't want her get fixated on something that she's not ready to think about yet. As smart and precocious as she is, Emma is still very much a child by her own choice. Even while many of those around her are hurtling headlong as fast as they can into what passes for adulthood to 11 year olds, Emma fiercely clings to childhood. She's not boycrazy; she doesn't want to read about sex or really even see kissing on TV. So far, other than the King, she hasn't asked to read anything I'd feel uncomfortable letting her read, so that hasn't become an issue yet.

As far as teaching kids about literature goes, I think the three most important things that parents can do at home is to read themselves in front of their children, read aloud to their children, and talk to their children about what the children read on their own. The number one predictor of how students will perform in any of my classes is whether they read for pleasure. I almost never have students who don't read on their own time earn A's in my classes. It's a little scary how accurate that one predictor is. I always tell my students that if the only time they read is when they are forced to for school they should think of themselves as athletes who only practice their sport during games. It's astonishing the degree to which reading influences the quality of student writing as well. I see it with Emma. Because she reads so much, she has internalized the fundamentals of narrative structure and grammar.

In terms of must-reads, I probably would mention all the tried and true Caldecott and Newbery winners you guys already know about. Instead I will tell you about a couple of books for teensy kiddos that I really like.

First Book of Sushi by Amy Sanger Wilson is fantastic. The art is great (lots of red, black and white), and I love the text. This author has done a whole line of board books about cuisine from different cultures. I also really like Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes. It's a kitty! In lovely black and white.

Comments

[zulu]

I always tell my students that if the only time they read is when they are forced to for school they should think of themselves as athletes who only practice their sport during games.

This is a really good metaphor! Do you poll your students to see how many read for pleasure? Do you encourage them to read beyond the syllabus?

[lunabee34]

I do. On the first day of class, I do an exercise where I have the students interview a classmate and introduce him or her to everyone; one of the questions is about favorite books, and usually the students who don't read are pretty upfront about that. In comp classes, I also do an exercise in my unit on reading where I ask the students to write about a reading experience that was difficult for them, why it was difficult, and what they did to make the reading easier. This also helps me get a good sense of who reads and what they're reading.

In my reading unit, I talk a lot about the importance of reading for pleasure using Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers as a frame of reference, and I off to take the students to the library to help them find books they might like to read. Some of them actually take me up on it. :)

[zulu]

Cool. One of the first questions I ask is "what is your favourite story/narrative?" and I let them include movies, TV, video games, etc in that--just because I want them to notice that lots of things around them are stories, even if in class we're only reading a fraction of them.

[lunabee34]

That's a great exercise. I do a version of that when I teach narrative writing. It usually ends up being one of the best discussions of the class.

[lunabee34]

That is an awesome goal. It always makes me sad when I look at those lists and so many of the books I don't recognize (especially the earliest ones because the list goes back to the 30s.). I think I might adopt that goal for Fiona. :)

[lunabee34]

OMG what an idiot moment for me. After reading your comments, I was all idly making plans to purchase all these books and wondering if some of them were even in print and going to the library didn't even occur to me. Which is stupid because WE GO TO THE LIBRARY. *sigh* My brain is tired.

[lunabee34]

Ahahahaahahahahahahaha.

I didn't realize you had more than 2 kids. 3?

And if so, that's three kids under five?

Let me send you some virtual vodka.

[lunabee34]

Are any of them twins? I know so many people with twins. :)

[lunabee34]

Me too. I've watched it with two sets of close friends and then more distant acquaintances and it seems so freaking hard!

[china_shop]

I almost never have students who don't read on their own time earn A's in my classes. It's a little scary how accurate that one predictor is.

Oh man, I really need to read more. /o\ /o\ /o\ I got out of the habit at some point, and now -- as with everything else -- I just don't manage to make the time for it.

As a non-parent, I found this really interesting. :-)

[lunabee34]

But see, it doesn't matter so much what you're reading. You read fic, you read journal posts. That totally counts. :)

And I tell my students the same thing. Magazines, websites, Harry Potter--it's all good.

[sallymn]

My mum was a huge pulp SF fan, so I read a huge amount of it before I quite got what it was that made it pulp or SF (I tend to shudder at the age I read the Gor novels, they did nothing for my appreciation of literature or my sex education :)

I tend to think that too many of the books we get to read in school would be far better left till we find them ourselves (Austen, for example).

[lunabee34]

I tend to agree with you but I don't really know how to fix the problem.

For example, I hated Dickens when I was forced to read him in high school but adore him now (so much so that I specialized in Victorian lit, if not the man himself LOL). And I have tons of anecdotes about people who had similar experiences: hating a book they "weren't ready for" in middle school or high school but coming to love it later on in college or as an adult. So I definitely think there's something to that idea.

The problem is that it's so subjective. I loved Shakespeare in 9th grade and it was a good fit for me, but many of my classmates didn't feel the same way. It would be hard to create a curriculum that fits well for everyone for that reason. Because of this, I really like the Accelerated Reading program that they have now in US schools; they didn't do this when I was in school and I wish they had because it would have saved me a lot of boredom. Essentially, the kids do a lot of reading on their own time and on their own reading levels rather than being forced to do a lot of reading the same book together which may or may not be a good fit for them.

Also I think reading these books early is important because many people don't go on to college where they might be exposed to the classics (which is fine; I think people can make wonderful, lucrative, and fulfilling lives for themselves without going to college), and I do think it's important for our citizenry to have at least a certain degree of exposure to literature.

Finally, I think one of the goals of K-12 is to prepare those students who want to go to college to succeed there, and one of the things I struggle with often with my students is that they have to learn how to successfully read things that bore them or challenge them. It's easy to read something you find interesting; not so much with that boring Biology book or Sociology article. LOL So I do think some experience reading stuff you don't like or that is "too hard" builds useful reading skills.

It's a quandary though.

[sallymn]

I'm not even sure there is an answer. If you make kids read the classics or semi-classics at school, a lot of them will probably hate the good stuff forever - if you don't make them read more challenging stuff when young, a lot of them won't push their reading boundaries when older either.

There are quite a few Australian classics that I have never managed to overcome my secondary school loathing for; on the other hand, when they tried to pick 'populist' young adult books to appeal to the average teenager and at least get them started, they managed unerringly to pick stuff I hated :( I learned to love reading in the library and my parents and relatives' bookshelves.

The simple fact is, the more we read, the better we read (both in terms of physical skill and speed, and in terms of wanting better and deeper). Bit like school sports, I guess - no PE teacher ever found a way to me duds like me want to do more, so once we left school...

(PS - re Dickens, if you ever come across a copy of Juliet McMasters Dickens The Designer, try it. I picked it up in a remainders shop 15 years ago, deeply suspect it was the author's PhD rewritten for publication, and would count it as one of the books I would save if a bushfire was coming - absolutely adore it and what it did for my understanding of Dickens' imagery and metaphorical colour).

[lunabee34]

These are great points. It is an unsolvable problem, I think, but one that is made at least a little better when teachers are sensitive to it.

I just looked up that book on Amazon. New it goes for 74 dollars. Wow. But there are used copies for less than ten. It sounds fascinating. Thanks for the heads up.

[sallymn]

I'd go for one of the second-hand ones :) It's not exactly filled with pictures or anything where spanking new would matter... my copy's fairly shabby, but from rereading.

[lunabee34]

And that's how you know a book is good. LOL