Books disappearing from schools, says Michael Rosen

Carol

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4933161/Books-disappearing-from-schools-says-Michael-Rosen.html

Tessadragon

That is disgusting to imagine that novels are being broken down into a set of questions for the kids to answer. I don't know if making it a law for children to read books is the answer though, it smacks a bit of dictatorship...a law that children should be encouraged towards books, perhaps. I think there should be more reading schemes in place...they shouldn't be aimed just at disabled children either...parents have been crippling their children by not reading to them throughout childhood because they have the habit from their own childhood that they'd prefer a computer to a book.

flyingtart

He has a point about things being frozen out of the curriculum. On my last foray into teaching (a few years ago now) I was shocked at the attitude that had developed in schools that it was all about passing national tests. This is the price we pay for having schools league tables, I'm afraid.
But children are only at school for 25 hours per week. What are they doing the rest of the time?
And I don't think legislation is the way to make kids read books. The way to make kids read books is to publish better books.

Tessadragon

good point FT, the other point I'd add to yours, in that the way to make kids read books is to publish better books...we also need to give them better access. Libraries provide a lot, but bookshops impose a price that is unrealistic to a child's 'income' (i.e. pocket money) and parents don't always give kids money for books.

Carol

That's a good point about price too TD.
I now actively look for the best deals on books for my children- 3 for 2 is a boon/Buy One get One Half Price etc.
I've just picked up a random set of books that I've bought recently or got online for my boys.
Size seems to bear little relation to cover price-
Night Rise from Walker Books, priced £6.99-with front and end pages counting both sides each as a page, 406.
Lord Loss-Harper Collins-£6.99-same criteria 272 pages.
The Vampire's Assistant- again HC-£5.99- 176 pages.

As I have two of my three who will get a new book and go off and read it, and two hours later be finished and want the next one in the series, I can never buy just one book, so it does get expensive, but I'd rather they read a book than didn't.

Anyanka

[quote=flyingtart]And I don't think legislation is the way to make kids read books. The way to make kids read books is to publish better books.[/quote]

I agree that legislation isn't the way, but the problem is not a lack of good books. There's loads of great reading matter out there for every age range. The big problem with getting children to read is parents & television. Schools have had to adapt to the huge number of children who just won't read a whole book, I think (plus the pressure of the curriculum). My daughters were only expected to read excerpts in secondary school, or they would watch a film instead! One was given snippets of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' but watched the entire mess of the Kenneth Branagh movie in class. Now I love films, and think there's a place in English lessons for analysing a Hitchcock or so, but it galls me that they would spend several lessons watching a DVD, but never be presented with a complete novel.

Nevertheless, both my daughters constantly have a book or two on the go, teenage novels alongside 'Wuthering Heights', John Steinbeck...
Reason? I have always put strict limits on television consumption.

Sally

Last night, my DD aged 7 had such a worksheet. However, you can't view it in isolation. She also has a school library (which has just been refurbished), they're always studying different books, authors, poetry, etc etc. They have baskets of books all around the classroom, group reading times, individual reading times, teacher reading times.

I don't see what's wrong with a worksheet. It's not instead of reading the book. It's to look at a particular aspect of a child's work, for example comprehension of a particular passage.

The use of worksheets and encouraging reading are two totally different things.

I agree about the price of books, but have to say the local library is brilliant.

Sally

Anyanka, that's so true about tv, computer games etc.

Also, lots of people go through life quite happily without reading any books. It doesn't mean their life is any worse, though :)

My children read all the time, but my OH never reads, yet leads a happy fulfilled life! Each to their own...

Anyanka

Sally, I too encouraged my children to use the library from an early age. The sweetener was that they could choose ANYTHING they liked - whereas I took a say in which books to buy, seeing as it was MY money! One of our 'treats' was to go on an outing to another Surrey town so we could use a different library. The girls are now 16 & 18, by the way, so it's no longer just my good influence - they will be lifetime readers, no doubt.

flyingtart

I agree that access to books could be better and the budget schools get for new books is usually paltry. But Sally has a good point about some people not wanting to read. My elder son is like that - I doubt if he's ever read a whole book in his life despite my reading to him for years when he was young. He just isn't interested. He'd rather be online, but then is reading online worse than reading books? My younger son taught himself to read by playing computer games at age four.

Tessadragon

The school budget is getting better...back when i was in secondary school, the librarian was so sad about the 'budget' (I'm not actually sure that there was a budget for the library) that in the end she spent her own money to get new books in....pupils were so surprised to see new books that they stole the books.

Carol

The problem with libraries and children's books within them (as I see it) is that too many public libraries need updating- and unfortunately many of the books within them too. Not fun if your child wants a specific book and they don't have it/it's out/need to go on a waiting list etc.
Location of libraries and opening hours- how many parents can get to the library within their opening hours, without needing to use the car or buses, or a very long walk- we certainly can't.
And with local authorities making cuts in libraries it is quite likely the money for books will also be at risk.
Some schools are better with their library provision, and their interest in books and how often they use books. And they need praise for that, and encouragement to keep doing it.

Tessadragon

They've increased our public library's opening hours to 7pm, but as a result we usually have to use the machines to get a book out or return it. The village library doesn't even open on Wednesdays though.

Nefertari

I remember doing comprehension cards at school ( no photocopiers then) where there were chunks of books to read and answer questions on.
Sometimes I enjoyed the extract so much I asked my mum for the book, one I remember was Black Beauty.

Tessadragon

That's true, Kateyanne. But when we think of the curriculum, I remember a lot of people groaning when we had to read things like Othello, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men and World War 2 poetry...what should be done in that circumstance when there's no way that it'd encourage the child to want to continue reading? Should the curriculum list be widened to include modern books as well as the old ones?

Jay Mandal

Of Mice and Men is hardly old.

Carol

I did that book in college, so it is older than we realise, but of course compared to the classics it is still young. :)

Anyanka

[quote=Tessadragon]I remember a lot of people groaning when we had to read things like Othello, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men and World War 2 poetry...what should be done in that circumstance when there's no way that it'd encourage the child to want to continue reading? Should the curriculum list be widened to include modern books as well as the old ones? [/quote]
A lot of people (esp youngsters in school) will always groan at everything they are given, but won't choose anything for themselves! So much easier to resent the world than get off your butt and do something for yourself. It's impossible to please everyone - but perhaps that's where the 'snippets' system is useful, because it enables schools to present children with a very wide range of literature. However, I do feel schools have a bit of a standard to maintain, a duty to broaden the learners' horizons. There's no need to introduce children to Meg Cabot (yuck) or Goosebumps stories - they'll find those everywhere they look. But where else are they going to encounter Shakespeare plays? It was the curriculum that got my older daughter excited about poetry, esp Gillian Clarke, but also your dreaded WWII poems!

Tessadragon

with regards to widening a reader's horizons....isn't it better to lead horse to water than to hoist it there in a crane and drown it? What comes to mind for me is that of the girls who hated reading, one was my friend. She and i sat next to each other in tutorial and one of those days I was reading a Jenny Carroll (aka MEG CABOT) book, a nice modern, funny supernatural book aimed at teenagers. She got curious and I let her read it. From there, she read the rest of the series and then another of the same author's series. That is leading a horse to water. On going to a party at her house, i was honoured to see that her shelves in the living room that might have otherwise been filled with just DVDs, were filled with both DVDS AND books, including those first 8 books that i lent her, which she had bought for herself.
As a note, Meg Cabot is quite varied in her writing. I would suggest you shouldn't just take her for her Princess Diaries books. The 1-800-Where R U series and the Mediator series were both very enjoyable to me.

Liz

I think MR was complaining that children are ONLY getting snippets... I went to the Sof Authors conference last October, he was a speaker, he said that his daughter hadn't brought a book home form school AT ALL. In fact they were actively discouraged from reading books which weren't only using a tight range of words which accorded with the phonics system they were teaching- in case they became 'confused'. My son was bringing home a different book every week from primary . He's now 16. He read fluently from age 5.

Sally

I wonder how old his daughter is?

I think that just shows that we all judge things according to our very limited experience. I don't think that he can judge all schools on the basis of his very limited experience - and neither can I, of course!

I helped out last year in my DD's class, and all the children were graded to have different types of books. A couple of the year 1s were having real difficulty reading, and they were sent home with phonics cards to go over with their parents, and a very limited series of books with almost no words to practise those phonics. The teaching assistant (or parent helper) went over the phonics with these struggling readers every day. It really seemed to work, though, as the aim was to teach them basic reading, and not to love books.

They all had plenty of carpet time, with the teacher reading to them, to learn to love books. If I hadn't helped in, I wouldn't have seen all the effort they went to, and how they tailored things to suit individual children.

However, I guess all schools are different.

Lolli

[quote=flyingtart]On my last foray into teaching (a few years ago now) I was shocked at the attitude that had developed in schools that it was all about passing national tests. This is the price we pay for having schools league tables, I'm afraid. [/quote]

Well as FT put it above, the whole trouble with the system is that the govt has put such an emphasis on children attaining particular targets, they are no longer 'educated', merely 'trained' My last foray into teaching was about 4 years ago, but with 13 grandchildren going through the system at 8 different schools around the country I still get a fairly wide view of the educational system. Of those 13 ( 2 of whom are too young to read yet [3], but love having books read to them) 2 boys are not really interested in reading (11 and 14 (a dyslexic));11 y old girl not really that interested but does read; 2 x 8 y olds (boy and girl) just mastered the art of reading well enough to start devouring books; 1 6 y old boy (missed a lot of school) unable to read; 1 6 y old girl loves reading and has become a 'free reader' since half term. 2 x 15 y old girls and 1 x 14 y old girl love reading and read a wide variety of teenage fiction. All my children like reading and are busy passing that on to their children/stepchildren. Most of the reading encouragement has come from home.

Carol

Have to say that some schools do all they can to encourage children to read, but it does require the adults doing the teaching being a little more creative to get the less able, and the downright uninterested children to get reading.
Plus parents and grandparents can help.
Unfortunately there are a lot of young parents who may have never bothered to read, because they didn't want to or couldn't.
I think we forget there are still a lot of adults with literacy problems.

Lolli

I think you have hit the nail on the head there, Carol. How can schools reasonably expect a non-literate parent to help their child learn to read? And how many of those parents will admit their problems to the school?