Ambitious parents of very young children are, according to New York Times story, depriving their children of the pleasure of picture books in favor of more challenging “chapter books,” in an attempt to help them succeed in school. As Maureen Mullarkey writes in Bye Bye Picture Books,
Very likely, these are the parents whose little ones suffer audition for nursery school. (The article quotes from book sellers in Brookline, MA and Washington, D.C.) Oddly, they are also the ones who wheel their tots though museums on Sunday afternoon and sign them up for picture-based projects like the Metropolitan’s “Museum Kids” program. They lobby schools to expand the art syllabus in schools; they howl at cuts in the art curriculum. . . .
So, a picture is worth a thousand words but getting into St. David’s is worth more?
The two offer different, but equally important, experiences, as Maureen points out, and “privileging” one over the other is foolish. It is particularly unwise, I think, to implicitly stigmatize a child’s natural pleasures, like the pleasure of looking at pictures. He is open to such things and to the good things they convey and represent, but this openness you can subdue or, with enough effort, kill.
The easy solution is to look at picture books with your children and read chapter books to them, till they move on to chapter books on their own.
October 11th, 2010 | 3:01 pm
I believe there’s more to it. If we want our children to love reading, then we have to encourage them to read what they love. If we turn reading into a job, they will check out after the required job is completed. To encourage them: we need to publicly read ourselves for pure pleasure; to read to them; to read with them; to let them read to us; and to let them read any and all books that catch their fancy. When they read for the joy of it, the “chapter” books follow naturally. My son, 14 year old, reads picture books frequently. He has a constant stack of “chapter” books from the library by his bedside. He also reads Consumer Reports and The Economist because that’s what happens to be on the coffee table. I just realized, I need to start leaving First Things there more often.
October 11th, 2010 | 11:32 pm
I think America has gone wrong in pushing children into early reading. Children’s school books are much more engaging than the ones offered when I was in first grade, but there are detailed programs kids are expected to follow and milestones they are expected to meet in learning to read – often starting in kindergarten. Some kids, especially among boys, are just not ready. As Mike suggests, it may be a mistake to make reading a “job”. Maybe playing really is the “job” of small children. Picture books probably fit into playing better than “chapter books”.
I didn’t start reading until second grade “because the books were stupid” in first grade. By third grade, I tested at the top of my class.
Finnish children don’t start school until they are seven, and they do better than our kids at the high school level. Their parents reportedly read for pleasure and read to their kids.
Dennis Prager sometimes notes that with the increase in the percentage of college educated people after WWII, the percentage of people who read for pleasure after their years of schooling seemed to decrease. Many serious journals have disappeared from news stands, and the subscription numbers for the remaining ones have not increased, as a rule. Maybe partly because reading in college was a “job” that many people did not enjoy.
October 12th, 2010 | 11:58 am
When my son was three, he would watch me playing Civ III on the computer and tell me, “Daddy, I want to play.” I told him, he needed to be able to read to play and showed him why. In kindergarten, he got in continual trouble with the “Reading” teacher because he wouldn’t follow the lesson plan. After a tumultuous meeting including the Principal where I insisted he knew how to read, they put him in the remedial first grade reading lesson and tested him on reading. The Principal contacted us with the test results, “Solid third grade” was all the Principal said. Yes, something is wrong with the methods of our public schools.
October 12th, 2010 | 6:57 pm
I am a day late getting to this but glad I found it. Fine illustration endears children (us too) to the act of reading. Picture books, after all, have words. It’s love of books that we want for our children. Not solely the ability to read.
October 15th, 2010 | 9:31 pm
Up till now we’ve homeschooled, but this year is my chidren’s first and maybe only at public school (long story).
They’ve got incentive programs (Pizza Hut), coercion (I was handed a chart to keep track of my kids’ reading, with the stern injuction that this will determine the grade on my parental report card) but at the same time, my children who love reading have gotten in trouble for it, by reading ahead in the classwork.
I may have a jaundiced view, but my impression is that reading, learning and schooling are not always mutually inclusive activities. I can’t think of a way to better kill the love and joy of doing something than acting like it’s a chore and controlling every aspect of how people do it.
October 15th, 2010 | 9:32 pm
I forgot to add: 3 of my 5 kids starting reading spontaneously at age 5. Favorite first book? Dilbert.
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