in defense of reading ... which should need no defense
Friday, January 8, 2010 at 04:19PM An interesting post by Joanne Jacobs asks, Do children need to be bored?
My opinion is, of course, yes. Yes, they do.
This post pokes one of my particularly sore spots, though. Joanne quotes an article in the Telegraph by Nigel Farndale titled “Children need to be bored, so I’m smashing the Wii”:
How can a jigsaw puzzle that might take hours to solve compete with a PlayStation game that has the synapses fizzing within seconds.
We did succumb to a Wii last year, however, and I regret letting it into the house. Not only is it the rival of den-making, football-kicking and tree-climbing, it is the enemy of reading. But ordering your children to turn the Wii off and read a book instead hardly sends out a positive signal about the pleasures of reading — which is a shame, because a child who has discovered the magical world that lies between the covers of a good book is rarely bored. I have a feeling our Wii is going to meet with an accident any day now, and will take several months, possibly several years, to repair.
Okay, I agree that it’s a shame to treat reading as a sort of punishment — or something that requires a spoonful of sugar to go down, which is why I’m a curmudgeon about reading programs that bribe kids with prizes or pizza if they read. Reading isn’t punishment — reading is one of the greatest things ever. When we act this way, we are sending a clear message that reading isn’t awesome — it’s something that requires cajoling, bribery, or denial. It’s good for you, like broccoli.
But why — why?! — do we keep presenting reading as something that is incompatible with normal life? Why can’t you read and watch TV? Why can’t you enjoy playing the Wii and reading a good book?
Does it really follow that children need to be bored to read? And in order to invoke boredom — and cause children to read — we have to smash all the other entertainment options?
If we are going to put forth this idea that readers are people (and children) who sit around in horn-rimmed glasses and sweater vests, who don’t play football or Xbox, who don’t like Spongebob or Spiderman, then how are we going to convince reluctant readers that reading is one of the most awesome activities ever?
My sons love to play video games. They play outside. They play inside, with toys that don’t plug in. They listen to music. They draw. They watch TV and movies. They love comics. And they read and read and read.
Reading shouldn’t need an intense advertising campaign to convince kids that it’s fun. Reading is fun. It’s more than just fun; as Emily said, it’s a frigate to take you worlds away.
The real problem isn’t that reading suffers in comparison to TV and movies and video games — it’s that kids have such a pitiful amount of free time that they have to choose among reading Treasure Island, watching Animal Planet, playing Xbox, and playing outside.
If we want to turn this boat around, kids need to get free reading time in school and enough free time after school to do all the things that make life worthwhile.
Reading, deep thoughts
Reader Comments (36)
i asked my 12yo a couple months ago which he would give up if he could have only one — books or computer/video games. and he said he would choose to keep books!
re: free reading time in school ... this is how i see it ...
voracious readers beget voracious readers — no problem there.
the kids who have the most issues are those that don't read for pleasure at home.
so where else are they going to be introduced to reading for pleasure — and where else are they going to get the access to books and the *time* to read for pleasure — if not at school?
i agree completely (of course ;) that there is nothing more important than promoting a love for reading — and i think it cannot help but advance children in every area, including their results on standardized tests. but i still think it's a hard sell...
I think it can work so that you can have both forms of entertainment.
Besides, I still believe that the best way to encourage kids to read is not to remove all other options but rather to let THEM see YOU reading and enjoying it!
I like to think that one way we prioritize reading by buying/checking out more books instead of buying new video games. My theory is that a new book is always more fun than an old video game. Usually, I'm right.
I read somwhere recently (yikes- can't remember where, sorry for not citing) that in the last couple of decades, kids have lost 12 hours PER WEEK of free time.
!!!
Love takes time. If we want a child to fall in love with reading, we have to give them the time and space to do so.
We have a Wii, and more laptop computers than there are members of our computer. But we read far more than we do "screen time". We read, and we listen to audiobooks in the car, and the kids love it.
Thanks for this post!
This post, OBVIOUSLY!! lol, brought out a lot of emotion for me!!! A couple of other parents and I debate this "mess" a lot as we navigate court dates, angry school calls, parole officers, etc. Why not pull him out and homeschool?? Not sure yet that I won't--just isn't the time right now!!! Bless you for the release of all this emotion today. You can delete this comment if you want! :)
agree that the wii/x-box/DS/etc. doesn't need to leave the picture. encourages black and white/ horn-rim thinking, and how do we teach self-regulation anyway, without giving them a few tantalizing options?
we've had best luck (so far) making reading THE THING from infancy, and slowly adding the pretty electronic peripherals along the way.
We finally got a WIII just so we'd have something to say when heels were dragging other than "if you don't get that done you might not get have time to read" It sounds so silly to say that.
He just told me this morning, he wants to read "100,000 books."
I think a real difference between readers and non is the parents. A friend of mine whose son reads but I would not define as a reader is shocked by how much time I spend in picking out books to suggest to DS, to order from the library, to leave lying about, at how immersed in children's lit I am and, in particular, in what I think he will like. Sometimes, I'm wrong, often I'm right, but I spend hours finding out what's out there, what's coming out, what is one step ahead of him. Part of that is because I too love books and it is not at all a "chore."
There's plenty of room for the extras if we put first things first-- and here we've chosen books.
The Wii is only allowed to be played if chores are done, food has all been eaten, behavior has been great, etc., and only for a certain amount of time a day/week.
Reading is allowed any time (except at the dinner table)! My kids fall to sleep with a book in their hand, are read to before bed and naps, and spent a lot of time in their playroom cuddled up with a great picture book!
They are not mutually exclusive.
sherry, thank you. ;^) and re: letting them see you read … absolutely. there must be few voracious readers who beget children who are not voracious readers, right? for those children whose parents aren't avid readers, who don't have home libraries, whose dinner conversations don't include talk about what everyone is reading … those kids need to get those things in school. they need to see their teachers and other adults reading and talking about books, sharing books excitedly (and not just the librarian!), and they need to have free time to read whatever they want.
i have tried to convert children who say they "hate to read" (!!!) and it is no easy thing. i think we have to get them young.
sarah, re: your most avid reader is your most avid video hound … i have had many discussions with my best friend about how a love of books goes along naturally with a love of movies and tv … because it's all storytelling! and so many of the video/computer games these days are role-playing, story-based games as well. my older son loves those games involved with history — civ, age of empires, etc.
sarah, what a horrible statistic — and i totally believe it, too.
you know, my boys always have a couple books with them to read when we're running errands or stuck waiting somewhere, but the best reading time is a big block of cozy quiet time when you're stretched out on a couch or a bed with no sound but a ticking clock. how many kids get that?
re: "love takes time" — yes!!! and it's true of everything — if we want them to learn it, to know it, to love it, to master it, they have to have quantities of time with it.
sara, so true — somewhere around here i have a diatribe against novel reading that reads like an anti-video game rant. :^) people always hate the new and venerate the old.
karen, yes, we somehow manage to do all the things we enjoy, too! :^)
tina, good point. :^)
lisa, you raise a lot of important questions.
“Kids today have no clue what to do when bored...”
i really think this is a skill we must teach our children — and it's something they can only learn if they have had the opportunity to experience boredom *and* the opportunity to learn to manage it on their own. (stuck in a classroom that doesn't challenge them with no power over creating change doesn't fit the bill.)
i also think that we need to do a much better job of segueing our kids from childhood into adulthood. we have teens who are capable of doing real, meaningful work and of contributing significantly to society — but they are shelved in high school where we keep them jammed together like prison inmates until we're ready to let them into the "real world". maybe if teens had something worth doing they wouldn't fall into mischief borne of deep boredom and dissatisfaction.
estea, self-regulation ... well, there's a whole other topic. :^)
i have many thoughts about this ... including that kids can't learn to self-regulate unless they've experienced something approaching a good balance to begin with.
but i also think *self*-regulation is dependent on self ... and we parents like to make choices about what our children need. if they choose X amt of xbox and Y amt of reading, if it doesn't meet with what we want, are we allowing them to self-regulate? mmm. i also think parents don't seem to grasp that anything new (like a new video game) commands a lot of attention initially and then tapers off ... they don't respect that and allow a child to spend a lot of time with a new game because they're afraid of addiction ... so they create a backlash effect of making the child desperate to play all the time ... when they could have just let the honeymoon period float by knowing that while video games come and go, books are always there.
mmm ... should probably write a post about this ... lol ;^)
re: making reading "THE THING" from the beginning ... i agree ... if reading is at the core of your family values (as it is with us, too), and it is laid in with the foundation, then it will always be there. it's those kids who don't have reading parents or a reading family culture that need to get those things from school.
cordelia, lol, yes, i should have confessed that i was a voracious reader as a child and i *loved* my library program that gave you a prize for reading every X books. lololol. it's only now as an adult that i am put off by the notion!
re: "you won't have time to read"... so true!!! lol. and i guess it sends another of those resonant, silent messages to our boys that we would never give a consequence of going without reading .. only tv or computer. :^) i mean, that would be like going without food! ;^)
holly, agreed, agreed — which is why i think the school needs to take on that role as book-loving mentor for children whose parents aren't avid readers.
your ds sounds like mine. :^) and i feel that way, too!
jessica, agreed — i only would add that schools need to fill that book-loving mentor role for children whose parents aren't avid readers, right down to giving them time to read (and acknowledging that it is a necessity of life!).
jen, absolutely, my point exactly — they are not mutually exclusive. life has room for many pleasures, and we can enjoy many things other than reading — and still love reading best. :^)
The only reason we sort and categorize is to make it possible to use a narrow form of measurement to define success. Maybe if we stopped trying to force everyone to learn exactly the same way and let kids find their spark--their Element, as Sir Robinson would put it--we wouldn't have to worry about unplugging them to get them to learn to love reading.