The list is OK, but passion for reading is better

Shameless plug for my profession (though I serve the adult patrons)

A vendor that markets reading software to schools has announced the results of a survey billed as the most comprehensive report ever about what school children are reading.

The report, by Renaissance Learning, indicated that kids’ literary tastes extend beyond Harry Potter and the craze of the moment to novels of literary merit and classics like Charlotte’s Web and To Kill a Mockingbird.

The findings were culled from the company’s Accelerated Reader program, which is used by many schools in the Kansas City area and elsewhere. They were billed as good news, and they sounded like it to me. But it’s always best to consult an expert, and so I found Helma Hawkins, director of children’s services for the Kansas City Public Library.

Hawkins had printed out the 56-page survey. She was less than dazzled.

“Public librarians generally aren’t fond of Accelerated Reader,” she said.

snip

http://www.kansascity.com/277/story/612052.html

m&s

logged into the wrong account, grrr, lol

I'm a voracious reader, and I have been that way since I was in elementary school. If as a child, I'd been told to read what was Important rather than what was Interesting, I likely never would have developed the love for reading that I have, and my reading skills wouldn't be nearly as developed as they are. I remember being forced to read "A Separate Peace" in tenth grade, and resenting the hell out of it because I wanted to finish reading "The Prince of Tides" (a novel I was enthralled with at the time). I skimmed "A Separate Peace" and hardly thought about it again.

A couple of years later I picked it up at random and started reading, and really fell into the story--and therefore learned a thousand times more about the novel than I EVER did when I was forced to read it because it was Important.

Pleasure reading always, without fail, is the best way to really grasp the point of an Important novel. You catch many more details than you do when the reading is being done on an enforced deadline, and you're able to really appreciate the whole picture as opposed to the chapter "chunks" you need to pass a high school reading quiz.

Teaching kids to read for pleasure is probably the most valuable gift that any teacher can give to a child.

I really was expecting such a thoughtful post as yours.

m&s
http://moose-and-squirrel.com