I Love Audio Books!

Book Riot has a lament by a new mother here about the difficulty of finding time to read with a new baby. The comments offer plenty of suggestions about pillows, and using kindles, but I didn't see any that offered the really great, perfect solution.

Audio books! You can download the audible app and listen on your phone. And if you put your phone in reduced battery mode, it doesn't even drain the battery much. When you're walking the baby outside you can plug in earphones. In the house, just stick your phone in your pocket and turn up the volume. A book read by a good reader is an amazing joy. I wish I had discovered audio books when my children were babies. Now all of my household chores slide by almost unnoticed while I'm listening to one of my favourite books.

I find books that are slightly comic are the most fun--authors like Jennifer Crusie and Georgette Heyer. I'm listening to Faking It by Jennifer Crusie now, and I'm laughing out loud sometimes. Audio books are so much fun. And being able to listen to them on a phone means they can go anywhere with you--way better than the cassettes I used to use, and then the CD's.

How Do Kids Learn Empathy?

Salon magazine has an interesting article here about a practice in Danish schools of setting aside an hour every week for a classroom discussion of problems or issues, with a treat, such as cake, to enjoy afterwards.

The purpose of this practice is to teach kids to feel empathy for each other, the idea being that when they hear of each other's problems and issues they will become more sympathetic.  Many of the comments, however, noted that when they were in a group like this, the group often ended up abusing certain kids. 

I think anyone running a group like this needs special training so the group does not devolve into an abusive, blame certain kids kind of exercise.  I prefer that schools teach common courtesy, which involves being polite to everyone, and not shutting certain kids out.

I've always noticed in my many years of teaching that many of my most empathetic kids were the avid readers.  I think continually being pulled into different narrators' viewpoints enlarged their own.

Teachers are Mandated Reporters

The Washington Post has a heartbreaking story here about a seven-year-old boy who was so hungry he was trying to sell his teddy bear for food money.  When the police investigated they found four more older boys also living in the home, which was filthy, and filled with trash and empty liquor bottles.  It's difficult to read the story without getting tears in your eyes.

 As a high school teacher for almost forty years, I'm wondering how this could have gone on for any length of time.  Surely there would have been some sign of abuse or neglect on at least one of those children.  Teachers are mandated reporters.  Did no one see anything?  A couple of the boys were old enough to be in high school.  I am never surprised that abused or neglected kids don't speak up themselves, but by high school they usually have friends, and I know that I usually learned about abusive homes from friends of the victims.  Teachers out there:  Keep your eyes open!  And don't assume that if you just tell Guidance that a report will also go out to the police.  Call the police yourself.

Holding Kids Back

The Washington Post reports here on a new policy in Florida:  students whose parents refused to let them take the state mandated standardised tests in third grade will not be promoted to fourth grade, no matter how academically competent the kids are--and some are honor roll students.  I had to read the article twice this morning just to believe it.

Wow.  Talk about a really unbelievably stupid policy.  New research shows that holding back failing students just makes them more likely to fail and eventually drop out.  http://educationbythenumbers.org/content/new-research-failing-students_2034/  And this study was done with students who had trouble achieving.  Imagine how demoralizing it will be for students who have worked hard all year, gotten good grades, and are then blocked from advancing to the next grade.

Plus, of course, it costs a substantial amount of money to have many students repeating a grade.  The school district will have to hire more teachers, and build more classrooms. 

And, of course, the main point is that the best way to find out how well students are reading is to find out how much they are reading.  Only kids with a love and habit of reading acquire sophisticated reading skills.  Schools should worry about building a love of reading in their students and stand with parents on the destructiveness of multiple standardised tests.

The Most Important Reason for Reading

The Washington Post has an article in their Health section here that describes that describes new research showing that readers live longer than non-readers.  I was glad to see it, although I don't think adding a few years to the end of your life is the most important reason for reading.

The best reason for reading is that it enriches your life.  And it certainly enriches your children’s lives.  Kids who are avid readers read better, write better, concentrate better, and do better in all of their subjects, across the board.  I taught high school English for almost forty years, and found that it didn’t even matter much what my students read, as long as they had a love and habit of reading.  Many of my best readers, as kids, read comic books, fantasy and romance and mystery series, and much popular fiction.  A love of reading is the best educational gift you can give to your children.

Should Grandparents Babysit?

The New York Times has an interesting article here on the kinds of issues that arise over the topic of grandparents babysitting.  Be sure to look at the comments.  Personally, I think anytime we care for someone else, our own life gets richer and more satisfying.

The New York Times Jumps in on Getting Kids to Read

The New York Times has a good editorial here about the importance of getting your children to read during their summer vacation.  My only real criticism of it is that the author devotes much time to trying to figure out if it's okay to bribe children to read.  I wish she had thought to mention that what is really important is being willing to spend money to buy books that kids can love.  And the rules some parents had for their children made me uneasy, like requiring that all of the reading was in books that were on their grade level, and that they hadn't read before.

I devoted much of my 37 years of teaching high school English to helping my students become avid readers.  And I paid attention to the avid readers who walked into my classroom.  I found out this about them:  they almost always developed their love and habit of reading through series books, like the Harry Potter books, or the fantasy books by Rick Riordan, or the Big Nate graphic novels.   Their parents were willing and able to spend money for their books, since libraries rarely had all of the books in the particular series they loved.

Ms KJ Dell'antonia is right about the importance of reading.  My avid readers read better, wrote better, and did better in all of their classes.  

So do everything you can to help your children love reading.  Just don't expect that they will love the same books that you did.  I really believe that all reading is good, and that any kind of reading eventually leads to more reading.  My students who loved comic books and mysteries and fantasies and romances as children were the only ones who read well enough to love Shakespeare in high school.