“We all know we should eat right and we should exercise, but reading is treated as if it’s this wonderful adjunct…We’re still thinking in terms of enticing kids to read with a sports book or a book about war. We’re suggesting that they’re missing something if they don’t read but, actually, we’re condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, ‘Take this or you’re going to die.’ We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.”Ferriter continues and adds, Reading NONFICTION is not optional. Most kids read fiction these days and he urges kids and teachers to explore nonfiction content, especially for kids over the age of ll. He urges teachers to model interesting nonfiction topics by sharing biographies and adventure stories that really happened. Help students find books that support their personal interest is a great gift.
An aside: My son, Dan, hated to read when he was a pre-teen. However, you'd never guess what he was attacted to and consumed with a passion....The World Book Encyclopedia in our family room! Book by book, he read with enthusiasm, even looking forward to each year's updates. Today at 40 years old, he has the same kind of reading preference, looking up "stuff" to learn about things he's interested in....still no fiction for Dan!
Reading nonfiction is not optional. Bill Ferriter. 9.6.12. SmartBrief/SmartBlog on Education - Literacy
http://smartblogs.com/education/2012/09/06/reading-nonfiction-not-optional/
Reading, in general, is vital to a child's progress. It helps them to increase their fluency, vocabulary, and helps them understand more about the world we live in. In this article it says that reading should not be an option. While I agree with this statement I also think you have to be careful with how you present this to students. Growing up I felt that reading was not an option and was forced on me. Because of this I did not find reading to be enjoyable until much later in life. Having said this I think we need to find a happy medium with letting children know that reading is not an option and informing them that it can be very enjoyable and informational.
ReplyDeleteI believe that reading both fiction and non-fiction is important to students. I think that while students are learning that reading can be fun they should read what is enjoyable to them. Once they have a good grasp of this they should begin to read non-fiction often. There are so many things students can read to inform them about history and the way the world works and I think sometimes students miss out on this because they do not read non-fiction.