Children’s Reading

[oddoneout]

Picking up on some of the points mentioned.
Parents lacking reading skills is certainly a problem - and is sometimes the result of undiagnosed dyslexia, which adds to the complication, and due to cutbacks is likely to become more of a problem again. Ditto hearing and sight problems. It's sad to say the least that children are still growing up with inadequate literacy levels. I remember High School pupils coming to do work experience in playschool and some of them being unable to read to the children. In the intervening decades literacy initiatives should have improved that, but at work I still hear adults struggling to read out the interpretation on the displays, despite the text being deliberately very simple.
Lack of communication with infants /very young children - this I suspect will be an increasing problem given the combination of universal forward facing buggies and adults permanently occupied with their mobiles.
Brain wiring - this turned out to be one of my son's problems, and yes it takes a fair amount of effort by parents, and cooperation from the school to deal with, assuming it can be identified in the first place.
Approved reading schemes. The one size fits all, or the 'we do it this way at this school' is not helpful for those children who don't get on with the mandatory scheme. My daughter didn't have her brother's problems but couldn't get the hang of the scheme her infant school was using when she was there so her class teacher and I tried various approaches to see what would 'click'. She was being read to and had books at home, but the breakthrough was a while coming, not least because the head teacher was against any deviation from her favoured scheme, so a good year was lost and a fair amount of resentment and non-cooperation developed by said child. My granddaughter dislikes(and has in part progressed beyond) the scheme at her school and so plays up when she is required to use it.
Classifying books according to their readability/age correlation narrows a child's options and challenges if access to a wider range of material is not freely available and encouraged, and can unwittingly disguise reasons for apparent reading difficulties. A child may not want to read because the books are too hard but are supposedly suitable or because,conversely, they are too easy, or because the subject matter is of no interest. None of those reluctant readers is unable to read, the problem is unsuitable books.
John Burningham and the Ahlbergs are the kind of books my children read which I think are still good, but in certain circles attract criticism for their 'limited view of the real world', and supposed lack of relevance to modern children's lives and experiences.

[doversoul1]

Michael Rosen has some interesting things to say about children’s reading, like these;

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/27/damian-hinds-stop-wrecking-poetry-children-michael-rosen

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/21/earlyyearseducation.sats

oddoneout

but in certain circles attract criticism for their 'limited view of the real world', and supposed lack of relevance to modern children's lives and experiences.

This could be said about Virginia Woolf or Shakespeare. What they really mean is, even though they are not aware of it, that these books don’t provide issues that can be conveniently talked about as part of the national curriculum.

[Dave2002]

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is good , but this has been written about it

The book received renewed attention when in 1999, Pizza Hut asked 50 US governors to name their favorite books from childhood. Presidential candidate George W. Bush "opted for the Caterpillar. It didn't take long for gleeful commentators to point out that when the book was published, Bush was nearly 23."

[ardcarp]

This is essential IMV

http://www.ivorypress.com/en/product...ies-and-cakes/

Thanks Gongers Must get it.

[ardcarp]

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is good , but this has been written about it

The book received renewed attention when in 1999, Pizza Hut asked 50 US governors to name their favorite books from childhood. Presidential candidate George W. Bush "opted for the Caterpillar. It didn't take long for gleeful commentators to point out that when the book was published, Bush was nearly 23."

[DracoM]

Trump's in his early 70's so could be ready for it now?

[oddoneout]

Michael Rosen has some interesting things to say about children’s reading, like these;

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/27/damian-hinds-stop-wrecking-poetry-children-michael-rosen

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/21/earlyyearseducation.sats

oddoneout

This could be said about Virginia Woolf or Shakespeare. What they really mean is, even though they are not aware of it, that these books don’t provide issues that can be conveniently talked about as part of the national curriculum.

I didn't bother to expand on that side of things as I think it is probably self-evident!
My view is that it is silly in the extreme to worry about reading books not being stuffed full of modern day views of the world and life, provided there is also access to modern good quality books which reflect what the children find familiar now. Where the issue of 'out-of-date' views becomes important is in textbooks, where it is reasonable to expect that information about such matters as environment and equality should reflect current thinking - and ideally be balanced and factually correct, but that sometimes seems to be a casualty of pushing modern agendas in schools.
With a bit of imagination 'outdated' books can provide a useful and accessible starting point for talking about how things have changed and how the stories in the books are different from the children's own experiences. The two most obvious are changes in family life, and majority white characters.

[Dave2002]

Ditto hearing and sight problems.

Sometimes hearing problems aren't detected until someone with specific knowledge and observational skills, such as a music teacher notices. Schools, parents and doctors don't always detect hearing problems before important early learning has taken place, which makes "correction" later much more difficult.

Proper testing should be done, but in the UK sensible screening is often not carried out.

[ardcarp]

The two most obvious are changes in family life, and majority white characters.

Yes, if you look at the early Janet and John reading series, Daddy went out to work, drove the car, unblocked the gutters, etc, while Mummy stayed at home, did the washing and cooking, and even wore white gloves when going out!

However, we're talking (I think) about books which fire children's imagination; and surely the LAST thing one wants to do is stuff them full of 'relevance to the modern world'. I suppose some modern authors, notably Phillip Pullman and [more prosaically J.K. Rowling] step from 'the modern world' into a parallel universe of magic and fantasy.

[Dave2002]

Yes, if you look at the early Janet and John reading series, Daddy went out to work, drove the car, unblocked the gutters, etc, while Mummy stayed at home, did the washing and cooking, and even wore white gloves when going out!

However, we're talking (I think) about books which fire children's imagination; and surely the LAST thing one wants to do is stuff them full of 'relevance to the modern world'. I suppose some modern authors, notably Phillip Pullman and [more prosaically J.K. Rowling] step from 'the modern world' into a parallel universe of magic and fantasy.

I feel a dose of the "Four Yorkshire men" coming on.

"In my day, we were so poor we couldn't afford a car ..." etc.

[ardcarp]

[oddoneout]

Yes, if you look at the early Janet and John reading series, Daddy went out to work, drove the car, unblocked the gutters, etc, while Mummy stayed at home, did the washing and cooking, and even wore white gloves when going out!

However, we're talking (I think) about books which fire children's imagination; and surely the LAST thing one wants to do is stuff them full of 'relevance to the modern world'. I suppose some modern authors, notably Phillip Pullman and [more prosaically J.K. Rowling] step from 'the modern world' into a parallel universe of magic and fantasy.

I happen to agree, but away from the strident agenda pushing there is a valid point that books which have little relevance to the child's life and experience may prevent that child from engaging, especially reluctant readers. A coloured(non-white - what is the acceptable term these days, I've lost track?) child in an inner city with a variable 'family' structure won't automatically understand or find the white middle class nuclear family of interest.

[DracoM]

Pullman has huge pull power for children. Reading it aloud to them, or with them is a revelation.

[doversoul1]

I didn't bother to expand on that side of things as I think it is probably self-evident!
My view is that it is silly in the extreme to worry about reading books not being stuffed full of modern day views of the world and life, provided there is also access to modern good quality books which reflect what the children find familiar now. Where the issue of 'out-of-date' views becomes important is in textbooks, where it is reasonable to expect that information about such matters as environment and equality should reflect current thinking - and ideally be balanced and factually correct, but that sometimes seems to be a casualty of pushing modern agendas in schools.
With a bit of imagination 'outdated' books can provide a useful and accessible starting point for talking about how things have changed and how the stories in the books are different from the children's own experiences. The two most obvious are changes in family life, and majority white characters.

I agree with you in all points. What is a great shame (to me) is that once a book (usually with an obvious ‘issue’) becomes part of teaching resource, children are expected to talk about it and reach the ‘right answers’. There seems to be very little room for children to just enjoy reading.

Many decades ago, in the last century, I helped running a local primary school’s library. I hope things have changed but in those days, outside the reading scheme books, teachers knew Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl. And that was that.

[ardcarp]

Mind you, Enid Blyton (oh so un-PC) got many kids on thr road to reading. One thing children love is stories which are 'away from parents' and maybe a bit anti-authority, something that even Ms Blyton managed and Roaldk Dahl excelled at.

Changing the subject slightly, I remember reading so-called 'classics' such as Lorna Doone, Kidnapped, Coral Island, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, etc at quite a young age. Nowadays the language and density of text is very difficult for kids to grasp, even if such books are read to them. Strange how in just a couple of generations things change so much. Question: Is J.K.Rowling the new Enid Blyton?


PS. I read Black Beauty, Swiss Family Robinson and even......Heidi.