Frustrated with Library visits

[boomerangboom]

My kids love the library however I hate our visits. The books the kids pick out are so poor in content. I've tried steering them to the award winners but they are so drawn to junk books. It makes our visits very frustrating. Then when I help them pick out quality books they don't want to read them after a couple of chapters. We've not been to the library since July and my kids have only read a hand full of books since then which makes me sick at my stomach since they love to read. Any advice you can offer will be so greatly appreciated!

[Ellie]

Let them get junk. You get the good books to read aloud to them. Win-win. :-)

[Seasider]

We rarely go into the library for browsing any more. I request everything online and we usually just go make pickups. I started doing this when the vampire craze hit.

 

When we do actually go through the stacks, it's usually because dd wants to revisit something she's already read.

[Tanaqui]

I wouldn't micromanage their pleasure reading. And for what it's worth, a lot of "award winners" are depressing. Bridge to Terebithia? Old Yeller? Where the Red Fern Grows? I wouldn't want to solely read those as a kid. I don't want to only read them now*! There are many perfectly good books that don't make you bawl. Maybe if you could list a few representative samples of "their choices" vs. "your choices" somebody can give some advice for compromise choices you might both be happy with as assigned (not free-time) reading.

 

* I did love Terebithia. The Giver, however, doesn't hold up logically and should have been denied an award on the basis that Lois Lowry can't do math.

 

 

[idnib]

Tell them they have to pick out books from certain categories (science, history, poetry etc) if they also want the junk. And then have time to read the good books assigned in your day. Having "assigned silent reading time" is basically the only way I get stuff done individually with each child in topics for which they require my full attention.

[rose]

How about picking out some good books that are bellow their reading level so that they're reading quality but it's still easy reading? Something like Mr. Popper's Penguins comes to mind.

 

I require my children to read all the non-fiction I pick out from the library before they can get any more fiction. There are different ways you can work it.

[Farrar]

Junky books are good for gaining fluency. Studies have shown that letting kids pick their own books is the number one thing that helps them increase their sheer reading ability. So... relax.

 

Learning to appreciate good literature is important. But you do it by building up slowly with small doses of required reading and by reading aloud and enjoying audiobooks.

 

When people say things like the OP has said, I often wonder what they consider "junk." Sometimes they mean what seems to be nearly every book, particularly any modern or recent book. So I would just encourage the OP to examine whether what you consider "junk" is actually making a very narrow ground of "good" books. Also, sometimes it seems that the "junk" is just easier books. Usually that means that the parent has really overestimated their child's ability to read. Remember that just because a child can read at a certain level doesn't mean they're ready to do so in a 300 page book with complex plot and themes.

[Tanaqui]

Junky books are good for gaining fluency. Studies have shown that letting kids pick their own books is the number one thing that helps them increase their sheer reading ability. So... relax.

 

When my uncle was young, he liked to read comic books. And this was in the 1960s, when comic books were certainly not respectable "graphic novels", not to most people!

 

And his mother let him read whatever he wanted, in contrast to most of the parents of his classmates who strongly discouraged comics.

 

Which meant his classmates were astonished when he was in the 5th grade and the tests they took showed that he was by far the best reader in the class. Because he read all those comics! Just like their doting parents said they shouldn't!

 

On a related issue, we learn more things from books than simply "reading". I've learned so much random trivia from murder mysteries over the years, for example. It makes me look quite erudite to pull out factoids about fainting goats or tay-sachs disease, but really, it's just cheap mysteries! But more to the point I wanted to make when I started this paragraph, children aren't just getting fluency out of reading, they're getting other things as well.

 

When I was in the 8th grade, my teacher once criticized a book she saw me reading in the 5 minutes between arriving and the bell ringing. She thought it was "below my level". Well, yeah, lady, I was reading on a college level when I was ten, any book written for my age group was going to be below my reading level. But that book was right at my social/emotional level - an area where I really, really needed all the help I could get. I learned more from Sixth-Grade Secrets than I did from 1984, Julius Caesar, or Parable of the Sower, other books I read that year. (Although To Kill a Mockingbird was also right up my alley, and when I reread 1984 and Parable a few years later I actually understood them much more and was able to get quite a bit from them. Those books are just fine. They just weren't very useful to me then.)

 

If a kid is reading something seemingly below their level, there's something they're getting out of it.

[hornblower]

Just set them free in there.

Since the kids were toddlers right through the time they were well into the teens, we always went every week & I let them have free rein. I would also choose books & take them out on my card for possible read alouds  or as they grew older, assigned reading but each kid could max out their card with anything they liked. Now with the ability to download ebooks onto kindles from the library & our more complicated schedules we no longer have a weekly library day but they still have giant stacks of books & are huge readers.

Our children's & teen librarians are lovely & always willing to help with book lists & will personally suggest & hand books to people.


ETA - I wrote a post  yesterday about High School Lit which touched on a lot of the issues with 'junk' books.   This is an excerpt:

 

 

I just want them to read. Read anything. Read sci-fi, read romance, read comedy. Read. Read stories, read non-fiction, read webzines, read fanfic.  I'm sure there is a genre and an author and a book for everyone. It's sad that people stop looking for that beloved author or beloved book because people tell them 'your books are not real books. Those stories aren't worth my time or yours. THESE are REAL books & if you don't like them there's something wrong with you.'

 

[boomerangboom]

Thank you for all the replies! My dd is 10 and ds 8. I noticed with my ds that after reading diary of a wimpy kid he seemed to have low self esteem. My daughter likes books that deal with magic and it just worries me plain and simple. Maybe im a worry wart but i want to make sure no garbage is going in. I was always taught garbage in garbage out. Both read above level so usually they pick books out that level wise are ok. Its that i feel they are extremely easily influenced by what they read.

 

 

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[Tanaqui]

Maybe I'm a worry wart, but I want to make sure no garbage is going in.

 

Yeah... I don't know what that means. Maybe you should read some of their picks to reassure yourself. It's only fair, after all, if you expect them to read your choices.

[Tenaj]

If certain series are bothering you, I think it's fine to say no more of those.  We don't do a lot of the more modern "magic" books either and "Wimpy Kids" hasn't yet made an appearance but if I was noticing a behavior issue after certain books I wouldn't hesitate to steer the kids away from them but I would make sure to tell the kids why you are making that choice with examples.  

 

Then set them loose again in the library to find a different series or a different stack of books!

 

The library is still my favorite place to just go and browse.  I love the smell and the sight of all those books just waiting to be read but I do think it's important to teach children discretion in their reading material.  I want to pass on my love of libraries but I don't hesitate to steer the kids away from specific selections that don't agree with our family standards.

[73349]

Libraries vary a lot in what they offer. If yours doesn't have a lot that is both interesting to the kids and satisfactory to you, do you have another option? Is there a used book store you could visit and bring a variety of things home from?

 

Or maybe at the library you could set a limit like only two books per author/series/genre?

 

If it makes you feel any better, for several years I seldom had access to any better books than the Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High for my free reading, and in fact we watched a lot of TV, but I later did very well as an English major.

[FloridaLisa]

I'm a *no junk from the library* mom. There is only so much time to read and I wanted them reading good stuff. Most of my kids didn't go for the junk, but if they did, I just re-directed. Fun is great -- Homer Price, or The Great Horned Spoon. My boys read every single Asterix and Tin TIn book they could find more than once. But we didn't go for the Goosebumps or Captain Underpants series. 

 

Others may differ (always will) in what they do for their kids but if it's making you sick to your stomach and you think you need to redirect your kids reading, then do it.I see no problems with that. You could also require them to check out certain books first -- a science, an art/craft/music, a history/social studies, a biography and one or two from your list. And then limit them to one of their own choosing. 

 

Lisa

[OneStepAtATime]

What about audio books for the quality literature you want them exposed to?  While they work on an art project or something?

 

If you feel that certain books are causing behavior or self esteem issues, then obviously you would want to limit those.  But as others have mentioned, inspiring a love of reading is HUGE for functionality and success in school and in life in general.  If going to the library and reading currently popular books fires that love of reading then please try hard not to kill that love.  

 

I loved reading.  But I was given quite a bit of leeway on my reading.  I did read about magic and sorcerers and all sorts of things.  It didn't affect my belief systems at all. It was just stories.  I love stories.  I loved reading so much that I eventually created my own card catalog system and had tons of books (garage sales, going out of business sales, etc.).  But my parents let me pick books that really interested me.  I also was required to read books that I might not have picked otherwise, and that was good, too, for expanding my horizons.  Books were my go to place for some R and R, though, and I thrived on having some autonomy there.

 

I like what FloridaLisa said (and others).  Ask them to pick out a book from different topics/genres along with whatever they are interested in.  And seriously consider the audio books for adding in additional quality literature.  

 

You might also consider a Kindle with Immersion Reading.   They might be more apt to read quality literature if it is on a device they can carry easily from one room to another and will read to them at the same time as they are reading it or if they are playing with something they can be listening, too.  DS carries his kindle everywhere and I have parental control over what is on the device.  He can pick from the many books available on there but his choices are only what is on that device.  And most have the audio component which he loves.  It opens up his ability to read more advanced books that are a bit beyond his reading level.  Most libraries allow you to check out books you can link to your kindle so it doesn't have to cost that much.

 

Best wishes.

[Seasider]

I get what you mean! The quality of the content is my main concern. I don't mind if they want easier reading to go along with the good stuff I'm putting in through read alouds and required reading. Hang the Cowdog never hurt anyone and my older kids learned their best vocabulary words from Calvin & Hobbs and The Adventures of Tintin. But the library is different now than it was when I was a young browser. I don't believe guidance is the same as censorship. I believe you can still foster a love of reading while steering them towards quality content.

 

Have you got some good reading lists to work from? I always kept a folder of medal winners, summer reading lists from local private school districts, Ambleside Online, Sonlight, WTM, etc. That way there was always a good supply of various genres coming into the house.

 

As your kids get older, they will naturally have free reign. I've seen that my oldest are now still choosing to challenge themselves with quality reading. Of course they read popular fiction, too, but they enjoy/don't avoid the meatier stuff. They are free to choose vampires, but as they do, they are picking up Stoker's Dracula over Twilight.

[OneStepAtATime]

 

 

When my uncle was young, he liked to read comic books. And this was in the 1960s, when comic books were certainly not respectable "graphic novels", not to most people!

 

And his mother let him read whatever he wanted, in contrast to most of the parents of his classmates who strongly discouraged comics.

 

Which meant his classmates were astonished when he was in the 5th grade and the tests they took showed that he was by far the best reader in the class. Because he read all those comics! Just like their doting parents said they shouldn't!

 

On a related issue, we learn more things from books than simply "reading". I've learned so much random trivia from murder mysteries over the years, for example. It makes me look quite erudite to pull out factoids about fainting goats or tay-sachs disease, but really, it's just cheap mysteries! But more to the point I wanted to make when I started this paragraph, children aren't just getting fluency out of reading, they're getting other things as well.

 

When I was in the 8th grade, my teacher once criticized a book she saw me reading in the 5 minutes between arriving and the bell ringing. She thought it was "below my level". Well, yeah, lady, I was reading on a college level when I was ten, any book written for my age group was going to be below my reading level. But that book was right at my social/emotional level - an area where I really, really needed all the help I could get. I learned more from Sixth-Grade Secrets than I did from 1984, Julius Caesar, or Parable of the Sower, other books I read that year. (Although To Kill a Mockingbird was also right up my alley, and when I reread 1984 and Parable a few years later I actually understood them much more and was able to get quite a bit from them. Those books are just fine. They just weren't very useful to me then.)

 

If a kid is reading something seemingly below their level, there's something they're getting out of it.

 

:iagree:

[boomerangboom]

Great ideas here! We live in Denver and have access to great libraries. Thinking about it i believe my closest library is small and limited in what they carry. Today im going to take them to a larger library with more selection and ask them to make certain selections then one or two personal selections. Thank you so much for your replies. Sometimes i just need other moms input to make me not feel crazy.

 

 

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[Mommy_of_4]

My kids are free to pick whatever they want at the library.  I buy the books that "I" want them to read and assign them for school.

[Farrar]

I'm not sure why magic in books is a worry?  :confused1:  Sure, there are many light reads with magic, but there's also great literature with "magic" like Narnia, Hobbit, etc. Just because a book is fantasy doesn't mean it's junky. This is what I meant about having a very narrow definition of "good."

[boomerangboom]

Not trollish at all. A genuine concern. Unfortunately my kids didnt pop out with an instruction manual. I am a worried parent that doesnt want to warp my kids. I wasnt allowed to even go to the library so these different worlds that my kids are getting to visit are all new to me.

 

 

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[Tanaqui]

Not trollish at all. A genuine concern. Unfortunately my kids didnt pop out with an instruction manual. I am a worried parent that doesnt want to warp my kids. I wasnt allowed to even go to the library so these different worlds that my kids are getting to visit are all new to me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

That sounds horrific. All the more reason to take my advice from earlier and read some of their choices for yourself. That will give you a feel for these books you missed out on.

 

 

[Happy2BaMom]

I let my kids free-browse while I take a cart & just randomly pull out books. I troll the kids' aisles, just grabbing whatever subject looks interesting & that we haven't read much about yet (mammals/ecosystems, the Hindenburg, rise of Hitler, Ebola, Smallpox, Important Supreme Court cases, Native American ceremonies, volcanoes, Cleopatra, a few old fiction mysteries that I remember reading as a kid & a few biographies were the last round I gathered). I check out all these books (usually around 20-25), along with whatever mindless drivel my kids want (I don't let them check out stuff I deem too "dark") and we take them all home. They sit in a pile in the middle of our homeschool room. The kids are required to read 20-30 minutes per day (depending on age) from this pile, until they've read through every book (we keep a list). Then we load up the car & head back to do it all over again. They get the satisfaction of getting drivel for free time reading, I get the satisfaction of exposing them to far more than they would ever get from curriculum (which we use, as well).

 

We all love our library days.

 

P.S. I don't time the reading to our history cycle, although I could. I just enjoy the creativity of pulling out things that look interesting.

[IsabelC]

I actually agree with the "at least they're reading something" argument, but only to a point. I believe that some books really are so trashy that it might be preferable if kids didn't read. However I try to avoid actually banning books from the kids' reading matter. My approach varies with each kid.

 

Mr. 11 can read reasonably well when he tries but is a "lazy" reader (in quotation marks because it's partly actual laziness and partly other issues such as eye problems) and will only choose books that are extremely easy for him. I assign him a book that I think will help his reading skills, and as long as he reads that he can choose whatever he wants to read in addition. 

 

Ms. 9 is delayed with reading, and is also a reluctant reader with low confidence. Because she still needs help with phonics, she does some reading with me. For her 'chapter book' reading she is allowed to read Pony Pals books; many people would probably consider them poor quality, but I'm happy to go with it because horses are her passion and it's a big achievement to have found books that she will actually agree to sit down and read. 

 

Ms. 6 is accelerated so I do curate her reading options quite a bit, just to help her find books at her interest level (as opposed to teen angst themed books ;) ). Luckily she is usually happy to read whatever I pop on her bedside table, so it's not much of an issue.

[kbutton]

Not trollish at all. A genuine concern. Unfortunately my kids didnt pop out with an instruction manual. I am a worried parent that doesnt want to warp my kids. I wasnt allowed to even go to the library so these different worlds that my kids are getting to visit are all new to me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I agree with the suggestion to read some of their choices for yourself. I have known a lot of people who were brought up with a long list of prohibitions, and I think it's wonderful that you are letting your kids have a longer leash.

 

FWIW, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is not a great fit for my boys either. And it can make kids cranky, etc., especially if they don't get the humor for one reason or another (we have some exceptionalities that interfere with perception of humor). I read an interview with the author, and he intended his books for an older audience (I think young teens) originally, but when presented with the chance to market to a wider (younger) audience, he went for it. I figure if he meant it for teens, then my kids can revisit the books as teens. I don't mind that others make a different choice--their kids are different kids.

 

I can't get my kids to explore much in the library--they want to reread stuff over and over (and I let them to a certain extent, but I ask them to alternate with new books), so I gave up and now keep a big pile of used books for them to self-select at home. We didn't give up on the library, but this allows us to expose them to a broader range of things, and they enjoy it. 

[FloridaLisa]

Another idea: it's really fun for kids to explore the library themselves, but you can help steer some of their choices by finding out what they are interested in.  Go to the library catalog and look up books in their interest areas. You could also research books you want them to read, make a list before going to the library and help them find some of those on the list. There are some great choices on the 1000 good books list, the list for Newberry Medal winners list, lists from Sonlight or VP and books such as Honey for Your Child's Heart (probably available at your library).  

 

Lisa

[KSinNS]

I actually let my kids take out whatever they want, but I have found the really junky books often don't get read (and if I really disapprove the books may hide under my bed for a while). If you are worried about fantasy/magic the Circe institute has a great talk about fantasy:

 

http://www.circeinstitute.org/audio

 

There's also a good podcast about fairy tales-I think I liked this one even better

 

http://www.circeinstitute.org/podcast/podcast-fairy-tales-and-moral-imagination

 

I grew up not being allowed to read about witches, etc. so I kind of get it. 

[LinaJ]

I read. I can do 2-3 serious books, and then I do a trashy novel.... I just cannot always read "quality" stuff... So I am thinking my kids are the same way. :)

[kirstenhill]

I try and give my kids a measure of guidance in library choices, while at the same time giving them quite a bit of freedom.  They know I have "veto power" but I try to exercise it very judiciously.   Most of the time my concern is that they pick something that doesn't reflect their maturity level.  My 5 year old wanted a chapter book that looked pretty scary, and I told him that he needed to wait until he was older.   He's prone to nightmares.   I read one Junie B Jones book with my DD when she was young (1st grade maybe?) and just couldn't stand the the character's attitude.  I didn't ban my daughter from reading it but managed to convince her why I didn't think it was a good choice of reading material.  On the other I said nothing about her reading 50 or so Rainbow Magic fairy books and my boys sometimes get into character books (Pokemon, etc) that seem boring and repetitive to me...but I know they are exposed to a lot of good quality books too.  My DD eventually grew out of many of the low-quality series books and has very discerning taste about books she wants to read (almost too much so now...she can be hard to please when it comes to finding books to read for pleasure!).

 

Maybe it depends a bit on how much your kids imitate less-than-desirable characteristics they read about in books?  For example, I had a friend who had to be very careful for a while about letting one of her daughters read books with "troublemaking" characters because her daughter would try and imitate the ways that the characters made mischief.   I've had to at times tell my boys to take a break from certain video games or TV shows because I could see it was affecting their behavior, and for some kids books might cause the same thing.  But I guess I wouldn't be concerned about until I actually saw the behavior/attitudes.

[SparklyUnicorn]

It irked me to no end when I used to take my kids to the library and all they were interested in was playing on the computers.  And I'm not anti computer by any stretch of the imagination, but really I drove far to bring them to the library hoping they'd pick out books. 

 

 

[SKL]

I let them pick junk, but I limit the amount depending on how crabby I'm feeling.  :P  And I reserve the right to pick something myself if I don't think much of their choices.

 

We have a lot of books at home.  With my eldest (8), I do insist that she read something reasonable for her age at least once or twice a week.  My youngest needs no encouragement.  She will read junk, but she will also read meaty stuff.  Just having good books around pretty much guarantees they get read by her.

[EndOfOrdinary]

Do they see you reading books they would classify as junk? I mean in reality kids are going to follow their examples. My son read through all of Wimpy Kid (and there is no way those books could be handled or intended for anyone over about 14. They are mockaries of middle school for middle schoolers), he did all of Harry Potter, all of both series of Percy, but he loves Nathaniel Hawthorne at the moment. Before that it was Shakespeare and Melville. I will oscillate between silly urban farmer books and various Classics. Ds' junk books came from things he heard about with friends. If I get to read fluffy stuff, so does he.

 

He explains it as Percy being Odysseus. Both the book series (Percy and Homer's) are designed to resonate with all of us needing to find a place in the journey of life. In Ds' life journey right now Percy really makes sense. The language of Odysseus is far more profound and beautiful, but figuring out how to deal with girls and being bullied because you are different is much more pertinent. If I were to take away Percy, I would be removing a place for him to find himself in literature. That is quite a grievous thing to do as a parent. And yes, he is the one who can articulate it this way. He got such articulations from thinking about Percy while he was reading such "junk."

 

Your daughter is ten, of course she likes magic books! Do you remember how out of control the world seemed at ten? Who would not be entranced by the ideas of good and evil swirling about everywhere and being able to have a stake in turning the tide through studying hidden mystical powers within you? It is personal power, having a hand in justice, spirituality, self confidence in the face of fear, and just about everything that you want for yourself at ten! With the craziness of the world (Ferguson, NewTown, Liberia, Recessions, gracious!) even if your child does not know exactly what is happening, the entire tone of media is negative and scared. I mean, she is on the brink of puberty; it doesn't get much more out of control borderline magical than birth.

 

Instead of thinking like only an adult, consider thinking like your kids. Better yet, talk to them about what they like in these so called "junk" books. You might be surprised at how little you are thinking of your children based upon blatant judgments of books it does not seem you have even read yourself.

[kbutton]

Do they see you reading books they would classify as junk? I mean in reality kids are going to follow their examples. My son read through all of Wimpy Kid (and there is no way those books could be handled or intended for anyone over about 14. They are mockaries of middle school for middle schoolers)

 

I probably remembered the age range wrong--someone gave my first grader one in the series, and I just remember that the author intended it for much older kids. Either way, it didn't work for my quirky kiddo, esp. in first grade. :-) 

[duckens]

I let my daughters read whatever they want for pleasure. 

 

Dd7 (almost 8!) has been reading tons of Graphic novels since the beginning of summer.  I was stunned by how much her reading fluency and vocabulary has grown in that time!  Apparently graphic novels use fewer word, but they need to make the words count...so they use more challenging words.

In the meantime, I do "shared reading" with dd7.  I use this time to nudge her to "the next level" of reading for her.  Together we read chapter books, Usborne versions of Shakespeare and Dickens, challenging science books, and age-appropriate magazines (Ask, Click, Ranger Rick, etc).  We read 20+ minutes/day.  We list main characters.  She narrates two things that happen in each chapter, or two things she learned from each article. 

 

It's tough to be patient because she CAN read chapter books, she just doesn't CHOOSE to do so on her own at this time. 

Would she transition chapter books on her own if she was in public school and her best friend sitting next to her was reading Junie B. Jones, Rainbow Fairies, or Captain Underpants?  (or the Boxcar Children, Narnia, or Little House?)

I enlist Loverboy to read aloud with the dd4 at the time that I read to dd7.  This ensures that dd4 is exposed to plenty of books on her level.

[Farrar]

I probably remembered the age range wrong--someone gave my first grader one in the series, and I just remember that the author intended it for much older kids. Either way, it didn't work for my quirky kiddo, esp. in first grade. :-) 

 

I think you're mostly right or close. I've also read that Jeff Kinney expected his books to be read mostly by kids about 10-14 - actual middle school age. Instead, a lot of parents give them to kids as young as 5 or 6 as soon as they learn to read enough. I have really mixed feelings about that. They're not inappropriate and I'm a huge advocate of letting kids pick their own books and obviously they resonated with kids that young for some reason. On the other hand, they're full of humor about first romances and bullies that I don't understand why parents would want to push on accelerated kindergarten readers. And the main character is not a model of good behavior. I mean, he's not a bad kid exactly, but he's often lazy and rude. For my 10 yos, I feel pretty confident that they know we're supposed to laugh at him and see our own bad qualities in him and sort of laugh at ourselves. I know they can see that he's an exaggeration. But for an early elementary school kid... yeah, I can see how some kids think this is how you're supposed to be, or that's a model or just end up copying his behavior. Because they lack subtlety.

[Arcadia]

If you want them to read award winners, pick one book a month as their literature discussion. At least you get them to read twelve award winners in a year.

My younger does not read fiction so I have to assign. Still he gets to borrow plenty of non-fiction of his choosing from the library. My older reads Minecraft story books for fun and it did not affect his english. Besides my kids learn all the foul words like "darn it" from their friends in outside classes.

[EndOfOrdinary]

I probably remembered the age range wrong--someone gave my first grader one in the series, and I just remember that the author intended it for much older kids. Either way, it didn't work for my quirky kiddo, esp. in first grade. :-)

Oh, most definitely not first grade! You are totally correct there.

[Zinnia]

I just finished reading The Book Whisperer.  It's written from a complete public school point of  view, but the author/teacher is so passionate about books and reading that it really has ignited something within me, too.  It makes me want to have my kids reading far and wide, anything they desire. 

For us, I reserve 15 books at a time, my choice, and then, they get free reign to pick some others.  Most of them get read before they are returned.

[HS Mom in NC]

Didn't read all the responses.

 

Adding to Ellie's good advice, remember that it doesn't always have to be you reading aloud.  There are lots good books on CD at my local library.  You can have a scheduled quiet time (not optional) where the kids listen to a great book on CD and stay in their rooms doing something quiet while they listen and have a snack.  It gives you a break from reading aloud and it gives you a break from the kids for half an hour or an hour or whatever time frame you choose. 

[Stellalarella]

In Chapter 5 of  "The Read-Aloud Handbook," JIm Trelease addresses the issue of "junk" books.  Although his answer to that narrow question is not available online, you can get the flavor of his thoughts on sustained silent reading from the excerpts that are available at this link:

http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rah-ch5.html .  Most libraries are going to have his book, though.  And older copies can be had very cheaply online.

 

Dear children, you can check out those Geronimo Stilton, Babysitter Club, TInkerbell, Starwars books, but please just don't make me read them aloud to you.  Now that's where I draw the line...  :)

[Tanaqui]

Dear children, you can check out those Geronimo Stilton, Babysitter Club, Tinkerbell, Star wars books, but please just don't make me read them aloud to you.  Now that's where I draw the line...   :)

 

 

Hear, hear. And I enjoyed BSC when I was a child.

[Lucy the Valiant]

You can also put "limits" on their book reading while still allowing them to read "junk" / twaddle / pulp fiction - our kids are allowed 2 "fluff" books, 2 non fiction, and 2 "childhood classics" at each visit (we have a few kids, so they do all trade back and forth with each other; 6 seems to be the max that they can keep track of at home, not a magic number or anything). Our librarians know about this rule, and get quite a kick out it, and we have had many friendly conversations about what does and doesn't qualify as "fluff." :) (I am the Card Holder, so I am therefore the Fluff Definer in our house.)

 

They read Geronimo Stilton, but they also read Shakespeare and sea turtle books, you know? And - after several years of this - they pretty much know the difference between the types of books themselves, too (which was one of my original goals).

 

(You're allowed to increase your non-fiction reading AND your classic reading, but the fluffs are limited to 2 / week / kid. :) )

[IsabelC]

Fluff Definer: what a great addition to your job description :)

[IsabelC]

In Chapter 5 of  "The Read-Aloud Handbook," JIm Trelease addresses the issue of "junk" books.  Although his answer to that narrow question is not available online, you can get the flavor of his thoughts on sustained silent reading from the excerpts that are available at this link:

http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rah-ch5.html .  Most libraries are going to have his book, though.  And older copies can be had very cheaply online.

 

Dear children, you can check out those Geronimo Stilton, Babysitter Club, TInkerbell, Starwars books, but please just don't make me read them aloud to you.  Now that's where I draw the line...   :)

 

Thanks for that interesting article. 

 

Seems pretty obvious that SSR isn't a good substitute for reading instruction, though. (I know a little girl who was told to do SSR even though she couldn't read: she got 20 or 30 minutes per day of looking at pictures and feeling bad about her inability to read. That's not a problem with SSR; it's a problem with how the school was using it.)

 

 

 

By the way, I always find the idea of 'summer setback' totally bizarre as well as a little sad, because my fondest memory of summer holidays is the reading. I used to get through a novel per day at a minimum, without all that boring school busywork eating into my reading time.

[MariaT]

Like LinaJ, I will read serious, nonfiction books for a while, then I need some brain candy and read something fun and light. And I noticed my kids will do this, also.

I was very proud of DD reading LOTR earlier this fall. She would excitedly tell me what was happening as she got to that section. She got as far as Pippin being tempted by the Palantir.....and then she started rereading Farmer Boy because Thanksgiving was coming and she wanted to read about food. Then she wanted to reread the other later Little House books, and then she reread Avalon magic books!!!!!  She said she wants to go back to LOTR but she can't find it.......

 

My oldest read LOTS of Captain Underpants....and LOVED it. I do admit I did not buy any copies--he had to borrow them from the library to read them. While he was in school, his first grade teacher tested him and found he was reading at the 8th grade level. (one of the 500 reasons we decided to homeschool) Now he is reading Melville's Billy Budd for fun so he can meet with his CC lit prof an hour before class to have a private book club once a week.

 

DD15 also often reread easier books-- the Rick Riordan Percy Jackson books were repeats for a few years. It made DH uneasy. But as PPs have pointed out, he was building fluency. Now he reads college art theory texts for fun.

 

It's understandable to be nervous when you can't see the future. We all do that. But, honest, it will all work out.

Maria