my reading education inadequacies

[annegables]

The recent threads on literature have me doing some contemplation about my upbringing. For background, I grew up in the 80s in middle class suburbia in a great school district. I had a stay-at-home mom, and both my parents are educated and value education. I taught myself to read the newspaper at 4yo. I had every reading advantage, with the possible exception that I am a very literal thinker with a strong STEM bend.

However, I read The Baby Sitters Club, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys almost exclusively until the 8th grade! After that, I did very little pleasure reading until I graduated college because I had zero free time. My parents never read to us nor did they suggest books that I should read. We went to the library regularly, but I was left entirely to my own devices to choose absolute drivel. It has been only in the past year that I began playing catch-up with my literary inadequacies, in part because I didnt realize I had them!

How, given that home environment, was I not more encouraged to read anything better? No Anne of Green Gables, Little House, Secret Garden, Arabian Nights, Narnia, nothing! I feel like my parents completely trusted the school system to totally provide for my education and that they were off the hook. I understand that there was no internet, but surely there were book lists containing stuff better than the Babysitters' Club??!

One of my main focuses of parenting is to remedy this in my children.

[Mommalongadingdong]

1 hour ago, annegables said:

How, given that home environment, was I not more encouraged to read anything better?

I think a lot of parents share what they read with their kids. I know that's how I was introduced to Narnia, Little House, Phantom Tollbooth, Charlotte's Web, and many, many more. I read my favorites to my kids too.

[hs03842]

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Edited December 9, 2020 by JoyKM

[hs03842]

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Edited December 9, 2020 by JoyKM

[Mommalongadingdong]

11 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

But I fully believe that reading, ultimately should be enjoyable and one of our greatest goals of parenting is to impart a love of *READING* to our kids.  Kids that enjoy reading will glean all sorts of knowledge as they read

Yes yes yes! 

I don't judge anyone on what they or their kids read. If they don't read to their kids, then yeah maybe, but if they only read graphic novels or Goosebumps? Who cares. I myself read a lot, like 150+ books a year, and it's mostly mush I'll admit. But when I've had people try to tell me I'm not well read because I don't only read the classics, I can only laugh. Same with my kids. I just bought my 6yo a Descendants graphic novel and a Monster High chapter book. She's 6, and it's what she chooses to read on her time. For many children, those books and series could be a child's only experience with monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, werewolves, and fairy tales, so I'm not knocking them. 

Also, I don't think this was a PS issue, it was an issue you had with your parents.

[Shoeless]

2 hours ago, annegables said:

The recent threads on literature have me doing some contemplation about my upbringing. For background, I grew up in the 80s in middle class suburbia in a great school district. I had a stay-at-home mom, and both my parents are educated and value education. I taught myself to read the newspaper at 4yo. I had every reading advantage, with the possible exception that I am a very literal thinker with a strong STEM bend.

However, I read The Baby Sitters Club, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys almost exclusively until the 8th grade! After that, I did very little pleasure reading until I graduated college because I had zero free time. My parents never read to us nor did they suggest books that I should read. We went to the library regularly, but I was left entirely to my own devices to choose absolute drivel. It has been only in the past year that I began playing catch-up with my literary inadequacies, in part because I didnt realize I had them!

How, given that home environment, was I not more encouraged to read anything better? No Anne of Green Gables, Little House, Secret Garden, Arabian Nights, Narnia, nothing! I feel like my parents completely trusted the school system to totally provide for my education and that they were off the hook. I understand that there was no internet, but surely there were book lists containing stuff better than the Babysitters' Club??!

One of my main focuses of parenting is to remedy this in my children.

 

My upbringing sounds similar to yours.  A solidly middle class house in the late 70s/early 80s.  I read lots of Nancy Drew, Judy Blume, Little House.  Lots of books from the Ramona series, Mouse and the Motorcycle (my 4th grade teacher gave me a copy of that book), Freckle Juice, etc. 

My parents never suggested books to read, either, beyond Nancy Drew.  We went to the library and bookstore regularly, but they let me pick whatever I wanted to read.  My grandmother bought me Little House and gave me a few other books, like Cheaper by the Dozen and later on Gone With the Wind.  My stepmother had me read Little Women.  

I don't recall school ever sending home a reading list or any sort of push for the parents to suggest specific books.  There was no "required summer reading list" back then.  Honestly, I think everyone was just glad if kids were willingly reading anything. If there were any grand books to be read, my parents expected the school would assign them.  That was their job.  My parents job was to raise me and make sure I did my homework. 

[Matryoshka]

I think it's also partly kid dependent.  I read a lot of kids' 'classics' as a kid, no one made me read them, and I have no idea how I came across them. I know my mom wanted me to read Anne of Green Gables because it was a favorite of hers as a child, and I did, but it wasn't a favorite of mine and I didn't read past the 2nd book.  I think someone gave me a the first two Narnia books for my birthday when I was in about 2nd grade?  Those I devoured.  I never got in to Nancy Drew much, but I loved the Happy Hollisters (they are not better literature, lol).  I read through the entire YA section of my library during high school.  I just read a lot.  I never read a single Babysitter or Sweet Valley book, but it wasn't because anyone denied those to me, I just don't seem to have picked them up...  I don't think my mom every paid much attention to what I was reading.

Then my brother never read a book without pictures in it before he graduated from high school.  As an adult, he does read nonfiction.

I obviously read to my kids a ton and fed them all kinds of books - didn't deny them anything, but also made sure the 'good' stuff was available. They also read Harry Potter and Percy Jackson - which are ripping yarns but not great lit.  The older two did read a lot.  One's got fairly highbrow taste, she read Les Miz for fun, likes 'deep' poetry, the other prefers things like the Maze Runner series and generally plot-driven stories, fun but not too taxing.  Then... my youngest.  In middle school she found the Warriors series, read all of those, and has not read a thing since.  Much to my horror, she has mastered the art of the Spark Notes.  I outsourced her English classes starting in middle school because I couldn't get her to read anything I asked her to.  She is pretty much a non-reader.  Sigh.

[Matryoshka]

7 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

The children's books you mentioned are not "classics" using a historic use of the word. Narnia (apologies up front) is overrated. Famously, Tolkien hated the Narnia books. Ask yourself how quickly you figured out that Aslan was an allegory for Jesus when you read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. In a better book, it would not be so obvious and heavy-handed. 

Well, I'm not so literal a reader that I didn't realize The Invisible Man wasn't literally invisible, BUT I had.no.idea. that those books were any kind of allegory and when a friend told me I was completely shocked and honestly kind of annoyed and felt she was ruining them for me!  Now, I was probably only 8 years old or something when I read them, though my friend shared this revelation with my much later.  I still just love them.  Of course as an adult (yes, I've re-read them) the allegory is totally obvious, but I only find it over-the-top heavy handed in The Last Battle.  That's my least favorite.

[hs03842]

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Edited December 9, 2020 by JoyKM

43 minutes ago, JoyKM said:

Reflecting on your own experiences with literature as a child was valuable in that it clarified a goal for you—to read more of a certain caliber of literature with your children. This is great!  

For your parents—were they voracious readers, educators or trained in some way in children’s literacy? My brother will occasionally make very specific complaints about my mom not knowing enough about nutrition to have addressed his diet in a certain, specific manner or not having some other specific knowledge about something that affected him in a certain way. I have to point out to him that she had no training or life experience to have obtained that knowledge so it was kind of not appropriate to have expected it of her. He doesn’t have kids yet so he doesn’t understand fully that parents don’t know everything—we are just doing our best. My mom describes the push towards reading for all children (and the subsequent higher value given to reading as a pass time)  as something that really came about hardcore in the late 90s. When she was a kid only nerds read a lot (her words). She preferred an active, tomboy lifestyle with sandlot ball games, climbing trees and riding bikes. That was deemed as preferable then, too. She wasn’t a very academic kid, did well enough in school, and went on with her life. The whole reading as a superior hobby thing was not part of her experience as a young person. My dad was the one who encouraged reading and learning from a young age—he would come home from work when we were in preschool and play school with a bunch of posters he got from a teacher supply store and bring all of those boxes of books home for us.  Still, they weren’t always classics. 

Now I make an effort to purchase used copies of books to read aloud beforehand so that I can keep them on our bookshelves for the kids to read alone as they grow. The classics will be there if they want to reach for them.  When/if they return to public school we’ll keep up our read aloud and audiobook traditions (which both started while we were a public school family).  I have learned that not every homeschool mom has the heart of an educator and that there are public school moms who live life with a homeschool spirit.  It’s up to me to be the best mom I can be no matter the context knowing that, at the end of parenting, my kids will still say, “Wow, my mom never...”

Th bolded is so very true!  My good friend jokes that all our mistakes are just giving our kids something to talk about in therapy.  With limited knowledge and limited time there is always something that doesn’t get done or could have been done differently/better.

 

[Matryoshka]

3 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

I don't remember what I thought when I read the book the first time. Narnia wasn't elevated to quite the same height when I was a kid. They were just books that most of us read, not books that we had to read, KWIM? 

Well, yeah.  Those were books I read for fun.  That's why I was mad when someone started telling me there was anything besides a wonderful story to them!  Lalalala with the deeper meaning! 😂

[daijobu]

@annegables  For the most part I could have written your original post.  Except I was a fan of Trixie Belden and thought Nancy Drew was too old fashioned due to their old-fashioned looking book covers.  I had immigrant parents who also trusted the school system, so they couldn't really recommend English language books.  I'll also add that I thought librarians were nothing more than uneducated clerks whose job was to stamp books, not unlike the people who worked at the grocery store.  It never occurred to me that they knew anything about the books they were loaning out so it never occurred to me to ask their advice.  Sigh.  

You know those lists that used to go around with titles like "100 of the Best Classics: How many have you read?"  I will have read about 5 of them, and my husband who attended a small private school will have read all but 5.  (He'll tell you it was all that reading was a waste of time.)   Ultimately I ended up outsourcing my middle school student's book club because I couldn't make up the difference.  

[caffeineandbooks]

5 hours ago, annegables said:

One of my main focuses of parenting is to remedy this in my children.

I feel like I'm in a similar boat.  Like you, I read a lot as a kid but without much guidance about what to read, and perhaps like you I tend to prefer nonfiction or at least genre fiction to "literature".  I'd love to hear some of the ways you're working to make a new pattern for your own family!

Early in our homeschool journey I bought The Well Educated Mind but was frankly intimidated by it.  Then I came across Center for Lit's Teaching the Classics seminar a few years ago and am so glad I invested the time.  I still feel like a beginner, but it's given me the tools to think about books and discuss them with my kids.  It seems to me a more delight-centred model - not a less *deep* model, but without the labour of repeated reading and research and structured note taking that TWEM seemed to require.

My hope is that I can continue to build my skills in adult book clubs and pass on new habits as the kids grow.  I am also reading a bunch of new-to-me middle grade novels for the first time and can then enthusiastically recommend them to the kids; the ones they read, we discuss together.  And, spinning off from Miss Lemon's most hated book thread, I'm trying to give them plenty of choice and plenty of opportunities to just read and enjoy, without having to fill in worksheets or write reports.  I guess I'll know in about 20 years how effective it's been 🙂

[annegables]

To be clear, I am not really blaming my parents for this. I am more expressing surprise that the school system did not direct me to a greater variety of books, or librarians didnt, or that my parents didnt. It sort of feels like that story about Anybody, Everybody, Somebody, and Nobody. Anybody could have directed me towards better reading material. Somebody ought to have shown me anything besides what I was reading. Everybody trusted that Somebody was doing this, and in the end, Nobody did.

I also dont think the alternative books are classics, in the, um, classical sense of the word. But they are well-known books that were written before my childhood that would have been fabulous suggestions for me as a kid. And I remain surprised that none of the adults in my life thought to suggest any of these (or others) to me. Note, I am not bitter at anyone, certainly not my parents. Just rather surprised, and it is because I assume that they also were unaware.

I actually credit Harry Potter for starting a revolution towards writing longer and better-written series for the middle grades. Harry Potter, Brandon Mull, etc might not be Dickens, but there are complex sentences, complex vocab, complex themes, and complex story arcs that I think are great for pleasure reading. The language alone in these books is leaps and bounds better than Babysitters' Club, Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys.

How I am trying to remedy this in my own kids...We do loads of read-alouds and audiobooks. And I help them pick pleasure books that I think they will enjoy and that have some literary merit. I spend a decent amount of time curating that list and my kids are really thankful for my suggestions, so it avoids the two extremes of they are left to their own devices on one end and I control everything on the other. 

I pick read alouds that my kids will enjoy (Homer Price, By the Great Horn Spoon, etc), but also books that stretch us (Plutarch, Our Young Folks Josephus, Caesar's COmmentaries, kids versions of Shakespeare and Homer, etc). I make it fun and I combine these books with more light ones like The Great Brain. We discuss all kinds of stuff with the books and make it a snuggly, enjoyable time. I try to expose them to a wide variety of books.

1 hour ago, caffeineandbooks said:

Early in our homeschool journey I bought The Well Educated Mind but was frankly intimidated by it.  Then I came across Center for Lit's Teaching the Classics seminar a few years ago and am so glad I invested the time.  I still feel like a beginner, but it's given me the tools to think about books and discuss them with my kids.  It seems to me a more delight-centred model - not a less *deep* model, but without the labour of repeated reading and research and structured note taking that TWEM seemed to require.

This is me!!!

Edited August 10, 2020 by annegables
more info

[annegables]

Another thing I am doing is to read the classics myself and have the kids see me reading. They can see me wrestling with books that are somewhat challenging for me to read. I go on walk-and-talks with each kid and we discuss the books we are reading. In essence, we have steeped our lives in the reading and discussing of literature. I love that books help us live another person's life for a little bit to understand them better.

What is that quote, "In five years from now what will have made the most difference in our lives are the people we know and the books we have read." Or something like that. I want the books we encounter to form meaningful bonds in our lives.

[annegables]

Also, I dont know where I picked up this attitude, but I have assumed for as long as I can remember, that any books that are considered "good for me", are not going to be enjoyable, somewhat like eating one's veggies. But both of those statements are false. Veggies can be delicious, and there are many "good to have read" books that are also wonderfully interesting! That is an attitude my children do not have, thankfully.

[caffeineandbooks]

I recognise some of your titles from Reading Roadmaps - isn't that a treasure trove of great titles?! 😄 I'm not from the States, so many are new to me.  I'm working on building a selection of options, not as required reading, but simply as a shelf full of choices I think they will love and that I love too.  It is such a joy to me when the kids come (invariably after bedtime...) and tell me excitedly about a book they've just finished!  And I love the shared language it gives us - when a situation or person reminds us of something from a book and a brief reference becomes a rich connection.

[8filltheheart]

My upbringing was similar.  I don't remember ever having a book read to me, being tucked in at night, helping with homework, nothing.  My parents were completely clueless as to what courses I took in high school, etc.  My mom read all of the time, but the books she read were Mary Stewart and Harlequin romance types.  (Blech.)

I was lucky in that I went to a great high school with great teachers.  I hated a lot of the books they forced us to read (I used to hate Shakespeare bc of high school), but equally, I learned a ton and was exposed to books I would never have thought of reading.  

Bedtime stories are a huge part of our lives.  Even now my 10 yr old will forego spending the night or watching a movie many times bc she still wants her bedtime stories.  I have read so many books to my kids over the yrs that I never read as a child.  (And I am so glad I have.)  Reading aloud is just part of what we do now.  (Though I didn't read aloud with my oldest 2 during high school.  I have with the rest.  I was also more "boxed in" with my oldest couple and did more traditional lit/history courses.  Since then I have turned away from feeling confined by anyone's choices/definitions other than our own.)  

My kids have taught me to appreciate literature that I personally wouldn't choose.  My dd loves epic poetry.  Several love Shakespeare.   All of the my older girls love Austen (not my type of book.)  

[TomK]

Something worth keeping in mind is that for many of us, the push for kids to read so-called "good books" actually inhibits a love of reading. Kids don't learn to love reading because they're forced to read books that some adult thinks are good for them. They love reading because it can take them on adventures to places they've never been and to do things they've never done. Yet, if they're not free to read what some might consider crap, they're not likely to take up reading elsewhere.

Like some said earlier, many of these "classics" weren't classics at the time.

A favorite example of mine is Shakespeare. He's considered high-brow these days. Every educated person simply has to be familiar with his works. Several of them, in fact. We read one of his plays every year in high school, if memory serves. Macbeth, Julius Ceasar, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, all were essential parts of our supposedly well-rounded education.

The thing is, Shakespeare wrote for the masses, not the nobility or the well-educated. His works are littered with low-brow humor that flies over the head of many today.

So yeah, I'm partial to reading for the sake of reading. Then again, I work as a writer and I'm a novelist on the side. I'm biased a bit on the topic since I don't write anything that will be considered a classic in a generation or two. I write science fiction and fantasy and I like that. I'd rather have my kids love reading so that when they have to read something they don't like, it's not likely to prevent that love from forming because it's already there. 

I'm pretty down on public schools, but one of the better moves they made between when I was in school and when my son went through was the Accelerated Reader program. It didn't try to foist particular books off on kids to read, it just wanted kids to read. Books were rated based on length, complexity, etc, so they were encouraged to reader tougher books, but they weren't forced to read anything in particular.

It helped my oldest develop a love for books that he still holds onto as a sophmore in college. It's why he sought out Frankenstein as a freshman in high school. It's why he's read Edgar Allen Poe as well. He loves to read and is always looking for good books.

Which is a long-winded way for me to say that it's not always a great thing to push particular books on children who don't already love reading in and of itself.

That's just my take. 

[Little Green Leaves]

2 hours ago, TomK said:

Something worth keeping in mind is that for many of us, the push for kids to read so-called "good books" actually inhibits a love of reading. Kids don't learn to love reading because they're forced to read books that some adult thinks are good for them. They love reading because it can take them on adventures to places they've never been and to do things they've never done. Yet, if they're not free to read what some might consider crap, they're not likely to take up reading elsewhere.

Like some said earlier, many of these "classics" weren't classics at the time.

A favorite example of mine is Shakespeare. He's considered high-brow these days. Every educated person simply has to be familiar with his works. Several of them, in fact. We read one of his plays every year in high school, if memory serves. Macbeth, Julius Ceasar, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, all were essential parts of our supposedly well-rounded education.

The thing is, Shakespeare wrote for the masses, not the nobility or the well-educated. His works are littered with low-brow humor that flies over the head of many today.

So yeah, I'm partial to reading for the sake of reading. Then again, I work as a writer and I'm a novelist on the side. I'm biased a bit on the topic since I don't write anything that will be considered a classic in a generation or two. I write science fiction and fantasy and I like that. I'd rather have my kids love reading so that when they have to read something they don't like, it's not likely to prevent that love from forming because it's already there. 

I'm pretty down on public schools, but one of the better moves they made between when I was in school and when my son went through was the Accelerated Reader program. It didn't try to foist particular books off on kids to read, it just wanted kids to read. Books were rated based on length, complexity, etc, so they were encouraged to reader tougher books, but they weren't forced to read anything in particular.

It helped my oldest develop a love for books that he still holds onto as a sophmore in college. It's why he sought out Frankenstein as a freshman in high school. It's why he's read Edgar Allen Poe as well. He loves to read and is always looking for good books.

Which is a long-winded way for me to say that it's not always a great thing to push particular books on children who don't already love reading in and of itself.

That's just my take. 

I don't think it's a question of "pushing" books on kids, or "forcing" them to read particular books. I also don't think we need to have an either/or approach to the classics vs everything else. I much prefer "and" to "or."

I do think that, sadly, a lot of people grow up feeling intimidated by "classic" literature, which is a shame and is totally irrational. Oliver Twist is not really a harder book to read than Nancy Drew, or the Hardy Boys. I think we create a lot of anxiety around certain books. I don't agree that the answer is to avoid the classics, or to stop giving them to kids -- I think it's easy enough to teach kids to love those books, or at least to respond to them, rather than lumping them all together  in a despised category.

I think my parents did a good job with that and I'm trying to follow their lead. My father watched a lot of Saturday morning cartoons with us but he also spent months reading us the Oddyssey at bedtime -- not because he thought he should, but because he loved it. We read it so slowly, and I remember laughing at all of the millions of times Dawn would appear with her rosy fingers. I want my kids to have the same free and easy relationship with books. 

[Ellie]

20 hours ago, annegables said:

 

However, I read The Baby Sitters Club, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys almost exclusively until the 8th grade! After that, I did very little pleasure reading until I graduated college because I had zero free time. My parents never read to us nor did they suggest books that I should read. We went to the library regularly, but I was left entirely to my own devices to choose absolute drivel. It has been only in the past year that I began playing catch-up with my literary inadequacies, in part because I didnt realize I had them!

How, given that home environment, was I not more encouraged to read anything better? No Anne of Green Gables, Little House, Secret Garden, Arabian Nights, Narnia, nothing! I feel like my parents completely trusted the school system to totally provide for my education and that they were off the hook. I understand that there was no internet, but surely there were book lists containing stuff better than the Babysitters' Club??!

One of my main focuses of parenting is to remedy this in my children.

Well, I don't know. My parents never encouraged me to read anything different, either (although my mother once told me I needed to read something other than horse books, lol), but I read all of those on my own; sometimes they were offshoots of the horse books, or they were on the library shelves next to the horse books, or I couldn't find any horse books. 🙂 But I read them. In my senior year, "Wuthering Heights" (or maybe "Jane Eyre." I forget, because 50 years ago) was one of our literature selections; it was the only time I had ever participated in discussions, because I had read it several times before then and I knew all the things. I think that maybe it has at least a little to do with one's desire to be reading and to want to know more. I'm not sure that a reading list would have made a difference for you.

[Moonhawk]

23 hours ago, annegables said:

The recent threads on literature have me doing some contemplation about my upbringing. For background, I grew up in the 80s in middle class suburbia in a great school district. I had a stay-at-home mom, and both my parents are educated and value education. I taught myself to read the newspaper at 4yo. I had every reading advantage, with the possible exception that I am a very literal thinker with a strong STEM bend.

However, I read The Baby Sitters Club, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys almost exclusively until the 8th grade! After that, I did very little pleasure reading until I graduated college because I had zero free time. My parents never read to us nor did they suggest books that I should read. We went to the library regularly, but I was left entirely to my own devices to choose absolute drivel. It has been only in the past year that I began playing catch-up with my literary inadequacies, in part because I didnt realize I had them!

How, given that home environment, was I not more encouraged to read anything better? No Anne of Green Gables, Little House, Secret Garden, Arabian Nights, Narnia, nothing! I feel like my parents completely trusted the school system to totally provide for my education and that they were off the hook. I understand that there was no internet, but surely there were book lists containing stuff better than the Babysitters' Club??!

One of my main focuses of parenting is to remedy this in my children.

15 hours ago, annegables said:

To be clear, I am not really blaming my parents for this. I am more expressing surprise that the school system did not direct me to a greater variety of books, or librarians didnt, or that my parents didnt. It sort of feels like that story about Anybody, Everybody, Somebody, and Nobody. Anybody could have directed me towards better reading material. Somebody ought to have shown me anything besides what I was reading. Everybody trusted that Somebody was doing this, and in the end, Nobody did.

I had a similar experience in many ways. The differences being my mom was a children's librarian! So I was always being given the latest kids books and YA novels to read, help her decide what to add to her library and give her a summary to keep up with the trends, etc. I did read what the school lists gave me, usually more than the required 2 out of 5 or whatever, but for being a "book worm" kid I had very little exposure to actual literature. I read anything I got my hands on, it's just that there wasn't many classics handy. 

(I did read Gone with the Wind in 5th grade and I have no idea how that fell into my hands, lol.)

What's interesting to me is that my mom still continues to read only children chapter and YA novels. I think her own education lacked a lot of literature (which is a whole 'nother story), and she enjoyed reading, but her tastes never progressed past this stage. Which worked great for her, really, as a children's librarian, but it gave me a false sense of the literary world as I was growing up.

I've also been focused on getting my kids exposed to the classics because of this. I don't really encourage keeping up with the latest books coming out (though my mom buys them some so they do still get some of that too). And it's good because I'm reading some books that "everyone" has read before, and I'm finally catching up. It's a good feeling to be in the loop, if a bit late.

As a tangent, I think I was in 6th grade when I read Where the Red Fern Grows, and my DD11 is entering 6th grade. I feel like I should give her this to read, but my heart is dreading it, lol.

[8filltheheart]

2 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Disagree with the bolded sentence. I'm reading Oliver Twist to my daughter right now. It's much more complex than Nancy Drew. First, it's written in a sarcastic way where the words praise the adults who are cruel to Oliver but the reader knows that the author is actually saying the opposite. 

Second, it contains old fashioned language and British terms. For example, my daughter had no idea what a beadle was. 

I remember reading a paragraph with the word "sanguine" and another section had "sanguinity." I doubt Nancy Drew includes those words. My daughter had no idea what those words meant. 

I agree with this. 

Also, somewhere in this thread, someone made a statement like there isn't a consensus on how to define a great book, anyway.  If discussing literature in general vs. the "Great Books" as defining Western canon, I do think that there is a generally accepted definition of how to define a great book---a story that endures generations bc of its artistry and connection to the human condition/emotions.  There is a reason that books like Nancy Drew would not be classified as a great book (as opposed to a Great Book) while books like Lord of the Rings are.  They may not meet everyone's tastes (anymore than the Great Books do), but there is a distinct difference in the quality of literature.

[Little Green Leaves]

20 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Disagree with the bolded sentence. I'm reading Oliver Twist to my daughter right now. It's much more complex than Nancy Drew. First, it's written in a sarcastic way where the words praise the adults who are cruel to Oliver but the reader knows that the author is actually saying the opposite. 

Second, it contains old fashioned language and British terms. For example, my daughter had no idea what a beadle was. 

I remember reading a paragraph with the word "sanguine" and another section had "sanguinity." I doubt Nancy Drew includes those words. My daughter had no idea what those words meant. 

You know, that's totally true. Oliver Twist is going to have new vocabulary and will generally take more concentration than Nancy Drew. I guess I was thinking about the story -- you can read Dickens for the pleasure of the plot. 

[Little Green Leaves]

8 minutes ago, square_25 said:

I moved to North America when I was 11, and I found Dickens hard for pretty much all of high school. And I had perfect SAT scores by the end of high school... I didn't have a small vocabulary by then. 

That makes sense though -- a book like that would've been crazy hard for me in French. I'm thinking it's not just vocabulary but also general familiarity with other, similar books. 

I definitely didn't know what sanguine meant when I was 10, but I don't remember it bothering me. I think I just plowed through anyway, trying to find out what was going to happen next:) I was kind of a greedy reader as a kid.

[8filltheheart]

10 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

You know, that's totally true. Oliver Twist is going to have new vocabulary and will generally take more concentration than Nancy Drew. I guess I was thinking about the story -- you can read Dickens for the pleasure of the plot. 

If you reduce novels to plot, you can turn Moby Dick into a boardbook for toddlers.  I'm not sure that is the way I would classify reading accessibility.  Nancy Drew's reading level is avg elementary school level.  Oliver Twist will not be understood by most elementary kids.  

[Little Green Leaves]

4 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

If you reduce novels to plot, you can turn Moby Dick into a boardbook for toddlers.  I'm not sure that is the way I would classify reading accessibility.  Nancy Drew's reading level is avg elementary school level.  Oliver Twist will not be understood by most elementary kids.  

But with Dickens in particular, I don't think reading for the plot has to be reductive. He is such a direct writer, and such a good storyteller, that I think you can read him for the plot and then later come back and add new layers of understanding.

I didn't mean to say that everyone has to read Dickens in elementary school. I definitely loved reading Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.   

[8filltheheart]

1 minute ago, Little Green Leaves said:

But with Dickens in particular, I don't think reading for the plot has to be reductive. He is such a direct writer, and such a good storyteller, that I think you can read him for the plot and then later come back and add new layers of understanding.

I didn't mean to say that everyone has to read Dickens in elementary school. I definitely loved reading Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.   

I am disagreeing that the avg elementary age child could pick up Dickens and read one independently. Nancy Drew? Yes.  It isn't just about plot.  It is about understanding what they are reading (if they even can.....many would get bogged down on trying to read words they are completely unfamiliar with), sentence structure, setting, etc.  There is a huge difference between a 4th/5th grade leveled reading text and Dickens.  Ancedotes (meaning individuals who can) don't translate across full spectrum populations.   I suspect you were a gifted elementary student if you were reading Dickens in 4th or 5th grade.

[maize]

I grew up in a reading home. I don't know for sure where that came from, but both sets of grandparents had bookcases full of books by the time I was a child so I suppose my parents got it from them. I doubt my grandparents had much access to books as kids--they mostly grew up extremely poor and in families where kids had to work hard on the farm from a young age.

Both my parents read to us--mom tended to choose children's literature, I remember her reading the Ramona books and Little House on the Prairie and the Chronicles of Narnia when I was young. Dad read Lord of the Rings and Pilgrim's Progress and whatever books he enjoyed reading himself. When I was nine or so they bought a bunch of used copies of several Shakespeare plays from the discount shelf at a college bookstore and we read through those in a reader's theater style. 

I was a late reader, but once I did start reading on my own I was comfortable with any book--in fact two of the first books I ever remember reading (when I was 9) were David Copperfield and Oliver Twist. In junior high I read War and Peace for fun. I'm sure I didn't get out of books like that then what I would now but I did find them interesting and not intimidating.

[Little Green Leaves]

4 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

I am disagreeing that the avg elementary age child could pick up Dickens and read one independently. Nancy Drew? Yes.  It isn't just about plot.  It is about understanding what they are reading (if they even can.....many would get bogged down on trying to read words they are completely unfamiliar with), sentence structure, setting, etc.  There is a huge difference between a 4th/5th grade leveled reading text and Dickens.  Ancedotes (meaning individuals who can) don't translate across full spectrum populations.   I suspect you were a gifted elementary student if you were reading Dickens in 4th or 5th grade.

Okay. I don't want to get stuck in a Dickens for All stance.

What bothers me is this division people make between "classic literature" on the one hand and "pleasure reading" on the other. I think a lot of kids learn that the "classics" are somehow intimidating and should be approached with anxiety, and I think that's a shame. Kids should be taught to enjoy books and to engage with them. 

 

 

 

[8filltheheart]

10 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Okay. I don't want to get stuck in a Dickens for All stance.

What bothers me is this division people make between "classic literature" on the one hand and "pleasure reading" on the other. I think a lot of kids learn that the "classics" are somehow intimidating and should be approached with anxiety, and I think that's a shame. Kids should be taught to enjoy books and to engage with them. 

Well, I personally don't think that pleasure reading can't be classic lit (as a matter of fact, my kids read lots of what would be classified as classic for pleasure.  In 7th grade my dd used her saved up $$ to buy an 1800s ed of Marmion bc she loves Marmion so much.)  But, there is absolutely a reading level threshold that needs to be reached in order to be able to understand certain works independently.  Simply bc they can be read for pleasure doesn't mean that a certain level of reading maturity isn't required.  (And that is individual.  I'm pretty sure that my current 9th grader would not be able to read Marmion without assistance.  When reading the Silmarillion and Beowulf, I had to stop and discuss with her constantly bc she couldn't fully comprehend what we were reading.)

But equally, I am not going to classify Nancy Drew as great lit.  It isn't.  A good read?  Sure.  But without definitions, conversations are meaningless. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[Little Green Leaves]

7 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. Which is maybe part of the reason we haven't separated "classics" and "fun reading" for DD8. She's read "Anne of Green Gables" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" and also tons of "The Boxcar Children" books, and she's currently rereading the Berenstain Bear books, lol. 

DD8's reading is entirely unschooled, anyway, and I don't make her write book reports, either. I want her to have as much joy in her reading as she can have, no matter the level of the book. 

Yes! We have the same approach. One day my daughter was like "I read The Nose." She then told me all about chapter one of the Gogol novel which, really, does read like a fairy tale for kids! I mean, nose baked into bread, then coming to life. She had zero interest in reading further. I think by chapter two it gets into functionaries and social events anyway, and then she went back to reading Sound Box Parade...like no difference in her mind...

[Garga]

On 8/9/2020 at 2:46 PM, annegables said:

The recent threads on literature have me doing some contemplation about my upbringing. For background, I grew up in the 80s in middle class suburbia in a great school district. I had a stay-at-home mom, and both my parents are educated and value education. I taught myself to read the newspaper at 4yo. I had every reading advantage, with the possible exception that I am a very literal thinker with a strong STEM bend.

However, I read The Baby Sitters Club, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys almost exclusively until the 8th grade! After that, I did very little pleasure reading until I graduated college because I had zero free time. My parents never read to us nor did they suggest books that I should read. We went to the library regularly, but I was left entirely to my own devices to choose absolute drivel. It has been only in the past year that I began playing catch-up with my literary inadequacies, in part because I didnt realize I had them!

How, given that home environment, was I not more encouraged to read anything better? No Anne of Green Gables, Little House, Secret Garden, Arabian Nights, Narnia, nothing! I feel like my parents completely trusted the school system to totally provide for my education and that they were off the hook. I understand that there was no internet, but surely there were book lists containing stuff better than the Babysitters' Club??!

One of my main focuses of parenting is to remedy this in my children.

You had me at “I grew up in the 80s.” Welcome to non-helicopter parenting!  I’m saying this in a lighthearted way. But, at the same time, I do believe that parenting was very different back then. They probably saw you reading books and were like, “Eh, she’s happy with those books. She’ll find all sorts of things to read throughout her life. She doesn’t need us meddling.”

On 8/9/2020 at 6:33 PM, Matryoshka said:

Well, I'm not so literal a reader that I didn't realize The Invisible Man wasn't literally invisible, BUT I had.no.idea. that those books were any kind of allegory and when a friend told me I was completely shocked and honestly kind of annoyed and felt she was ruining them for me!  Now, I was probably only 8 years old or something when I read them, though my friend shared this revelation with my much later.  I still just love them.  Of course as an adult (yes, I've re-read them) the allegory is totally obvious, but I only find it over-the-top heavy handed in The Last Battle.  That's my least favorite.

In your defense, there is another book called The Invisible Man by H.G.Wells and he is literally invisible, so I can see how you’d get things confused. You probably knew that there was a book about someone who is literally invisible and when you picked up Invisible Man by Ellison, you thought that you were reading the H.G. Wells one and so the metaphors flew over your head because of that.  

Edited August 11, 2020 by Garga

[Little Green Leaves]

1 hour ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

I'm currently reading Oliver Twist to DD. Yes, the plot is pretty straight forward. But I think it's more than unfamiliar words. The writing style used requires a level of maturity, IMHO. Dickens uses satire and many words without coming out and saying what he means. An elementary child is probably not accustomed to that style. I think it requires a certain level of maturity to read the words in Oliver Twist and conclude that Dickens is actually criticizing certain characters.

Here's some sentences that I had to explain to my daughter. 

I agree that Oliver Twist isn't sophisticated. The characters are black and white. 

Oliver Twist isn't like Harry Potter where the plot moves quickly and many interesting things happen. In fact, I don't think you would read Oliver Twist for the plot. Dickens is a good storyteller because of the words he uses and the way that he describes his characters. 

I think a child could appreciate the beautiful language but understanding the characters and what Dickens is actually saying about human nature requires more maturity, IMHO. You don't see that kind of social criticism in Harry Potter. 

I read the HP books to my daughter a few years ago and the morality was completely obvious even to my then 7 year old. It's bad to exclude people because they are different. It's wrong to assume that people aren't as good because they are different. Be nice to people. 

In Oliver Twist, Dickens is just as heavy handed in the morality he is trying to convey (he's writing against the Poor laws) as Rowling is. But because he writes in a satirical style, it's more complicated. 

For example, the bad snobby guy in Harry Potter (can't remember his name) is never described as good by Rowling. He does mean things and he's described in an unflattering way. Obviously the villain. The cruel adults in Oliver Twist do mean things to poor Oliver but Dickens writes that they are good Christians. They are also obviously the villains and my daughter picked up on that but she wanted to know why the words said that they were good. 

I'm rambling here. I haven't written about literature in a long time and I've long since forgotten the proper terms, etc. 

That's so cool -- it sounds like your daughter is asking really good questions and is getting a lot out of the book!

[Little Green Leaves]

I've been thinking about this topic a lot...I feel like I got distracted by the whole question of Dickens but I really did have a bigger point to make, I promise.

 

I want to approach literature with my kids in the same way I approach art. Before COVID, I'd take my kids to the museum sometimes just to look around. They didn't have much staying power, and I didn't expect them to -- I always went with the idea that we'd stay for 10 minutes and, if they liked it, we'd stay longer. Sometimes we only looked at one painting! (We pretty much only went to free museums because of this...I knew if I was paying I'd get stressed out.)

My goal is to make them comfortable in museums, to teach them that they  can come and go freely in them and that they can like, dislike, criticize whatever they wanted. 

This is how I feel about literature too. Obviously I I don't want to push them beyond what they can do, but I also do t want them feeling overly hesitant about any book. I want them to be free to read in their own way, drawing their own conclusions, forming their own tastes, etc. 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Little Green Leaves

[8filltheheart]

36 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

I've been thinking about this topic a lot...I feel like I got distracted by the whole question of Dickens but I really did have a bigger point to make, I promise.

 

I want to approach literature with my kids in the same way I approach art. Before COVID, I'd take my kids to the museum sometimes just to look around. They didn't have much staying power, and I didn't expect them to -- I always went with the idea that we'd stay for 10 minutes and, if they liked it, we'd stay longer. Sometimes we only looked at one painting! (We pretty much only went to free museums because of this...I knew if I was paying I'd get stressed out.)

My goal is to make them comfortable in museums, to teach them that they  can come and go freely in them and that they can like, dislike, criticize whatever they wanted. 

This is how I feel about literature too. Obviously I I don't want to push them beyond what they can do, but I also do t want them feeling overly hesitant about any book. I want them to be free to read in their own way, drawing their own conclusions, forming their own tastes, etc. 

I agree to a point.  Sometimes when kids encounter something that they aren't ready for they form a long-term prejudice against it that can be hard to persuade them they made without fully appreciating the bias of their opinion.  Waiting until they are more mature and have a stronger foundation can mean being more able to appreciate their first encounter.

I'll pick a poor example, but I am in a hurry and this is the best I can think of right now.  I hated Shakespeare in high school.  Why?  We were given no background information.  We were given it as a book to read at home. {ETA: this was in the days before easily accessible audiobooks.)  We came to class and briefly discussed scenes and not much else.   The problem was we weren't prepared and we weren't able to appreciate it for what it is.  My kids, otoh, are exposed and understand Shakespeare at a much younger age.  Why? They are prepared for what they are hearing/seeing.  I read them the stories from Leon Garfield's book.  We listen to quality audio producation while we read along.  We stop and discuss what is happening.  Then we watch a production.  They enjoy it b/c they understand.  By the time my kids get to high school, some of them absolutely love Shakespeare.  (One of my dd's spent her entire sr on a self-designed English course where she wrote a capstone thesis paper on Shakespeare.  )

Edited August 11, 2020 by 8FillTheHeart

[Little Green Leaves]

38 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

I agree to a point.  Sometimes when kids encounter something that they aren't ready for they form a long-term prejudice against it that can be hard to persuade them they made without fully appreciating the bias of their opinion.  Waiting until they are more mature and have a stronger foundation can mean being more able to appreciate their first encounter.

I'll pick a poor example, but I am in a hurry and this is the best I can think of right now.  I hated Shakespeare in high school.  Why?  We were given no background information.  We were given it as a book to read at home. {ETA: this was in the days before easily accessible audiobooks.)  We came to class and briefly discussed scenes and not much else.   The problem was we weren't prepared and we weren't able to appreciate it for what it is.  My kids, otoh, are exposed and understand Shakespeare at a much younger age.  Why? They are prepared for what they are hearing/seeing.  I read them the stories from Leon Garfield's book.  We listen to quality audio producation while we read along.  We stop and discuss what is happening.  Then we watch a production.  They enjoy it b/c they understand.  By the time my kids get to high school, some of them absolutely love Shakespeare.  (One of my dd's spent her entire sr on a self-designed English course where she wrote a capstone thesis paper on Shakespeare.  )

Yes. I totally agree that kids should be given scaffolding and support. Like @ordinaryshoes is doing with her daughter as they read together! My parents talked to me a lot about books -- the books they were reading, the books I was reading, and that provided a huge amount of support.

[*Jessica*]

12 hours ago, Garga said:

In your defense, there is another book called The Invisible Man by H.G.Wells and he is literally invisible, so I can see how you’d get things confused. You probably knew that there was a book about someone who is literally invisible and when you picked up Invisible Man by Ellison, you thought that you were reading the H.G. Wells one and so the metaphors flew over your head because of that.  

I am SO glad you responded to this.  I missed that we weren’t talking about the H.G. Wells book and thought I had really screwed up the analysis of the book and planned to reread.  I didn’t really enjoy it, though, so I’m happy to not have to do that!  lol

[Matryoshka]

4 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Hmmm, interesting! I also didn't like Shakespeare in high school, and frankly haven't rectified that. It's good to hear that one can do better... I'll think about how to incorporate it 🙂 . 

I am rather firmly of the opinion that plays and oral histories are meant to be performed, not read, so that's how I introduce them (I think it's fine to read them later if you want to delve deeper and analyze them, but I think reading and analyzing them before experiencing them they way they were meant to be first just leads to eye-glazing and boredom).

So... I brought my kids to one Shakespeare production a year starting when they were small, obviously starting with comedies 😉 .  We'd read a synopsis of the story from a book of Shakespeare tales first.  This worked great for the older two; they both loved Shakespeare by the time they were teens.  Worked less well for the youngest, but she's just a different kid - by high school I couldn't get her to read just about anything,  She does like Hamlet okay - but I'll never get her to read it, lol...

We also listened to epics - Iliad, Beowulf, etc.

[Matryoshka]

4 minutes ago, *Jessica* said:

I am SO glad you responded to this.  I missed that we weren’t talking about the H.G. Wells book and thought I had really screwed up the analysis of the book and planned to reread.  I didn’t really enjoy it, though, so I’m happy to not have to do that!  lol

😂  Yes, the invisible man in the HG Wells tale of the same name is, in fact, actually invisible...  

[Matryoshka]

10 minutes ago, square_25 said:

That's a good idea, thank you! We'll try that after the pandemic, lol... 

There are lots of really good Shakespeare movies and staged plays you can access on streaming or DVD (in case the pandemic lags on....) 😄 

Quote

Is your younger kid not into reading at all? 

😭  No.  She started reading quite young (Bob books by 4), and did read some when younger, but completely petered out by middle school.  Basically when the books got longer and had smaller type.  I suspect there might be some issues in spite of having a clean exam at the developmental optometrist and having read so young.  She's got great decoding skills, but she also has told me recently (she's 19 now!) that she sometimes accidentally skips lines or that she shifts letters in her head and misreads.  I don't think she's read an actual print book since she finished the Warriors series (the best books ever according to her) in 6th grade.  I outsourced her English classes at that point because I couldn't get her to read anything I assigned; I think she got through all of her high school classes the Spark Notes way.   She reads most of her college stuff on the computer - and she's going into accounting, so she's pretty much reading short passages for information, not long complex stories and sentences...

I am a huge reader and always have been; my house is full to the brim with books (like, they don't even all fit in the bookshelves!), I read to them all nonstop, they practically grew up in the library... and yet here we are.  She does have a rich vocabulary, at least...

Edited August 11, 2020 by Matryoshka

[Matryoshka]

Just now, Ordinary Shoes said:

I think this is what I was getting at in the post I just wrote. Not every kid is going to want to read. It's not a failing on anyone's part. 

Do we think we failed if our kids aren't interested in playing sports? There's an interest level required in anything that requires work. Reading requires work. 

Sigh.  Of course when my kids were young I was sure that if I gave them this language-rich environment they'd all become readers.  While I didn't read them Dickens young (I agree it's a bit over most young kids' heads thematically), but did read them lots of older language-rich books - it is true that children's books from the 19th and early 20th century had much richer vocabulary and more complex sentences than most of what's being written now!.  That did work in that they all have very good vocabularies - which is probably also partly because I have a large vocabulary and tend to use it.  But, youngest is just not a reader.  And this is also in spite being completely screen-free when young (zero computer, pad, phone or TV) and having extremely limited screen time (like an hour or less a day) until middle school, and even then it was limited.  No smartphone or own computer till high school.  Of course, the horse is now out of the barn and has galloped halfway across the country - the kid is a total screen junkie.  The other two are not like that at all.

Kids will humble you...  I think that's what they're here for, lol.

[8filltheheart]

22 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Yes. I totally agree that kids should be given scaffolding and support. Like @ordinaryshoes is doing with her daughter as they read together! My parents talked to me a lot about books -- the books they were reading, the books I was reading, and that provided a huge amount of support.

I was going to try to find a time to write a response, but then read @Ordinary Shoes' response which contains some of my thoughts.

 

6 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Sorry I think I'm the one who belabored the Dickens thing. 

I totally get where you're coming from here but I think there's a difference between art, that you can interact with without much effort, and literature, which requires more attention. 

Even listening to a parent reading a book requires more effort than looking at a piece of art. 

Further, there are excellent books that can be read to young children that do NOT require effort that is beyond their abilities. I think you could say that those books teach children that literature is approachable. 

But ITA with your point that we don't want our children to be intimidated by books. I guess that I would say that if our children are provided excellent books with great stories and interesting language at their own level they won't be scared of "adult" books or "classic" books. 

Rambling here again but I think we need to keep in mind that reading is actually difficult and is not something that everyone will want to expend effort doing, if that makes sense. 

I've griped here before about my issues with the classical education *idea*. (yes, I know we don't even know what that means.) One issue is that it places a premium on reading. The idea is that everyone will become *bookish* if provided with the right books and required to read. I don't think that is actually true. 

And along that line, you don't actually need to be a reader to be an educated person. I listened to something where SWB was talking (can't remember what) and she addressed this. Not all kids will be interested in reading beyond what is assigned for school which is fine because there are many ways to be educated. We can put this in perspective by looking at the books that we see as "classics" or "essential" to be educated. These books are not old. No one thought that read novels in a vernacular language was part of an education until very recently. It's kind of ironic when you realize that we assign books to our kids that boys would have read in secret when they were supposed to be reading Latin 200 years ago. (I wrote boys because boys and girls were educated differently in those days.)

When you look at education (home and school), it is generally dominated by people who like to read. Most of us think that everyone else would actually be like us if they only worked harder or were educated about why they should be like us. KWIM? I think that we see that phenomenon in education. 

Rambling back to your original point here about art museums - I think (sorry I keep using the word "think") that it's reasonable to expect everyone to be able to appreciate good art although some people will be more interested that others. Engaging with art requires very little effort. Literature isn't the same. With art, I think that we can expect everyone to find art that they connect with. But I don't think we can expect every person to find literature that they connect with. Simply because of the work that is required to read versus passively engage with art. 

Sorry I know this was long and rambling...

My thoughts are more along the lines of I want my kids relishing in great kids' books rather than attempting to swim with books beyond their abilities to really appreciate.  There are more wonderful children's books than my kids have the ability to read that, no, I wouldn't want them reading Oliver Twist before they are actually ready to grapple with it for what it is.  I feel the same way about many proclaimed "Great Books."  I completely disagree with the premise that students should read this Great Book in 9th, that in 10th, another in 11th, etc.  (I could NEVER use a boxed curriculum precisely bc of my pretty strong opinions on this.)  Individual students might be, but 9th graders in general, no.  

I love literature.  I love teaching literature.  I love immersing myself in wonderful lit with my kids.   We enjoy it--the joy of reading what we do is key.  I personally believe that is what leads to seeing the classics as pleasurable and accessible.  They don't see them as intimidating bc we enjoy them as stories and explore ideas together.  Then, they go off on their own and read whatever they want with the ability to grapple with what they encounter with confidence. 

[Little Green Leaves]

52 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Sorry I think I'm the one who belabored the Dickens thing. 

I totally get where you're coming from here but I think there's a difference between art, that you can interact with without much effort, and literature, which requires more attention. 

Even listening to a parent reading a book requires more effort than looking at a piece of art. 

Further, there are excellent books that can be read to young children that do NOT require effort that is beyond their abilities. I think you could say that those books teach children that literature is approachable. 

But ITA with your point that we don't want our children to be intimidated by books. I guess that I would say that if our children are provided excellent books with great stories and interesting language at their own level they won't be scared of "adult" books or "classic" books. 

Rambling here again but I think we need to keep in mind that reading is actually difficult and is not something that everyone will want to expend effort doing, if that makes sense. 

I've griped here before about my issues with the classical education *idea*. (yes, I know we don't even know what that means.) One issue is that it places a premium on reading. The idea is that everyone will become *bookish* if provided with the right books and required to read. I don't think that is actually true. 

And along that line, you don't actually need to be a reader to be an educated person. I listened to something where SWB was talking (can't remember what) and she addressed this. Not all kids will be interested in reading beyond what is assigned for school which is fine because there are many ways to be educated. We can put this in perspective by looking at the books that we see as "classics" or "essential" to be educated. These books are not old. No one thought that read novels in a vernacular language was part of an education until very recently. It's kind of ironic when you realize that we assign books to our kids that boys would have read in secret when they were supposed to be reading Latin 200 years ago. (I wrote boys because boys and girls were educated differently in those days.)

When you look at education (home and school), it is generally dominated by people who like to read. Most of us think that everyone else would actually be like us if they only worked harder or were educated about why they should be like us. KWIM? I think that we see that phenomenon in education. 

Rambling back to your original point here about art museums - I think (sorry I keep using the word "think") that it's reasonable to expect everyone to be able to appreciate good art although some people will be more interested that others. Engaging with art requires very little effort. Literature isn't the same. With art, I think that we can expect everyone to find art that they connect with. But I don't think we can expect every person to find literature that they connect with. Simply because of the work that is required to read versus passively engage with art. 

Sorry I know this was long and rambling...

I didn't think this was rambling at all 🙂 and I'm sorry if it seemed like I was saying everyone has to love literature, or read certain things at certain ages, or that it's a failure to not love literature. I actually meant the opposite, but I must have expressed it badly! I think everyone should be given access to literature, and should be free to make what they want of it.

The art thing is interesting to me because actually it's taken me way more time to get my kids interested in art than in literature...so I don't necessarily think art is easier or more immediate! But then, that just proves your point that we are all different and that it's a bad idea to cramp everyone into the same mold.

[Junie]

So many sporadic thoughts about this thread:

1. My mom recently told me that she has never read a classic.  Ever.  I didn't even have words.

2.  Nancy Drew -- I think books like these are easier than Dickens, but you still have to explain why she had to look for a payphone.  And what a payphone is.  So many of Nancy Drew's problems could be avoided today by having a smartphone.

3.  Dd16 is going into 11th grade and I am just now starting to have her answer literature questions/have discussions.  Up until now we have very much had Literature Appreciation, which I think has served us well.  She very much enjoys many kinds of literature.  Now I just need to work on helping her to understand it.  (I would have liked to have started this a year ago -- I think starting in 11th grade is a bit late, but I've been working through health problems.)  I was an English teacher in a former life and I very much saw how school kills the love of literature.

[Shoeless]

On 8/10/2020 at 6:58 AM, TomK said:

Something worth keeping in mind is that for many of us, the push for kids to read so-called "good books" actually inhibits a love of reading. Kids don't learn to love reading because they're forced to read books that some adult thinks are good for them. They love reading because it can take them on adventures to places they've never been and to do things they've never done. Yet, if they're not free to read what some might consider crap, they're not likely to take up reading elsewhere.

 

This is what I am starting to see play out with one of my sibling's kids. The kid does not like to read, of the "Whine for 30 minutes to avoid 15 minutes of reading" variety. But all the reading he gets is from books that are pre-selected by the teacher, with the expectation of a book report at the end. So now reading is a chore. The poor kid was assigned reading on yaks, for pity's sake, and then the teacher scolded him for not taking the topic seriously. Come on, now. He was 7. How else was that going to go, lol?

The parents asked me what they could do to "make" the kid like reading.  Augh. You have to hit reset on the whole thing, to form a new association that reading != chores. I sent a couple of goofy Dog Man graphic novels, but I don't think that's what my sister had in mind when she asked for suggestions. My first choice was to send a book called "The Day My Butt Went Psycho" because a ridiculous book about butts will grab the attention of an 8 year old boy, but I don't think my sister would approve. 😆

[TomK]

6 hours ago, MissLemon said:

My first choice was to send a book called "The Day My Butt Went Psycho" because a ridiculous book about butts will grab the attention of an 8 year old boy, but I don't think my sister would approve. 😆

She may not approve, but I think your suggestion would do a whole lot to fix the problem.

I mean, I know how many non-readers I've talked to who say they used to love books when they were little, but then they started having to read in school and grew to hate it. That's because of stuff like you just mentioned.

But if you let a kid read the books he or she wants to read--and yeah, throw in the occasional book you think they need to read even if it's not something they think is fun--you'll damage their love of reading far less than schools seem to screw them up.

That's just my thinking, anyway.

[Little Green Leaves]

7 hours ago, MissLemon said:

 

This is what I am starting to see play out with one of my sibling's kids. The kid does not like to read, of the "Whine for 30 minutes to avoid 15 minutes of reading" variety. But all the reading he gets is from books that are pre-selected by the teacher, with the expectation of a book report at the end. So now reading is a chore. The poor kid was assigned reading on yaks, for pity's sake, and then the teacher scolded him for not taking the topic seriously. Come on, now. He was 7. How else was that going to go, lol?

The parents asked me what they could do to "make" the kid like reading.  Augh. You have to hit reset on the whole thing, to form a new association that reading != chores. I sent a couple of goofy Dog Man graphic novels, but I don't think that's what my sister had in mind when she asked for suggestions. My first choice was to send a book called "The Day My Butt Went Psycho" because a ridiculous book about butts will grab the attention of an 8 year old boy, but I don't think my sister would approve. 😆

I think Dog Man was a great idea -- my kids love Dog Man. Maybe some joke books, and books about whatever he's interested in?

[Little Green Leaves]

8 hours ago, MissLemon said:

 

This is what I am starting to see play out with one of my sibling's kids. The kid does not like to read, of the "Whine for 30 minutes to avoid 15 minutes of reading" variety. But all the reading he gets is from books that are pre-selected by the teacher, with the expectation of a book report at the end. So now reading is a chore. The poor kid was assigned reading on yaks, for pity's sake, and then the teacher scolded him for not taking the topic seriously. Come on, now. He was 7. How else was that going to go, lol?

The parents asked me what they could do to "make" the kid like reading.  Augh. You have to hit reset on the whole thing, to form a new association that reading != chores. I sent a couple of goofy Dog Man graphic novels, but I don't think that's what my sister had in mind when she asked for suggestions. My first choice was to send a book called "The Day My Butt Went Psycho" because a ridiculous book about butts will grab the attention of an 8 year old boy, but I don't think my sister would approve. 😆

I guess it would help to figure out what, exactly, he hates about reading. Is it the book report, or the reading itself? Is the act of reading hard? Does he get bored with the books he's reading? Etc etc.

 

In my school district, a lot of the teachers let kids pick their own books -- but the kids still don't like reading, because they have to write book reports. The teachers seem to have really high and unreasonable expectations for output. I know at least some of the parents are basically just writing the book reports FOR the kids. So the whole thing is a disaster.

[TomK]

6 hours ago, square_25 said:

I think HOW the books are read is worse than the specific books. I actually liked most of the books we read at school, but I hated taking quizzes on them, I hated five paragraph essays, and I refused to read the books one chapter at a time.

Based on the informal survey I've taken of people in my social sphere, that wasn't really it, though that doesn't help.

It also is a case of how there's nothing universal in education. Some people loathe the books, some hate how they're taught. It really depends on where you are and who is teaching as to which is the big problem.