[monster]

We need to be careful how we present reading to kids. All of ours love to read. They virtually begged to be taught to read and were already fluent readers when they started school. But they saw us read and enjoy it and get lost in books and heard us read to them and go past their bedtime in order to reach the end of the chapter, and use the internet or go to the encyclopedia to answer all their questions if we couldn't....all the time.

If you don't see your parents reading, if they tell you they're too busy to read or they don't like it, if you turn up at school way behind some of the other kids.... you're already off to a poor start. And if the school is not then careful about how they present learning to read -if they ram it down your throat, treat it like a chore and make it obvious that you are not as good as some other kids.... well you're not going to view it as a pleasure. So you scrape through school reading the bare minimum to keep the assholes happy. And college if you have to. And then you never ever pick up another book again. And you have no need -you have the TV where the nice people read the words for you and even go so far as to tell you what you should think about it. Lovely. Easy.


Grrr. Breaks my heart when I go into the school and there are 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders who "hate" reading and refuse to try. Someone has set them up for failure. They're scared of not ever being able to do it properly, so they just don't want to try. reading is huge, it is important. but kids don't need to know this. Like anything else, the more they know you want them to do it, the more they'll dig their heels in.

Oh dear, i'm ranting....