Comments on: Ideas on Serving Students

By: Kathy

Kathy — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:46:59 +0000

I used to work as a teen librarian, and I have to admit that I don’t find the traditional summer reading program very effective. They typically reward students who are already established readers and discourage reluctant readers. Because there are prizes, it makes reading seem like work which requires a bribe. Just as you don’t want to tell your kids that they’ll get dessert if they clean their plates because it implies that dessert is good and their dinner sucks, you don’t want to imply that reading is a chore. The other problem I have is that reading programs often reward based on the amount of reading or the quality of the books read. Kids who are really struggling to read don’t get the same rewards as kids who are established readers and can zip through a larger number of books and can read books with more difficult vocabulary. The kids we want to interest most in reading often become discouraged, and the ones who were going to read anyway are the ones who get rewarded.

By: Brian Herzog

Brian Herzog — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:05:58 +0000

By “the social aspect,” I was referring to discussing books you’ve read with peers who have also read those same books – not “socialization” in the sense of teaching kids how to act in public.

I don’t think reading is necessarily an isolation activity. I often get as much out of someone else’s interpretation of the book – and our shared experience of both having read it – than I do from my reading of it. And while I know that summer reading programs aren’t exactly book groups, similar kids tend to read similar books, and that can build connections between them.

By: Rosten

Rosten — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:03:32 +0000

I’m with Kelly. I also homeschooled, and although I didn’t need any encouragement to read, free food was always welcome, especially since eating out was a rare treat in our family. We got a coupon for cinnamon crisps from the local taco place for every 10 books read during the summer reading program.

Incentives won’t hurt kids who already love reading, and it might help encourage those who don’t care for it. At our library we let the kids set their own goal, and as long as they read at least one book they can pick out a free paperback book at the end of the summer.

I’ve found that our homeschooling families are happy to participate in the summer reading club, although they don’t necessarily do any of our other special programs.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:44:35 +0000

I agree with Peggy– the word “socialization” is a neutral one to most of us, but it gets torn to shreds in homeschooling magazines every month (or at least it did when my folks were homeschooling me 10 years ago and I was keeping up with their reading so I knew what to expect next). The belief that you shouldn’t provide extrinsic motivation for something that kids should do for intrinsic reasons is a prevalent one in homeschooling culture, as well. All I know personally is that you couldn’t tear my books away from me as a kid, but those pizzas I got through the Book-It! program were a nice bonus.

By: Auntie Nanuuq

Auntie Nanuuq — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:48:23 +0000

I wonder what she would do with a child like me who refused to read until I was a Junior in H.S.?

By: Auntie Nanuuq

Auntie Nanuuq — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:31:28 +0000

I’d like to know what she would do if she had a child (like me) who refused to read until their Junior year in H.S.?

By: Peggy

Peggy — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:29:05 +0000

“The social aspect” has been the issue that keeps some home schooling parents from signing their children up for public activities. I have on a number of occasions encountered paretns who would not let their children join groups which did not offer enough control over what their children would read or with whom their children would interact.
It is not always the case but it has happened often enough in my experience to be worrisome.