On pg. 385 of Friedman's "The World is Flat," he states "...this crisis [faltering education] we see in our schools has its root in American homes increasingly devoid of books and printed material, where children turn exclusively to television, computers, and electronic games for entertainment- and see adults around them doing the same." This is such a depressing picture. I was raised with books, and I can't imagine a home without books in which children can get lost in. I couldn't agree more with Friedman in regards to literacy starting in the home. I think it is very important for children to see their parents reading for entertainment.
When thinking further about this, I am disturbed at the prices of books these days. No wonder parents don't have bookshelves full of books. If the parents aren't interested in reading in the first place, the price of the books alone is sure the deter them from buying any.
This, however, is no excuse!! Thank goodness for book sales!!!!
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Danielle, I totally share your feelings about literacy in the home. Very important, and it's really scary how many kids are apparently growing up without books these days. My fiance's mother works for a grant-dispensing foundation, and one of her recent projects focused on promoting literacy in the home for young children. She was recently discussing a study of children entering kindergarten which found that a disturbingly large number of them didn't know how a book works. Like, they actually didn't know that you start on the top left of the first page and that you go to the last page in order, and that text is read from left to right. Because these are children who have literally never been read to or even seen anyone reading a book. Ever. That, to me, is just shameful.
And though I agree that books have become more pricey of late, so has the price of absolutely everything else. I don't see price as any kind of deterrent, especially in light of how expensive digital technology is. A new video game is upwards of $50 when it first comes out, the system runs a couple hundred, not to mention the price of an ipod. Parents don't seem to have any problem buying these things for their kids. And anyway, the library has always been free. I'm sure that people would probably say "Oh, books are too expensive" while thier kid sits there playing a gameboy for hours on end, but that's just nonsense.
Danielle and Tracie -- how true this problem is! I feel like I was starting to go in that direction earlier today when I posted to my own blog, but then somehow I got caught up with what I had read from Alvermann's book! Since my mother was a stay-at-home mom and then a librarian while I was young, she was a huge influence in my passion for reading which began at such a tender age when I was first entering kindergarten. My father, on the other hand, has always been an avid newspaper reader, and I realize now that that must be the reason that I now read my local paper (although very poorly edited) every day without fail. The fact that students spend so little time reading is absolutely correlated to the behaviors and influence of their parents, i.e. their home life. Sitting down to read a storybook to a young child is so much more time consuming than plopping them in front of the tv and taking care of other things. This action so often turns into a pattern, and as a result, years later this child returns home from school and thinks nothing of the time they will then spend playing videogames or watching tv. I know my posts make it sound like I am incredibly anti-tv and games, but that's really not the case! I just don't want for kids to miss out on opportunities and knowledge in lieu of non-educational programs and means of spending (wasting?) time.
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