In today’s online edition of the New York Times, a reporter summarised upcoming research reports on how getting children to read during the summer vacation from school improves their chances for future academic achievement. What struck me about the report is its failure to mention the reason so many public libraries run summer reading clubs/programs (SRCs) – children’s librarians in public libraries have been saying this for years.
I have to confess that while working in a library all those years, one thing I really doubted the efficacy of was SRC. Probably because I did not have complete objectivity to look for the research thoroughly, I kept saying that all the support available for SRCs was at best anecdotal evidence from the experience of good students – “where is the research supporting the tremendous expense of running our SRC?” Well, now, it seems that the research is in, and my colleagues who run these summer vacation programs have been correct.
One quotation from the article – “If your child is turned off by reading, getting them to read anything is better than nothing,” Ellen Galinsky said. She is president of the Families and Work Institute and author of a new book about how children learn, Mind in the Making. I wonder if she ever read Daniel N. Fader’s Hooked on Books published back in the 1960′s. Working with juvenile delinquents, he got them reading anything, especially comic books, in order to help them break out of their respective troubles.
August 3, 2010 at 7:17 pm |
Whenever a kid in our family (mine and Matt’s) turns that awkward age between 8-12, the first birthday gift we look for is a comic book/graphic novel like the Bone series – it’s great light reading for kids while still pulling them into a plot like a regular book we’d want kids reading!