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Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

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Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#201

Post by boring-alterego »

I was turned off to reading in 7th grade by a teacher that required mandatory books that were her favorites but the topics consisted of 1800s gilded age parties, gossip amongst the upper class of people at that time and absolutely no fantasy or adventure.

Before that I was the top reader in the summer reading program going back to first grade highest in the school for each grade level. After that class I kind of fell out of the practice of reading to enjoy books until I was out of college.

I picked up the habit of reading and listening to audiobooks in 2014 3 years after college because I was doing a lot of 6-8 hour drives between my home town and a vendor for a project.

If I could say one thing to that teacher, just because you like a book, forcing someone else to read that book doesn't make it a good book for that person.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#202

Post by tstrimple »

pie_flavor wrote: post #138

Anime is an extremely lucrative market, and Westerners spend an absurd amount of money on it, with Hollywood missing out. It's not because it's Japanese, or its weirder quirks, it's just because Japan is making it and Hollywood isn't, because Hollywood is institutionally incapable of believing people want (a) weird fantasy (b) that takes itself seriously (c) in quantity over quality, or even that adult media can be a…

I was thrilled when Love Death & Robots came out on Netflix. I hoped mature animation would pick up a bit in western media. That didn't happen unfortunately.

The pipeline you mention has been a key factor in my kids learning to enjoy reading. They went from anime to manga because the manga often runs ahead of the anime and they wanted more from the world. Then they started reading more novels. They skipped the light novel step, likely because there's very little availability at Barnes & Noble or local used book stores.

When the local theater runs Studio Ghibli or anime like Your Name I make a point to go even though I'm not too fond of the theater experience these days because I want more!

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#203

Post by hehdhdjehehegwv »

triceratops wrote: post #157
akira2501 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy. At 9 I had no idea how to go into a massive thing like a library and make a selection for myself. "Word of mouth" made a lot of choices for me when I was young.

Weird. At 9 I randomly picked whatever looked interesting. If I liked it, I proceeded to read every single other thing by that author. There was no "word of mouth" because I was the only kid in my class who read for pleasure.

When I was that age my teacher had a thing where reading something like 3 books got you out of a lot of homework and your parent had to sign a paper listing what you read and you turned it in.

As a kid who already hated school, and used reading as an escape from a pretty shit childhood, I was clocking in 5 books a week.

The teacher first accused my parents of lying that I read that many books, because it quickly got to double digits, but I was able to summarize all of them off the top of my head, so instead I was just forbidden from doing it altogether.

Not sure what the lesson is there, lol.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#204

Post by janalsncm »

akira2501 wrote: post #114
janalsncm wrote: post #56

> Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok. “BookTok is imperfect,” said Karen Jensen, a youth librarian and a blogger for School Library Journal, “but in teen publishing it’s generating huge bestsellers, bringing back th…

> Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy. At 9 I had no idea how to go into a massive thing like a library and make a selection for myself. "Word of mouth" made a lot of choices for me when I was young.

That’s ok, part of the joy of going to a library is finding out about new things you’ve never even heard of. And we also already have human recommendation systems, they’re called librarians!

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#205

Post by BadCookie »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #57
bryanlarsen wrote: post #35

My daughter is 12 now, and reading tons more than when she was 9. The difference is now she has twice daily access to the high school library versus once a week access to an elementary library. Not sure how much it generalizes, but what would have had her reading more then would have been a well stocked manga section in the elementary library and daily access. Manga really is an accessible way to get used to reading,…

My daughters still a toddler, but when she sees me holding a book, she gets hers out too. I taught her to point out what the pictures are, so she does that on any book. If she can read LOTR someday, that'll be something :)

My 10-year-old did not understand that I was reading a book when I was using the Kindle or Libby app on my phone. He was surprised and excited to learn that e-books that I read out loud to him are available in print! This has disturbed me so much that I am contemplating switching back to physical books in order to role model better (or more obvious) behavior.

All that is to say, maybe kids aren’t interested in reading partly because they don’t see their parents doing it … at least in a way that they understand.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#206

Post by janalsncm »

quirk wrote: post #113
sonicanatidae wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'd like to propose an update to Godwin's law; call it NPC's Law or maybe just Trump's Law if we're being literal: "As an online discussion of a problem grows longer, the probability of assigning blame to Donald Trump approaches 1."

Technically speaking that should be true for any topic. POTUS is just a particularly popular topic.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#207

Post by nickd2001 »

monknomo wrote: post #145
tivert wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot. That doesn't pass the smell test. The only way I can see that being even remotely true is if the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politically. Even in the most hostile environment, I doubt you'd run afoul of anyone with a well-stocked library of widely beloved c…

"widely beloved" by whom? "classic" in what sense?

I'd think Tolkein's "The Hobbit" would fit this description? Or CS Lewis Narnia series, one-offs like "The Secret Garden", Also Edith Nesbit, fantastic children's author, "The Railway children" probably her most famous. century old at least.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#208

Post by janalsncm »

majormajor wrote: post #80
janalsncm wrote: post #56

> Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok. “BookTok is imperfect,” said Karen Jensen, a youth librarian and a blogger for School Library Journal, “but in teen publishing it’s generating huge bestsellers, bringing back th…

> This part of the article is very off-putting to me. You don’t need TikTok to find good books for kids. Kids don’t need to see digital advertisements to make a decision. They need access to a library stocked with recently published books that kids will enjoy. > The author mentions later on that libraries are being defunded, and this is likely to be the root cause. Rather than spending so many words on speculation it…

Watching someone do a thing and doing the thing are different. One of the pitfalls of a lot of recommendation systems is that they don’t know or care about the difference. Watching a video about a book is fine, but then you need to go out and read.

It’s a little like reading an article before commenting. Most people don’t. You will get a lot more out of the conversation if you do though.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#210

Post by rimunroe »

tigen wrote: post #148
rimunroe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sounds false about it? A (very straightforward) search surfaced this article https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmq54/florida-teachers-are-...

That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school. The emphasis on "taking away libraries" appears to be partly politically motivated. This isn't about censorship per se since we have a baseline expectation of censorship. We already don't allow teachers to stock racist material or porn in classrooms. This new thing seems to that…

> That does not say teachers can't keep a library. At most it says that the titles in said library need to be reviewed/approved by the school.

It says the teachers have to remove or cover up their classroom libraries until their books can be approved by the school. I don't know how you can honestly argue that that doesn't constitute removal, even if it might be temporary.

> In any case, how can this possibly be an important and relevant issue today contributing to an already-observed decline in reading in 9-year olds nationally?

I don't know enough about the subject to comment, which is why I didn't say anything about such a relationship. I only responded to you because you were saying someone else was wrong and I didn't think you were right

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