Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 504 posts

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

#441

Post by Starman_Jones »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #412
moregrist wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an alternative perspective, I am glad that my middle and high school curriculum included several works of Shakespeare, especially Macbeth and Hamlet, and several 19th century classics. They really do require time, they’re hard to make time for, and while reading them wasn’t exactly fun, I’m glad that I did it. Many of the themes are timeless, the prose is elegant if difficult, and there are cultural references to…

My point is the prose is a huge turn-off for most people and serves very little purpose in a modern society. As I mentioned in my post, I recommend to re-write these titles using a prose that will be more appealing to the age group. You can keep all of the same lessons to be learned in the re-write. I do not support this idea that learning needs to be painful or needlessly difficult. For most people, success in educa…

> My point is the prose is a huge turn-off for most people and serves very little purpose in a modern society.

The commenter doth protest too much, methinks.

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

#442

Post by DavidPiper »

red_admiral wrote: post #434
DavidPiper wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess those are the things I find unusual about the article. They think they've figured out "why kids don't read", but all they've discovered is "we're not making as much money as we'd like", and maybe this demographic is a problem because "THE LUCRATIVE TEENAGE MARKET" could falter in a few years. I'm not sure that 9-year-olds care about "Good Art", they just care about the things they're exposed to - and there's…

> I'm not sure that 9-year-olds care about "Good Art", they just care about the things they're exposed to This is more anecdote than research, but from several authors who told stories to children successfully - Tolkien, Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll), Richard Adams (of Watership Down fame) - kids can certainly tell an _engaging_ story from a boring one, and kids of all age can turn their noses up at an overly preach…

> kids can certainly tell an _engaging_ story from a boring one, and kids of all age can turn their noses up at an overly preachy story.

Hmm that's interesting, I would definitely believe it. (I was one of those kids that didn't get past Prince Caspian until his late 20s. Although I didn't recognise it as preachy when I was younger, just not all that interesting.)

> Tolkien and Lewis disagreed ...

This reminds me of David Eddings vehemently declaring Tolkien far too prissy (his word iirc) for high fantasy - that was my first exposure to the "all art is an evolving conversation" perspective, without realising it.

I wonder if -- as far as books for 9-year-olds go -- the conversation has stalled and therefore lost interest, even from a child's perspective. The publishing/entertainment world has poured enormous amounts of money into the previous generation's teenage years (Harry Potter, Twilight, etc), maybe we forgot/decided not to invest in Good Art for the next round of younger kids while that was happening.

I'm still biased in favour of screen time as a primary issue, but I could also see lower publishing, advertising (etc) investment in that age group as a huge confounding problem.

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

#443

Post by RoyalHenOil »

btilly wrote: post #439
prawn wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 9 and 11 year olds have no real homework (primary school in Australia) which seems to be public school policy for this age group. Rarely, it's 10 minutes on one night in a week; they often ask for homework and are enthusiastic if given worksheets. They read for literally hours a day. I read huge amounts as a kid but then lost the habit as an adult. It takes any number of habits and tricks to try and get it going a…

At the same age in southern California, my kids had what was supposed to be 1-2 hours of homework a night. Which was made worse by ADHD. And, additionally, I had to teach my son basic skills that school failed to teach him. Like spelling and his times table. It was a disaster.

I attended school in Georgia (the US state) and it was similar for me at that age; their goal was to assign about an hour of homework each night.

By the time my sister reached that age (she is 10 years younger), it had gotten so much worse: they were aiming for about two hours of homework. It realistically took closer to 3 or 4, and with many tears shed, even with me and both our parents helping. (She has since been diagnosed with ADHD.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, she and I have both decided to not have children. Being a kid really fucking sucked then, and it's probably even worse now.

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

#445

Post by Auracle »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #217
nickd2001 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Hobbit is banned by multiple school districts. It actually pissed off a lot of teachers too. It is books like that being banned that make teachers not want to have a library at all. It is really easy to have a banned book, and teachers do not have the time to source each book in their already existing libraries. But I guess in their words: > the teacher's goal is mainly to push up against someone's line, politica…

Where is The Hobbit banned? A quick Google shows some Christian schools have (though the last mention is 2011), but certainly no US public schools.

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

#446

Post by sonicanatidae »

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."

Not Trump, Republicans.

Trump is the symptom made public.

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

#447

Post by sonicanatidae »

klyrs wrote: post #132
quirk wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Not sure it's worth engaging with such toxic commentary regardless of political affiliation.

Shall we wait for the factual rebuttal or just assume this offhand dismissal is all of it? I have yet to hear a word about the content being inaccurate, just people like you, that didn't like the presentation.

My apologies for not refraining from charged words when my country is being stolen out from under me, by some of the worst people in the world, that keep getting elected by the "fuck your feelings" crowd.

Also, it's germane to this topic.

You, however, remain above it all, so enjoy your pedestal.

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

#448

Post by dragonwriter »

quirk wrote: post #297
feoren wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, they're literally banning books ... like, that was a major platform issue very recently ... "why does everyone keep blaming the cannibals for all the half-eaten corpses lying around!?" ...

Keeping certain books out of school libraries for younger age kids is not a bad idea. Just like preventing children from watching porn is not a bad idea. Parenting is about finding a balance between protection and pushing their boundaries. Schools should be safe places to learn without having to worry about your kid coming home wanting to transition into an asexual raccoon or whatever the hell is trendy that year.

> Keeping certain books out of school libraries for younger age kids is not a bad idea.

The book banning efforts aren't limited to keeping books out of school libraries for younger age kids, or even school libraries generally.

(Nor is it limited to books where that argument is reasonably applicable Even when it is in school libraries for younger children.)

> Schools should be safe places to learn without having to worry about your kid coming home wanting to transition into an asexual raccoon or whatever the hell is trendy that year.

Gender identity differing from gender assigned at birth is a low-rate but widely observed phenomenon across times and cultures. Stripped to this from what is either hyperbolic or driven by propaganda designed to obscure real issues in your description, no, its not something parents should be protected from in their children.

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

#449

Post by humansareok1 »

allemagne wrote: post #168
humansareok1 wrote: post #79

Idk about anyone else but my school had a program called Accelerated Reader where you could read a book and take a test about it to score points. Harder books were worth more points, at the time I think Anna Karenina was the "hardest" book on the list. Anyway the drive to win was what initially got me reading a lot.

I had to take these tests. For me, all it did was turn reading from a fun hobby into homework.

I know it did that for some of my classmates but I was quite interested in the competition aspect so it drove me to read a lot.

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

#450

Post by squigz »

gregjor wrote: post #424
bjornsing wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Having grown up in Sweden during the 80-ties and 90-ties I’m very familiar with this attitude. Here and back then it was almost policy to hold gifted students back, to promote “equality”. But I thought the US would have a higher tolerance for ability. What do you think is the driving psychological force behind this attitude in US schools? In Sweden I’ve always thought it’s mainly a sort of crab mentality…

When I was in school, a long time ago, schools “tracked” students into gifted, regular, and special needs classes. At least in California where I grew up. I’m sure that varied by school district because in the US schools get managed locally and funded by property taxes, leading to lots of variation in quality and available programs. At some point in the ‘70s tracking got abandoned. I think it happened because of a de…

Tracking can be problematic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking_(education)#Disadvant...

Post reply on HN