FYI

[Penners]

That level of reading never happened before the Kindle came along.

But why? What is it about the Kindle that persuades your family to read, where they wouldn't have done so before? Is it simply the ability to pluck books out of thin air?

I've never found browsing a real, live, physical book shop to be anything less than a pleasure.

 

[Feltwell]

Ahh, but what happens when your Kindle goes wrong? Or someone sits on it? Or is stolen? Or technology supercedes it? Books rarely fall victim to upgrade problems, don't run out of batteries, refuse to boot up, get viruses etc etc.

And, for all you lot living in houses with uneven old floors, Kindles are a much more expensive way of stopping that chest of drawers from wobbling :wink:

But I'm sure I'll end up buying one for one of the kids one day

I'm desperately trying to get my eldest son interested in books at the moment, it's a real struggle but I don't think a Kindle is the answer. The problem is a strange one, his reading skills are if anything too good - he's only 6 but has been assessed at school as having a reading age of 12 to 13. That's great, but his language skills and general emotional development are about normal for a 6 year old, so he finds books aimed at his age group are far too simple and easy to read and he gets bored easily, and whilst he can read books aimed at much older kids with ease he doesn't really comprehend what the story is - the words are easy, the plot is not, so again he gets bored easily. It's going to be a tough one to crack.

 

[Feltwell]

[Be afraid.... be very afraid............... you know where that road leads, or have I not warned you enough! It starts quite innocently, and then the next thing you are all the way to "well they will ship it from Bologna, and you are going to be in London anyway and at least it isn't an elephant"...... which is OK right up to the point the man from UPS leaves you a huge crate upside down in the middle of the living room.

Still, it's nice that Kate Moss seems to like your car. She really could do with a bit of feeding up though that girl - she's looking awfully skinny there.

 

[Penners]

I'm desperately trying to get my eldest son interested in books at the moment, it's a real struggle but I don't think a Kindle is the answer. The problem is a strange one, his reading skills are if anything too good - he's only 6 but has been assessed at school as having a reading age of 12 to 13. That's great, but his language skills and general emotional development are about normal for a 6 year old, so he finds books aimed at his age group are far too simple and easy to read and he gets bored easily, and whilst he can read books aimed at much older kids with ease he doesn't really comprehend what the story is - the words are easy, the plot is not, so again he gets bored easily. It's going to be a tough one to crack.

We have the same problem with one of our grandsons, Feltwell, who is the same age as your boy.

I'm convinced that the answer is to dumb him down. A regular diet of Hollyoaks, The Voice, The Apprentice, Celebrity Big Brother et al, should quickly have his brain suitably vegetised, and he'll be happily conversing with his chronological peers in the appropriate grunted monosyllables.

 

[LadyArowana]

Still, it's nice that Kate Moss seems to like your car. She really could do with a bit of feeding up though that girl - she's looking awfully skinny there.

It's much better for me to have a skinny statue at home than something Boteroesque, if I have to walk past her to get to the fridge for pies there is more chance I will decide on a cup of herbal tea instead.

I would also mention while I'm here that I can so sympathise with your son who doesn't like reading. I always hated it, I could ( obviously ) and was quite happy to learn lots of new exciting words and what they meant, but that was as far as it went. My mother in particular always lamented the fact I didn't like books, but I was much happier building things and explosively deconstructing things with a bunch of boys. If your son isn't interested in reading about a lot of events that never happened to groups of people that never existed then I would not be overly concerned. Attempting to interest him may well feel to him like he's being nagged and that wont end well.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

That level of reading never happened before the Kindle came along.

But why? What is it about the Kindle that persuades your family to read, where they wouldn't have done so before? Is it simply the ability to pluck books out of thin air?

I've never found browsing a real, live, physical book shop to be anything less than a pleasure.

This will sound odd - but a kindle or kindle-app on many of our devies, is just so convenient compared to a book! We love real books too, and the boys bookshelves are full of lovely colourfull books and we still buy real books too. But the Kindle just seems to have inspired them even more - and I've noticed Nicola and I are reading more than we used to.

In terms of losing or breaking it. Our whole library is synched with every device - so we could all be readng the same book at the same time I guess, and will never lose a book if we lose a device. I think this is called cloud computing? Interestingly I have one book I'm reading n the kindle and in some locations ( :wink: ) I'm reading the paper version.

I'm desperately trying to get my eldest son interested in books at the moment, it's a real struggle but I don't think a Kindle is the answer. The problem is a strange one, his reading skills are if anything too good - he's only 6 but has been assessed at school as having a reading age of 12 to 13. That's great, but his language skills and general emotional development are about normal for a 6 year old, so he finds books aimed at his age group are far too simple and easy to read and he gets bored easily, and whilst he can read books aimed at much older kids with ease he doesn't really comprehend what the story is - the words are easy, the plot is not, so again he gets bored easily. It's going to be a tough one to crack.

In terms of how to inspire a young reader with a high reading age, we've had similar issues but not found it to be too difficult. Most of the childrens classics fit the bill - Huckleberry Finn, Gulliver's Travels, Famous Five, Magic Faraway Tree, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Railway Children and all the earlier Harry Potter books are all comprehensible plotwise to a younger reader but with sufficiently challenging syntax and vocab. A lot of Roald Dahl is good at this age - Danny the Champion of the World is (for me) the best childrens book ever written. I remember loving The Hardy Boys series at about that age too.

I guess the trick is not to worry about him continuing to further develop his reading skills whilst his chronological age catches up (he can aford to tread water for a year or two on that) - but to ensure he doesn't get bored of reading. Why not switch back more emphasis to you reading harder books to him for a while - that way you can intonate to aid comprehension and stop regularly to ensure he has understood.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Still, it's nice that Kate Moss seems to like your car. She really could do with a bit of feeding up though that girl - she's looking awfully skinny there.

Congratulations on your 3000th post Feltwell. I'm so pleased you selected such a weighty topic (pun intended!) for it. 8)

 

[Penners]

I have one book I'm reading on the kindle and in some locations I'm reading the paper version.

It must be wonderful not having to lug that big, heavy Kindle from room to room.

:roll:

 

[Penners]

Congratulations on your 3000th post Feltwell.

What an achievement! 3000 occasions on which he chose to post here instead of getting on with his work.

I think I'd be slightly ashamed of a record like that.

 

[Moo]

With an almighty heave she wrenched the thread back on-topic:

Have you provided your son with a succession of joke-books?
If they 'take', I warn you that you and every adult he encounters will be submerged under an endless stream of cringemaking humour.

Roald Dahl's Boy is a sure-fire winner, whether he reads it or has it read to him (you'll thoroughly enjoy reading it, I guarantee). Same goes for The Jungle Book.

I often think that we give up reading to our children far too soon, and the precocious readers are the ones who miss out most. Have you tried reading to him until the story reaches a really exciting bit, then find that you're too busy to carry on, but you've marked the page so if he really must know what happens he's welcome to pick it up himself.........?

 

[Penners]

With an almighty heave she wrenched the thread back on-topic:

Well done, Moo. What strength!

Although I'm not sure how on-topic childhood reading is to your house-move!

 

[Moo]

Books are the biggest problem

And how!!! Our books don't so much furnish a room as take it over. A very rough estimate suggests that we'll need over 75 yards of shelving (plus the piles that are stuffed out of sight in cupboards) in our next house.
When we moved to our last house the first thing that our builders had to do was secure the entire boundary of the plot with dog-proof fencing, and the next was a race to put up bookshelves while we unpacked the boxes. Luckily the builder's dad was something in the Sally Army, so we were able to do some radical on-the-hoof pruning as we went along, and he took his booty away with him at the end of each day so we couldn't change our minds.
But somehow the darned things started breeding when we moved here and now we're overrun again.

PS
"Although I'm not sure how on-topic childhood reading is to your house-move!"

Well, we do have a shelf of our childrens' books that will have to come with us

 

[JoceAndChris]

As an ex English teacher ( and maybe this is partly why ex!) I'd say don't bother trying to force children to be readers when they aren't. Not everyone needs to like fiction, in fact it would be a terrible world if we all did, as nothing would get done. What's needed are practical people, people who can come up with solutions, analysis, equipment and materials for real problems.

I'd encourage him to read lots of interesting non fiction. Manuals, EBay, science books - anything really. Even posters and packaging will convey vital communication skills. You can't make boys like stories, they either do or they don't.
My brother has never read a book in his life and is working on important noise cancellation technology, inventing new ground breaking technology. I've read millions of books and just muck about with swags and tails and tassels. :lol:

But yes, just to reassure Mr P, I do find books intrinsically lovely things, especially antiquarian ones, but it's just a cottage here. I could put small matching bookcases either side of the dining room window, that would hold my shabby 30 year old paperbacks. Or I could have two Sienna marble pedestals, with white statuary depicting a lost and beautiful age - and I just find the latter more inspirational.

 

[Moo]

I'd encourage him to read lots of interesting non fiction.

Absolutely! It's an odd thing, but little boys really do tend to like books with Facts in them.

 

[Penners]

Not so odd, really. If you're a little boy (which, come to think of it, I was once) you can astound your friends with Facts. Any sentence that starts, "Did you know..." immediately has the rapt attention of boys everywhere (just ask Michael Caine).

 

[Flyfisher]

It's an odd thing, but little boys really do tend to like books with Facts in them.

An interesting observation. I would, apparently, read all manner of car and other technical manuals as a nipper. Whether this led me towards science-based subjects and subsequent work or vice versa, I have no idea. But it does mean that our shelves are mainly stacked with non-fiction and technical books. This, in turn, is making it easier to reduce the number of books because technical books can quickly become outdated and such information is now generally available - and up to date - on the web.

Nevertheless, it is still quite a wrench to discard school and university textbooks, even though I know I'll never read them again. It must be the nostalgia of having them around and reminding me of times past.

But we've been doing a great deal of spring cleaning recently and the EACH van (East Anglia Children's Hospice) has become a familiar visitor.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I have one book I'm reading on the kindle and in some locations I'm reading the paper version.

It must be wonderful not having to lug that big, heavy Kindle from room to room.

:roll:

There is a serious point in there Penners - it never ceases to amaze me that when holding the kindle, iPad or even iPod, with a wifi connection I am carrying instant and free access to the entire totality of human knowledge. Every last scrap of it almost; there is very little that is now not accessible online one way or another.

I find that very humbling - and also incredibly powerful. It is an even more fundamental change than those that were ushered in by the printing press or English translation of the bible. With the advent of t'internet the power balance has shifted irrevocably and in our favour.

 

[Flyfisher]

True. But it also means we could spend our entire lives just reading, or just listening to music, or just watching videos.

So with all that resource at our fingertips, choosing carefully is now more important than ever.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

True. But it also means we could spend our entire lives just reading, or just listening to music, or just watching videos.

So with all that resource at our fingertips, choosing carefully is now more important than ever.

Indeed - heaven forfend we do that instead of messing about with old buidings! :wink:

 

[Penners]

it never ceases to amaze me that when holding the kindle, iPad or even iPod, with a wifi connection I am carrying instant and free access to the entire totality of human knowledge. Every last scrap of it almost; there is very little that is now not accessible online one way or another.

I absolutely agree, FW. The phrase "I don't know" has been almost entirely replaced by the phrase, "I'll Google it". There's absolutely nothing that you can't find out, if you're prepared to take a few minutes on the computer to search for an answer.