Monday, August 2, 2010

Reading For The Sake Of Reading

Ok so yes I'm still on Topic 1 however there is a key point that needs to be addressed in Herring's reading. The was a statement in there that just rubbed me the wrong way. To paraphrase - it can be argued that reading for pleasure is given unnecessary prominence in some school library mission statements.
As a personal opinion I have to wonder why this should not be at the top of every mission statement. Day after day we are bombarded with statements about the decline in children's literacy abilities. Surely having children reading for the sake of reading can only be a good thing. Whilst I agree that there are many things that a librarian needs to teach/ do/ inspire I do think that fun reading should be right up in the top importance. The more you can get children to read for fun, the better their literacy skills. Once their literacy skills have improved they will be more willing to read to gain meaning and develop research skills. Teaching students technology skills is going to be a lot easier if they can read the instructions and spell the words correctly. This is just a personal opinion and I currently have no research to back this up but I would be interested to know what other people think of prioritizing reading?

Lizz

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