That was a well done show for kids. LeVar Burton can read a book better than me, and I am not ashamed to admit it. He made learning accessible, fun, and cool.
We did Book It! for a couple of years, but Accelerated Reader for most of the others. One of my favorite childhood memories as a kid was having to go to the local junior high, because the elementary school didn't have the test for the books I was reading.
It also made me want to read Anna Karenina, because that was listed as the book with the highest points awarded. It only took me 30 years to get around to finishing it.
I wonder how many public libraries are there in US.
In Poland every gmina (which is like a collection of a few villages - around 10k people and 10x10 km) have a public library. It's how I learned to love reading books - there was no internet yet, TV had like 3 channels, and I was on vacations bored to hell. So I went to the library and started borrowing random books. I didn't had to drive anywhere or ask my parents - it was just a short walk.
I especially love the small countryside libraries where you don't need to ask the librarian for a book you want - you walk among the shelves and look for the books yourself. Back in 80s/90s most books in such libraries were hand-covered with gray packing-paper covers and had the author and title written by the librarian on that. So you didn't even had images on the cover to let you know what the book was about. It was a complete surprise every time. Through 3 summer vacations I went through half the library, even trying some Harlequins or "collected works of Lenin" :) (not a very good read BTW). Mostly I looked for fantasy and sci-fi, but that was like 5 shelves out of 50, so I tried everything eventually. And I learnt to love reading ever since.
With that said, I miss the trend of reading being so heavily emphasized in youth culture. Dolly Parton, free Pizza Hut, the accelerated reader program. I'm really grateful I grew up in the 90s.
Doing what? Just whatever? As long as they aren't doing any reading?
They should also replace lunch period with a "life" period. I see a lot of kids sitting around eating, getting fat, but kids need experience in real life; eating will get them nowhere.
Reading is doing when it involves active engagement - kids who read deeply are processing, imagining, questioning, and building mental models they later apply to real-world problems.
This brought back some memories. It’s kind of amazing how shows like this made reading feel fun instead of something you had to do. Just stories, imagination and a bit of magic, sometimes that’s all it takes to get a kid hooked on books.
My mom read books during the day when my dad was at work. She'd tell my dad how hard she worked all day :-)
I'd look over her shoulder and wonder how she made any sense out of the page full of text, as there were no pictures. I was fascinated by that, and was well motivated to learn to read.
I was not allowed to watch TV beyond Daktari and Saturday morning cartoons. I hated that restriction, but in hindsight my parents made the right call. My dad would watch the news, but it was just gibberish to me.
Later, I was not allowed to watch Green Acres. My parents said it was "rubbish". I did not see an episode of it till I went to college, and eagerly watched to see what I had been missing. I lasted 10 minutes - it was indeed rubbish.
Norway has gamified summer reading https://sommerles.no/svar
It's quite popular in the first half of elementary school.
You get points for registering read books (even if your parent read it for your, or audio books) and every week all the libraries put up a poster with this week's "code word" which you get points for typing into your profile, and whenever you level up ten levels you get a little prize you can pick up from the library (like a tiny toy, they had shark teeth one year)
The Christian library one town over from where we live does a "reading summer" event every year for the school holidays: kids who borrow books, read them, and write a small book report (2-3 sentences) for them enter a lottery and can win a small prize at the end of the holidays. And I believe every participants gets a certificate also.
You'd think that this would not appeal to anyone, but they actually have a great turnout every year. Quite amazing actually.
LeVar Burton hosted a podcast marketed for adults where he read short stories. Though it ended last year, there are almost 200 episodes in the archive.
He’s still been at work encouraging lifelong reading all these years later.
Summer reading programs are a band-aid on the problem that children shouldn’t have such a long summer break now that air conditioning is common. Spread the breaks out throughout the year if you want to maintain the same number of days off. All evidence shows the summer break is bad for children’s academic achievement (especially poor children), but it is viewed as a perk for the teachers so the teacher’s unions fight against questioning it.
This article lavishes well-deserved praise on the intentions behind Reading Rainbow. I know I loved the show as a kid.
But it seems like childhood reading scores were pretty much flat between 1983 and 2006, when the show was on the air: they only varied by 10-15 points on a 500 point scale[1], and there was no clear upward trend, it just sort of fluctuated. Reading for pleasure has never been lower among kids, either[2]. It doesn't seem to me that the mission of the show was achieved, if the mission was to make children read more books, and understand them more.
Ultimately I think it ended up just being a pleasurable way to have kids get distracted by a friendly, positive TV show. My guess is that if you want to improve reading scores and habits, parents have to do more than just turn the dial to PBS.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 34.5 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Hut#Book_It!
It also made me want to read Anna Karenina, because that was listed as the book with the highest points awarded. It only took me 30 years to get around to finishing it.
https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81750412?s=i&trkid=25859316...
Made me think reading was probably a scam.
In Poland every gmina (which is like a collection of a few villages - around 10k people and 10x10 km) have a public library. It's how I learned to love reading books - there was no internet yet, TV had like 3 channels, and I was on vacations bored to hell. So I went to the library and started borrowing random books. I didn't had to drive anywhere or ask my parents - it was just a short walk.
I especially love the small countryside libraries where you don't need to ask the librarian for a book you want - you walk among the shelves and look for the books yourself. Back in 80s/90s most books in such libraries were hand-covered with gray packing-paper covers and had the author and title written by the librarian on that. So you didn't even had images on the cover to let you know what the book was about. It was a complete surprise every time. Through 3 summer vacations I went through half the library, even trying some Harlequins or "collected works of Lenin" :) (not a very good read BTW). Mostly I looked for fantasy and sci-fi, but that was like 5 shelves out of 50, so I tried everything eventually. And I learnt to love reading ever since.
Looking back on the list of Reading Rainbow books: https://knowtea.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/rea...
I can't say I've read many of them.
With that said, I miss the trend of reading being so heavily emphasized in youth culture. Dolly Parton, free Pizza Hut, the accelerated reader program. I'm really grateful I grew up in the 90s.
They should also replace lunch period with a "life" period. I see a lot of kids sitting around eating, getting fat, but kids need experience in real life; eating will get them nowhere.
I'd look over her shoulder and wonder how she made any sense out of the page full of text, as there were no pictures. I was fascinated by that, and was well motivated to learn to read.
I was not allowed to watch TV beyond Daktari and Saturday morning cartoons. I hated that restriction, but in hindsight my parents made the right call. My dad would watch the news, but it was just gibberish to me.
Later, I was not allowed to watch Green Acres. My parents said it was "rubbish". I did not see an episode of it till I went to college, and eagerly watched to see what I had been missing. I lasted 10 minutes - it was indeed rubbish.
You'd think that this would not appeal to anyone, but they actually have a great turnout every year. Quite amazing actually.
[0] https://youtu.be/--RYPHqbD50?si=YvldZg_xt--H3LSn
He’s still been at work encouraging lifelong reading all these years later.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/levar-burton-reads/id1...
But it seems like childhood reading scores were pretty much flat between 1983 and 2006, when the show was on the air: they only varied by 10-15 points on a 500 point scale[1], and there was no clear upward trend, it just sort of fluctuated. Reading for pleasure has never been lower among kids, either[2]. It doesn't seem to me that the mission of the show was achieved, if the mission was to make children read more books, and understand them more.
Ultimately I think it ended up just being a pleasurable way to have kids get distracted by a friendly, positive TV show. My guess is that if you want to improve reading scores and habits, parents have to do more than just turn the dial to PBS.
[1] https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/12/among-man...