I've been asked to review two books targeted at the youngest bibliophiles. (You can read the review here.) Perhaps it would be better to say that they are targeted to those interested in creating bibliophiles from of our newest members of the planet – of which I am one.
With all of the screen time activities available for both children these days, an interest in reading has all too often taken a back seat to more passive activities involving a screen. I know, I know, video games are hardly passive, but it’s a rare screen activity that both provides information and develops imagination. So, I’m a reading buff.
I tried to instill that love in my son at the very earliest age…that is when he was an infant. I spent those hours and hours of down time, in between nursing and frantically trying to squeeze in my work, reading everything I could about child rearing. I discovered that whenever I read a brightly colors book with pictures of babies, he was happy to “read” along.
This lead to months of reading board books to my infant and then longer and harder books. It has lead to my haunting library book sales, yard sales and used book stores trying to find books on every subject under the sun. it has lead to a house filled with children’s books.
For years he would spend hours at a time (OK. Not hours, who am I kidding?) leafing through the stacks of books that lie in every corner of the house. Now he reads by himself, but…also just looks at the pictures.
This has lead to my not always subtle query, “Did you read it or just look at the pictures?” Often the answer, is, “I just looked at the pictures.” This, I must say, frustrates me.
But, I’ve come to terms with it. My goal was perhaps not necessarily to create a bibliophile, but to raise a child who loves books – or is that the same thing? If a child loves to look at the pictures as well as read, is that bad or is it a sign that he knows information is be found there? And perhaps that’s a good thing. It sure beats relying on the often misleading information on the web.
When he finally does start doing research on the web, I’ll have to instruct him, as I do the college students I teach, that there are facts, opinions, gossip and blatant untruths on the web…and how to tell the difference.
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2 comments:
I can say as a bonafide bibliophile, who was a professional one for over a decade as well, as a child I did the same things described. My mother said I had a particular affinity for an illustrated bible. She would often find me looking at the pictures and having a grand time making up my own stories about what I saw. I was drawn into the worlds I read about, but I also (almost more strongly) had a desire to indulge and create my own world. When I mentored families with pre-literate children, looking at pictures and describing what they saw was a critical part of literacy acquisition.
Ultimately I think the ability to imagine is a crucial component of what ties people firmly to the written word and the desire to understand. Imagination leads to critical thinking as well, which needs to be employed to assess the authoritativeness of the information source, be that a web source, media source, OR book.
He's still young, give him time. I would say it took my oldest a good 2 to 2 1/2 years after she learned to read before she was willing to read books without pictures.
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