This is probably the reason why there are so few readers out there

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I was allowed to go to the big library at the age of 12. And that library was in the big city, about 10km by bike. Simply because our local library didn't have much more to read for us (I share my craze for books with my older brother).

I've always (as far as I can remember) been a user of the library. Now I take out CDs, DVDs, books, eBooks.. I sure do get my money worth out of the library.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Here is what I have found out after looking at this issue on the internet. There are many factors that are preventing the prelevance of electronic readers:

1) There are a certain number of people like the ones described in this that don't want to read.

2) There are a rather large percentage of people in third world countries that can not read and do not have the resources needed to learn to read.

3) There are a large percentage of people who can not speak a languege that readers will support, and face it the readers do not support every languege.

4) A lot do not know about electronic readers.

5) Price is a factor, there are a percentage of people, like me, that do not want to pay that much for a reader.

6) Don't have the dollars, how do you tell someone that is working two jobs and is barely paying the rent that he/she needs to spend $200 that they don't have for an electronic reader.

7) Some are like my parents who are afraid of technology.

8. The Agency 5 & Apple

[Freeshadow]

I once applied the whol textanalytical crap to a sonnet of mine.
I found out one could therafter claim a "on purpose" usag of about a dozen ftylistic feats I have never tought about when writing said piece.
Since then I never again took any textual analysis seriously.

the so-called talk by far too much into the works thann it was intended to be inside.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by Marc Johnson

Hey, I read comic books. They're a lot deeper and well written than you give them credit for. At least most of the non-superhero ones, which is what I mostly tend to read these days. And a lot of movies are based off comics. Not the obvious ones like Watchmen or 300 but ones like The Road to Perdition and A History of Violence.

I don't know if you read comics but if not you may want to give anything Vertigo a try. Then there's Bone, Strangers in Paradise, The Walking Dead.

+ karma to you for that. I also would add Maus or Queen and Country. Both look at very hard issues in unique ways. I have a masters in lit and a Ph.D in law, but I am just as proud of my massive comic book collection as I am of my original printing antique books. Its not all superheros in spandex...

[WT Sharpe]

I can't knock comics. They got me interested in reading.

In fact, one of the books I'm reading now is a graphic novel. It's called LOGICOMIX: An Epic Search for Truth. It's about the life and times of Bertrand Russell. Fascinating stuff. A bit easier than Russell's History of Western Civilization, but well worth reading.

[HamsterRage]

Originally Posted by patrickt

If schools taught sex ed the way they teach reading the kids would not want to have sex when they reached puberty.

First, a really ugly partner you don't like is assigned to you. As you get started the teacher and all the other students laugh at you. And, within a week the Sex Ed Specialist assigns you to remedial Sex Ed. You get all the jokes about not being able to masturbate because the instructions are written on your hand.

I have never met a kid staring school who wasn't excited about learning to read. Something ruins that excitement.

When I was in high school we were assigned Steinbeck's, "The Grapes of Wrath" to read. After about a week or so, we revolted.

Now, this was an "enriched stream" English class. So we were all good students who actually did the assigned reading. Personally, I think I was about half way though the book. So were most of the others. We weren't trying to skip out on anything.

But we all hated it. Just hated it. And we told our teacher. He was cool about it, and the next day he had a stack of "To Kill a Mockingbird" sitting on his desk at the front of the class. We traded in our "Grapes of Wrath" for Harper's book.

Of course, "Mockingbird" is a great book and much more accessible to a bunch of 15 year olds than the Steinbeck book. We all loved it, and we all enjoyed reading it. I can't for the life of me remember any exercises or essays or whatnot that we had to do related to that book, but I do remember the whole story in vivid detail (and that was 30 years ago).

And I'll always remember how he teacher listened to us, and treated us like adults.

Now, *that's* how you get teach an English class.

[MV64]

That's a great story and a good thing for teachers to consider. Flexibility never hurts. That being said, if I ever become a teacher I'l never force my students to read To Kill a Mockingbird. I hated it.

[MV64]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

My mother has always been a reader as long as I can remember. I've been a reader too for almost ever. I took to reading quite well.

What helped me is that my parents allowed me to read what I liked. And I didn't like most of what the schools forced upon us. I thought a lot of the books were just awful. One problem with schools is that they take books that may be good and the way you have to dissect them makes them a turn-off for a lot of kids.

I agree. We had an accelerated reading program where we had to take tests on books. I had a college level vocabulary and was reading Tom Clancy in 5th grade (non-fiction histories by 7th). I loved reading.

Yet I failed AR.

I didn't care about reading their stupid books. I spent my time checking out other books at the library, books that wouldn't help me, or going to the public library and doing that.

I like that they encourage kids to read 20 minutes a day, but making it a class was the worst idea ever.

[AlbertaCowboy]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

Now, *that's* how you get teach an English class.

That's a great story. I wish I was so lucky. I had "The Stone Angel" by Margaret Laurence inflicted on me in Grade 12. Despite being considered one of the great classics of Canadian literature, I revolted and stopped reading after chapter one. When it came time for the inevitable book report at the end of the semester, I wrote an honest editorial on the first chapter. I think my teacher stopped reading my report after I stated that "I can only assume that it was not Margaret Laurence, but Lucifer himself who penned this mind-numbing drivel solely in the hopes of driving me insane". (I remember that verbatim after 15 years!) Good thing that the (unrelated to the book study) Diploma level English 30 essay counted for 85 percent of my final grade!

[voracious71]

Originally Posted by FatDog

I wonder if you can call Child Protective Services on a mother who refuses to let her child read a book?

I suspect fear. The mother is probably in future-shock with computers, twitter, smart phones, etc. and these people tend to lash out or put-down the value of education or knowledge in others. It is especially scary if your kids seem to be smarter than you.

(sigh)

I agree..and I believe this story. There are people out there who put down education, reading, anything that is related to learning. I know, I'm related to a few of them.

Plus, some people are just ignorant trash. I know that's not very PC, but it is what it is.

[elizilla]

I'm not sure I agree that school sucks the joy out of reading. I have been able to read, and loved to read, ever since I can remember. Certainly before I started school. And my parents encouraged this, when they weren't taking books away from me to force me to do something else, like sleep or chores.

But my childhood world never had enough books in it. Never. My parents could only rarely be persuaded to purchase more books for me, because as my mother put it "You use them up too fast!" And the town we lived in was too small and too blue-collar / rural to support a public library.

One of the best parts of starting school in the fall was getting a whole new stack of textbooks. I would read them cover to cover. My classes never got to the end of their texts, but I always did! And classes where we read literature? Sign me up! I not only read the books assigned in my own classes, I read the books assigned in my sister's classes (if she happened to get a new one - she was a year younger than me) and in classes that my friends took without me. Sometimes I read their textbooks too. The only boring part was that often, we'd be assigned something I'd already read.

Also, there was a library at the school. I was allowed to check out two books per week from there, and I could read additional books during that one-hour weekly visit. That was 2 more books a week than I could get in the summer. And teachers would sometimes lend books, especially once I was old enough to read what they were reading.

Maybe the trick to getting kids to enjoy their school books, is to inculcate a love of reading, and then follow it with chronic scarcity.

[Luke King]

When my mother was a child, she loved reading, but her mother (my grandmother) was always telling her to stop reading, to put the book away and do something sensible.

So when my mother had her own children, the three of us were allowed to read as much as we liked, and now both my brother and myself have written novels, so I suppose the child told not to read (in the OPs piece) might one day have a similar policy, and perhaps give birth to a novelist as talented as myself (though I agree that would be difficult).

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

It's people like this telling their kids that books are stupid and not to read them that are making this world so bad, and reducing the total reading public.

Maybe things are changing? Over Thanksgiving I was visiting family. Four of us were sitting on the couches reading books (I was the only eReader) in the living room. An uncle of mine made a snide comment about all of the reading going on -- one of many about how much better movies were. TV was blaring the entire time, but even two of the children were reading.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by patrickt

I can still remember mispronouncing the word "corps" when I was in the 4th grade. The teacher laughed so, of course, the other students laughed. I sat down and when told to read more I refused. Now, misprouncing that word puts me in the league with a brilliant President.

I suspect that many here suffer from the same problem that I do... there are MANY words that I have only encountered in writing, and am thus afraid to use them in conversation as I might mispronounce them. I can remember that it was the longest time that I found out the correct pronunciation of subtle.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

homework, sleeping, bathing, etc). I guess I'm not a good role model when I read when brushing my teeth or cooking dinner. HA! Could be worse....

You mean it's not a good example to press the next page button with your elbow or slide the text up with your nose? Uh oh!