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Originally Posted by Jovvi
Sorry, I wrote wrong, I meant 10 per week of cause. Even so, I still think that the goal should be to encourage reading, and find the magic worlds of books, to participate.
Because I believe a kid like him (and his brother) really is in it for the books. If its not a competition, will they stop reading? I wish adults would stop making everything a competition. Competition can be good, but but it can also be discouraging. If you know you have to compete against Bolt at 100 m, would you not give up beforehand? I would!
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And by 'encourage reading' what do you mean? You seem to treat this as an 'all or nothing' situation. Only compete if you have a chance of winning. Why does the younger brother bother to compete then?
Do you look at the forum members that have in their signature the number of books that they read this year and decide that there is no point in reading another book this year because you aren't going to read more than them? Should we demand that those who read 100 books per year not rub this in the faces of those who don't have the time for it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Exactly.
At a minimum, the contest is teaching the kids perseverance, to stick with a task once they start it, to live up to a commitment, once made.
The books in question are obviously age-appropriate and, given the themes aspect, probably including a fair amount of non-fiction. I'm pretty sure there are precious few adults, much less kids of any age, who can say they've read at least one book about the 50 states.
If the educational system doesn't beat it out of him, that kid is going to build up one serious knowledge base by the time he hits adulthood.
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I think that knowing that another kid was able to read 63 books in 6 weeks can actually motivate other kids to read more. If reading 10 books in 6 weeks is all that is needed, and the library discourages spreading the word that a 9 year old can read much more than that I think that the others are going to read less, not more.