Quote:
Originally Posted by speakingtohe
I agree that reading something difficult is not the way to enamour people of reading, but neither IMO is Dick and Jane.
Still by the time a student is required to read Shakespeare, they should be able to do it, enjoy it or not, and if they enjoy reading other material they will, most likely, still enjoy it.
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It's not that something is difficult that's the problem. It's that it's useless. When are kids ever going to need to know how to read the version of English that Shakespeare wrote in? Never. I had to deal with Shakespeare in school and I've never wanted to go back after. It wasn't fun. It wasn't relevant. It was just a waste of time and effort.
Give kids something difficult that will give them useful skills and that's good. Give them something difficult that's not going to give them useful skills and that's a waste of time and effort. Being able to read Shakespeare is not useful.
Also, reading books that have no relevance because they are too old and outdated in the way they were written is a poor way to get kids interested in reading. A good example of a poor book is
The Canterbury Tales. Outdated, not relevant and just plain boring. making kids dissect such an outdated work is not going to help the kids learn and it's not going to help them want to read.