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Something I was thinking about, when I had to explain to so many people (not YOU, necessarily, just in general) who Bruce Coville was the other day (link=the answer), and because I work in a library and the topic always comes up (especially because we have dang Accelerated Reader here), and because it's come up in some words or another (and this WOULD be about you, necessarily, but I don't mean it as an insult) whenever I ask for comments on here about things You The Reader liked to read when you were younger:
What's the big deal about Reading Up?
As I mentioned before, there are a lot of things that bug me about the Accelerated Reader program, and one of those things is the pressure teachers and especially parents put on reading only books that are at YOUR PERSONAL READING LEVEL. I'm not saying they force you to read 3rd grade books if you're in 3rd grade but you can read at a 6th grade level, I'm saying they force you to read 6th grade books in 3rd grade because you TESTED at a 6th grade level-- or vice versa. They test you for reading level, you see. That in itself is a problem (your ability to understand a text that you read to yourself silently is tested by you reading it out loud and getting your errors tallied. If you don't see the problem with this, then I challenge you to go pick up a certain book I know that is on a first grade reading level-- I guarantee you can read every word in it-- and read it aloud, cold, right now. The book is called Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss. Seriously, go try it, I dare you). But then, once you've been tested, you get assigned your Reading Level, and you're not supposed to read the books EASIER than that anymore, because that's too easy, and you shouldn't read the books ABOVE that level because it will be too hard-- no matter how interesting the subject matter might be to you.
And the point of Accelerated Reader is to get kids interested in reading, they say! But people who are interested in reading don't read because it is Just the Right Amount of Challenging for Their Skill Level-- they read because they ENJOY WHAT THEY READ-- whether that text is easy to decode or quite hard!
But I'm not ranting on Accelerated Reader today, I'm ranting on the mindset that if someone CAN read "hard books," then they SHOULD read "hard books," because if it's easy to read it no longer has anything to offer them.
This mindset has gotten to the point that parents are now having almost the opposite worry: "My 4th grader reads at a 7th grade level, but those YA books have too much swearing and sex and drugs and violence! Aren't there any books at that level that are appropriate for a 4th grader?" The correct answer is, why yes, there ARE, but it won't KILL her to read a book written at a 6th or 4th or 2nd grade level-- why not just let her pick her books by topic, genre, catchy blurb, and not WORRY what reading level it is? Obviously, if she is reading at a 7th grade level in 4th grade, her reading skills are developing JUST FINE, so you can stop worrying about them. If you let her pick her own books, she will GRAVITATE to subject matter that she is ready for (although, I should point out, this may be subject matter YOU think she's not ready for... but in most cases, kids are self-censoring. I know I was. Then again, I was still blushing if the word "damn" showed up in a book in high school, so I was kind of freakish that way, too).
Thing is, your average adult book is written at a seventh grade level, so eventually your YA and your adult books are going to overlap there, anyway. It's the SUBJECT matter that makes a book YA or adult-- and, to an extent, childrens, although then you are usually dealing with easier reading levels also. You're not special if you're reading adult books in seventh grade, in other words, so it's OKAY to pick books about kids your own age-- you don't have to "read up" anymore!
So when people say, "Why do we need YA? I was reading ADULT books when I was a teenager," I want to say, "SO WAS I. But I was ALSO reading YA and children's books because I liked to read about PEOPLE MY OWN AGE dealing with things I cared about!" I'm not KNOCKING those of you who always say something like "I never read kids books when I was a kid, because I was an advanced reader," I'm just a little SAD that you skipped out on, for example, your Bruce Coville period. No one can deny that I was an advanced reader. I read Huckleberry Finn in 4th grade-- a book I then read again for a college (non-kid-lit) course; and I was a HUGE fan of Agatha Christie. I read everything, and in copious amounts. But generally, I MOST just wanted to read about OTHER KIDS. Books were my best friends-- it made me feel Not Alone to read about kids who felt just like me, even if the things they actually did were different. And THAT'S what reading fiction should be about-- not racking up points, not showing off your mental abilities. CONNECTING to something through the written word.
Books are directed at age groups by their subject matter: I don't mean that children's books don't deal with Hard Subjects, but that they deal with Hard (and Easy) subjects from a CHILD'S PERSPECTIVE. That's all that makes kids books different from grownup books (or, I should say, all that makes YA different from adult, because yes, there is reading level involved younger than that-- I just mean it's not a big deal). It's all about perspective and relatability. Kids can connect to kid characters-- or adult characters with childlike qualities and issues-- in a way that they can't connect to the characters in adult books, no matter how good they are at reading those words. That doesn't mean kids SHOULDN'T read adult books. But let's not deny them the opportunities of really CONNECTING with what they read, either!
So calm down, world. Stop worrying about the loftiness of your reading aspirations. Read because you want to experience the power of words-- however easy or hard those words might be.
What's the big deal about Reading Up?
As I mentioned before, there are a lot of things that bug me about the Accelerated Reader program, and one of those things is the pressure teachers and especially parents put on reading only books that are at YOUR PERSONAL READING LEVEL. I'm not saying they force you to read 3rd grade books if you're in 3rd grade but you can read at a 6th grade level, I'm saying they force you to read 6th grade books in 3rd grade because you TESTED at a 6th grade level-- or vice versa. They test you for reading level, you see. That in itself is a problem (your ability to understand a text that you read to yourself silently is tested by you reading it out loud and getting your errors tallied. If you don't see the problem with this, then I challenge you to go pick up a certain book I know that is on a first grade reading level-- I guarantee you can read every word in it-- and read it aloud, cold, right now. The book is called Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss. Seriously, go try it, I dare you). But then, once you've been tested, you get assigned your Reading Level, and you're not supposed to read the books EASIER than that anymore, because that's too easy, and you shouldn't read the books ABOVE that level because it will be too hard-- no matter how interesting the subject matter might be to you.
And the point of Accelerated Reader is to get kids interested in reading, they say! But people who are interested in reading don't read because it is Just the Right Amount of Challenging for Their Skill Level-- they read because they ENJOY WHAT THEY READ-- whether that text is easy to decode or quite hard!
But I'm not ranting on Accelerated Reader today, I'm ranting on the mindset that if someone CAN read "hard books," then they SHOULD read "hard books," because if it's easy to read it no longer has anything to offer them.
This mindset has gotten to the point that parents are now having almost the opposite worry: "My 4th grader reads at a 7th grade level, but those YA books have too much swearing and sex and drugs and violence! Aren't there any books at that level that are appropriate for a 4th grader?" The correct answer is, why yes, there ARE, but it won't KILL her to read a book written at a 6th or 4th or 2nd grade level-- why not just let her pick her books by topic, genre, catchy blurb, and not WORRY what reading level it is? Obviously, if she is reading at a 7th grade level in 4th grade, her reading skills are developing JUST FINE, so you can stop worrying about them. If you let her pick her own books, she will GRAVITATE to subject matter that she is ready for (although, I should point out, this may be subject matter YOU think she's not ready for... but in most cases, kids are self-censoring. I know I was. Then again, I was still blushing if the word "damn" showed up in a book in high school, so I was kind of freakish that way, too).
Thing is, your average adult book is written at a seventh grade level, so eventually your YA and your adult books are going to overlap there, anyway. It's the SUBJECT matter that makes a book YA or adult-- and, to an extent, childrens, although then you are usually dealing with easier reading levels also. You're not special if you're reading adult books in seventh grade, in other words, so it's OKAY to pick books about kids your own age-- you don't have to "read up" anymore!
So when people say, "Why do we need YA? I was reading ADULT books when I was a teenager," I want to say, "SO WAS I. But I was ALSO reading YA and children's books because I liked to read about PEOPLE MY OWN AGE dealing with things I cared about!" I'm not KNOCKING those of you who always say something like "I never read kids books when I was a kid, because I was an advanced reader," I'm just a little SAD that you skipped out on, for example, your Bruce Coville period. No one can deny that I was an advanced reader. I read Huckleberry Finn in 4th grade-- a book I then read again for a college (non-kid-lit) course; and I was a HUGE fan of Agatha Christie. I read everything, and in copious amounts. But generally, I MOST just wanted to read about OTHER KIDS. Books were my best friends-- it made me feel Not Alone to read about kids who felt just like me, even if the things they actually did were different. And THAT'S what reading fiction should be about-- not racking up points, not showing off your mental abilities. CONNECTING to something through the written word.
Books are directed at age groups by their subject matter: I don't mean that children's books don't deal with Hard Subjects, but that they deal with Hard (and Easy) subjects from a CHILD'S PERSPECTIVE. That's all that makes kids books different from grownup books (or, I should say, all that makes YA different from adult, because yes, there is reading level involved younger than that-- I just mean it's not a big deal). It's all about perspective and relatability. Kids can connect to kid characters-- or adult characters with childlike qualities and issues-- in a way that they can't connect to the characters in adult books, no matter how good they are at reading those words. That doesn't mean kids SHOULDN'T read adult books. But let's not deny them the opportunities of really CONNECTING with what they read, either!
So calm down, world. Stop worrying about the loftiness of your reading aspirations. Read because you want to experience the power of words-- however easy or hard those words might be.
