We believe that students can increase their pace of reading by increasing the movement of their eyes over the words, taking in more of the sentence, but also slowing down when they begin to lose comprehension. The Good Books are excellent material upon which to conduct these experiments on increasing reading pace because unlike some of the Great Books they are not treatises in philosophy, science and theology, being mostly stories and novels. But a more important reason to read the Good Books listed here, and to read them preferably when young, is to prepare the imagination and intellect for the more challenging ideas of the Great Books.
It is not a flippant comment to say that a person grounded in the rhymes and rhythms of Mother Goose has also cultivated the senses and the mind for the reading of Shakespeare.
Poetry or verse is the unique expression of language that reveals truths and mysteries of life. It has been said that all poetry is about love in some way, seeking it, having it, or losing it. A good deal of the poems of the nursery and early childhood are about having love, even in the so-called nonsense poetry there is a light-hearted delight that comes from a loving, and lively, heart.
Jumpin’ jets, a woman! Call to update children’s books with female academics
And, there are poems of loss that appear in the nursery poems of Mother Goose and Robert Louis Stevenson where the sad times of childhood prepare us for the heartbreaks of adolescence and youth. Though reading and memorizing poetry is its own reward, to do so in childhood creates a language-rich foundation that supports not only future literary appreciation but increases reflective abilities toward all the subjects of the curriculum. Because becoming familiar with poetry builds the habit of looking beyond the surface and seeing connections between what first appeared as dissimilar ideas or objects.
This is the habit of metaphor, that is, the mind beginning to see similarities between what at first appeared to be dissimilar objects and ideas. This is why poetry was always a part of the foundational Trivium, the essential three courses of the medieval liberal arts curriculum, rooted in the classical education of ancient Greece and Rome.
Why teachers should read more children's books
What about Harry Potter, for example? Apart from the controversy surrounding the moral ambiguities of the Harry Potter series of books, it is doubtful that such material that depends so heavily on the bizarre and fantastic, with the absence of a dominant theme of human virtue is enough to provide the essential quality of a classic: It is not easy to say exactly why one book remains popular regardless of cultural changes while many, many others perish in the recycling bin.
Whatever that special appeal the classic book possesses, it acts as a universal voice that speaks to each generation, and each generation and another and another continues to listen and is pleased. Since the s, the books of Dr. Seuss have remained in print and in use. For a time titles such as The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and, Hop on Pop were used as substitutes for the standard early readers and certainly the playful rhymes and rhythms were a welcome respite from the Dick and Jane type look-say readers.
Seuss phenomenon and the explosion of books for children that followed this revolution, began to edge out the classics on book shelves in stores and school libraries; and ideologically the treasury of books from Mother Goose to The Scarlet Pimpernel have come to be considered hopelessly old fashioned and no longer relevant.
But what if we were to lose the classics by neglect or deliberate rejection, which convey the roots of our culture? Senior was the first to say that his list of books for children was far from definitive, that on another day he might make a different selection in some cases as he suspected alert readers would as well.. Also, he said he certainly could be wrong about the reading age and the selected books for that group; the parent or teacher should remain experimental allowing the child to discover their own level of reading challenge and appreciation.
The poems and stories that were once enjoyed in wonder and delight in youth are now viewed in maturity in their truth and wisdom. For many contemporary books marketed for children, this is not the case; they are often silly and regard the child as a kind of simple toy, or the stories are laced with special interest, social agendas, and in some cases the material is inappropriate or simply morally offensive. Perhaps the audience for these good books for children is smaller now but the poems and stories that nourished children and pleased adults for centuries refuse to go away; their appeal remains irresistible and their imaginative experience is memorable for a lifetime.
Why is this so? To ask this question another way, what makes a book a classic? Because literature is an art it can never be understood as if it were a science like mathematics. But, we can say the following about classic literature: The literary work not only tells a story and imparts knowledge in a unique way, the art of the tale or the poem is an aesthetic experience.
Aesthetic is from a Greek word that has to do with feelings and pleasurable emotions.
- Jeff Kinney: ‘Let children read anything; I’ll never say no to a book’!
- – The Importance of Children’s Literature;
- .
- Tom, Dick, and Harriet?
When we go to the doctor and receive an anesthetic we are being made temporarily not to feel so a particular examination or operation can be performed without feeling pain. As we know, most children beg to hear the good poems and stories again and again so they can continue to experience their delight and even their surprise. We can profit a great deal by talking about them with friends and family, but in the end we can never explain why it is exactly that we continue to admire them.
We remember that to analyze means to take apart. But will we be able to put it together again? Even though classics are old, their themes and the delight they give are ever young. A famous poet once said that poetry is news that stays news. This is true of all classic literature from Aesop to Shakespeare. So, these good books contain something true, unchanging and good about life; and dramatize these truths for us in a pleasing and memorable way.
The literary, philosophical and religious climate following World War I was not friendly to traditional beliefs about the essential goodness of man. Perhaps this can be understood from a psychological and sociological perspective given the carnage of modern warfare and the disruption of nations. Literary themes that emerged from this era tend to be melancholy and dark; characters are often despairing, violent, or overwhelmed.
Frequently, stories, poems and novels of the modern era lack any objective moral center of gravity and often end either in ambiguity or tragic absurdity. These times have also seen an alarming increase in escapist and fantasy literature that lead the reader further and further away from reality.
In spite of the discouraging landscape left by this phenomenon called modernism, the classic books of childhood and adolescence, the Good Books, continue to refresh the air of life. This imaginative experience is more important now than ever, not only for children who are forming their ideas about the world and their lives, but for adults who can rediscover and in a way relearn essential truths once seen clearly in childhood. To say these classic books are true and good does not mean they do not contain evil; the stories of Grimm and Anderson for example would be nothing without the presence of cruel adults and disobedient children.
The Importance of Children’s Literature
Sometimes it appears the evil characters triumph over the good when we have a sad or tragic ending. In fact, it is only a life centered in the good and the beautiful and the true that recognizes and mourns the presence of their opposites. In this way, the presence of cruel stepmothers, witches and ogres, giants and monsters are true in that they are representative of evil present in the world. So one thing we can say about classic stories is that they arouse our sentiments, in the case of the Little Red Riding Hood, fear and pity; but they are not sentimental in the way the Walt Disney versions are rewritten and presented.
The famous Hollywood rendition of Pinocchio, for example, presents a mischievous little puppet who yearns to be a real boy. The original story by Carlo Collodi reveals a wooden puppet that is cruel and violent between short-lived lapses into self-pitying remorse. In one of the early chapters, Pinocchio picks up a large mallet and smashes the Cricket; nor is he sorry. The real story of Pinocchio by Collodi is one of conversion, a replacing of a wooden heart with a human one that has learned to love. They show them and we feel with, that is, we sympathize with them.
It is this moral depth of the story, more mature than the thinned out popular versions, that elevates the original tale above the realm of mere entertainment and places it with the great stories that are both true and good. The second element of a classic story or poem, that the work is delightful and pleasing and can be experienced over and over, is not separate from the fact that it is true and good.
A work of art can never be systematized, analyzed, taken apart, classified and labeled and put back together again — neither could Humpty Dumpty! Rather, we say a classic work of art, be it a painting, sculpture, musical composition, or literature, is experienced as an integrated whole. It is difficult to say exactly why a piece of literature possesses the quality of lasting pleasure, but it has something to do with this unity where the characters, the plot, the dialogue, beginning, middle and the end, combine in such a way as to proclaim that the story or the poem could not have been written in any other way.
There is nothing we would change. This ongoing popularity of the classics is the long view afforded by the Good Books. These titles and perhaps a thousand more stay in print year after year, in some cases century after century, whereas it is likely the best seller of today will be recycled paper for tomorrow. These books continue to be read because children and adults discover that what they reveal about our lives and our world is not just true at a certain period of time or in a certain location for a particular group of people, but are always true, everywhere for everyone.
Another reason for their appeal rests on the intuitive knowledge of the true and good everyone who encounters them share, who discover it is a better and higher thing to enjoy and be schooled by a work of art than to analyze it. Since the themes of the stories reveal timeless truths about the human condition, from the humorous to the tragic, we see that one of the marks of a classic is its universal appeal.
Why teachers should read more children's books | Teacher Network | The Guardian
We experience a sense of unity with nature and human nature when we give ourselves to the classic stories and poems of the Good Books. There is a sound reason and one not difficult to discover why Aesop, Huckleberry Finn, the works of Homer and Shakespeare continue to be translated into nearly every language in the world. Reading for pleasure among the trainee teachers during the blog, was a common feature. The trainee teachers were also using children's books, of all genres as a form of escapism from the stresses and strains of teaching in the primary classroom.
During the focus group we asked the trainees a range of questions about reading for pleasure and what had made them become a reader. The joys of reading became apparent, namely, how they had enjoyed "getting totally lost in a book" or "absorbed" by the narrative. It also became evident that they had close personal associations with certain texts from their own childhoods, and the fact that they could turn the page of a book and by knowing what was on that page gave them comfort and confidence to share that book with their class.
The term bibliotherapy is becoming more widely recognised, increasingly moving away from its original medical model — whereby practitioners 'prescribed' self-help books to patients suffering from depression or eating disorders, for example. New ideas on reading for wellbeing are now increasingly looking at the use of books as a form of escapism.
In order for reading to have wellbeing affects, readers should identify with the characters in a story and form an emotional connection with them. By doing so it is then easier for the reader to use situations in a book, to solve their own problems, and also realise that their problems are not unique to them, nor unsolvable. Teaching is a stressful occupation.
- A Commentary On The Old and New Testaments: Volume Two Ezra-Psalms;
- Welcome to CLCD E5 Beta.
- Marked (The Pack Book 1).
- Dear Damian Hinds, What’s so difficult about giving every child a library ticket? | Michael Rosen.
Our research has highlighted that reading for pleasure can alleviate stress; escaping into the pages of a book at the end of a busy day, can help and support teachers. We have also found that trainee teachers often don't read purely for pleasure, citing time constraints as the reason. Our blog project forced them to read as part of their professional development, and because they wanted to improve their subject knowledge.
Wellbeing was secondary, but nonetheless became part of the project, almost by default. One of our students summed it up nicely: Encouraging teachers during their training to read for pleasure is vital. As we have found, if young teachers read for pleasure, it helps them to use texts creatively and gives them confidence exploring these books with students in the primary classroom. If they then feel secure in their subject knowledge of children's literature, this in turn supports their wellbeing. Time, support and professional development for teachers to enable them to engage with children's literature is of paramount importance.
Our research has demonstrated that this benefits not only children's literacy across the primary classroom, but teacher wellbeing.