RAR #77: What the Scholastic Reading Report Means for You, Andrea Pinkney
Scholastic’s Kids and Family Reading Report is a national survey of children ages 6–17 and their parents that explores attitudes and behaviors around books and reading.
In this episode, I’m joined by author, Vice President, and Editor-at-Large at Scholastic, Andrea Davis Pinkney. We talk about what the most recent report means for us as parents–and there’s a lot for us in there!
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- why we need to build home libraries, and how to do that without breaking the bank
- what kids are really hoping they’ll find in the books they read
- how to make our kids readers for life (listen until the end for five ‘Reading Resolutions’)
Click the play button below:
Books from this episode:
(All links are affiliate links.)
Links from today’s show:
- Hear Andrea make a (singing!) appearance in this RAR episode
- The Kids and Family Reading Report
- RAR #65: How to Best Use and Support Your Local Library
- The RAR Booklist
All I can say is watch out for the books kids pick and especially the content. I thought highly of Scholatic up until today when I found the following article (Why Catholic Schools Should Scrap Scholastic Book Fairs) of what type of literature and themes (with deceiving titles) scholastic is adding to their lists. Thankfully, there are other options for suitable replacements for Scholastic, mentioned in the same article, such as Eureka book fairs. If you are interested in reading this mind buggling article, here is the link to it: http://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/catholic-schools-scrap-scholastic-book-fairs.
This does not surprise me. They have been pushing boundaries since the 70’s. It is disheartening though. Sad that kids are so bombarded with trash from Schlastic.
You go Sarah! Up to 70,000 subscribers!!! I think I remember when it was 30,000 and I thought that was a lot!
So, I heard you & Andrea both say on this podcast to let kids choose the books they like to read. I have a voracious 7-year old reader. She has enjoyed reading through some of the Narnia books, Boxcar children, etc.–choices largely influenced by her parents. If left to her own choices, she would come home with Disney princess books filling her bag almost every time. (And we haven’t even watched a ton of those movies. Most of the stories she knows because she’s read them way more than viewed them.) Lately, I’ve even found some Super Hero easy readers in her bag (like Superman Spider Man, etc.). I can’t help it, my heart sinks almost every time. Should it?
What’s your take on these types of books? There are SO many other good books out there, but it is slightly frustrating that it’s hard to pull her from the low-lying “candy” in children’s sections of the library to find other treasures. I’m so thankful she loves to read…(I was NOT a reader growing up, but enjoy homeschooling and the opportunity to “re-do” alongside her!) but found myself questioning the “let your kids choose the books they want to read” just slightly (not entirely). Our family talks about needing to vary our reading diet, aiming to “balance it” just like we need to balance our food diet. We can’t have candy at every meal. I would love to hear any input on this.
Thanks! Enjoying your podcast as a new listener!
I have no idea what Sarah would say to this because I just started listening to the podcasts myself, but some things I have done with my readers that tend to stick to just one type of book (mine like pokemon graphic novels and goosebumps books!) is I let them choose one like that, but they also have to get a few others (like a nonfiction, a classic, historical fiction, or whatever). They still get to choose but it gets them out of their comfort zone a little bit. They have to read all their books before we go back for more books. If they chose something that they just can’t stand after trying it, they can substitute it for something in our home library or something a sibling checked out.
Loved this podcast and especially all the suggestions of diverse books for my kids to try out.
LOVED this interview, and prompted me to make the books in our home more accessible and visible to my 10 year old son…and to make sure he sees me reading more!
My high school History Fair project, while living in Greensboro, was on the sit-in at Woolworth’s. I’m so excited to read Andrea’s book about it with my kids! And we just picked up Elijah of Buxton at the library yesterday. We’ve really enjoyed Christopher Paul Curtis’ books.