#JoyOfLearning Links from @DTWillingham + @ERobbPrincipal + @TelegraphSci: Enjoying Reading + #Playing Outdoors

Today I have three articles that are seemed deserving of a bit of extra attention. The first two are about helping kids to enjoy reading, one aimed more at parents and the other aimed more at teachers, but both full of good sense. The third article is about a British initiative in which streets are closed down periodically so that children can get outside and play, with many resulting benefits. Wishing you joyful reading!

What Works For Getting Kids to Enjoy #Reading? | Make access easy, offer no rewards @DTWillingham @MindshiftKQED https://t.co/3HeVU3DQZS

Daniel T. Willingham: "The implication of these examples is that books should not just be available, but virtually falling into children’s laps, or at least, visible in as many locations as possible: in the classroom, in every room of the house, in the car, and so on...

Obviously some video content is more enriching than others—Sesame Street is not equivalent to Tom and Jerry cartoons—but if children are to choose reading, controlling the content of screen time won’t do it. The amount must be controlled as well." 

Me: After explaining why external rewards are unlikely to motivate kids to enjoy reading, Daniel Willingham draws on "the expectancy-value model" to suggest strategies that make reading a higher value activity to kids, like choosing books about subjects that they enjoy and using graphic novels to make decoding easier. I haven't read Willingham's newest book (The Reading Mind), from which this article is excerpted, but have enjoyed his previous titles. While the ideas of keeping books readily available, limiting external rewards, limiting screen time, and choosing books at the right reading level are not new, I am in agreement with Willingham's suggestions, and appreciate his science-based approach.

Bid Farewell to “I Hate Reading”, 7 concrete tips from Laura Robb @ERobbPrincipal ow.ly/wFJA30e3l5v | class #libraries, choice + more

Laura Robb: "Choice. Let students choose their reading materials. Let them abandon a book if it doesn’t resonate with them. I have a quick conference with students who abandon a book to find out why. The “why” offers insights into what they do and don’t enjoy.

Read aloud every day and introduce students to a wide-range of literary genres. Read those texts you love, as your passion will rub off on students. Reading aloud also builds students’ listening capacity, vocabulary, and their experiences with literary language."

Me: Laura Robb is a teacher, author and coach. Here she offers seven tips for teachers to help them encourage kids to enjoy reading. I was especially struck by her emphasis on the need for wide ranging classroom libraries (wide ranging both in terms of reading levels and subjects). In the above-referenced article, Daniel Willingham gave an example of students who were interested in a book, but not willing to make the extra effort to go to the nearby school library to check it out. The easier it is for kids to find and pick up books, the more they will read.

I hope that Laura Robb's advice reaches many teachers. If there was more emphasis in our schools, across all age ranges, on helping kids to ENJOY reading, more reading would be taking place. It's as simple as that. 

Close roads so kids can #play in the street like their parents did, say British public health experts ow.ly/PDKm30e3ozi @TelegraphSci

Sarah Knapton: "Roads should be closed regularly to allow children to play in the street as they did a generation ago, health experts have said, after a study showed pilot schemes increased youngsters’ activity five-fold.

More than 500 communities in Britain have already signed up to the ‘Playing Out’ initiative, which works with local councils to temporarily pedestrianise roads for an hour or two each week to allow children to play safely near their homes.

A new analysis of the simple scheme by the University of Bristol found that residents reported a greater sense of a community, overall happiness, and said their areas were more friendly and safer. One woman claimed the project had even helped her combat post-natal depression."

Me: This is just cool. My own issue is more that my daughter doesn't have other kids to play with in any nearby homes, but if we knew that some street nearby was being closed at a certain time, so that kids could play there, you may sure I would find a way to get her there. 

© 2017 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook. This post may contain affiliate links.