Book/Library Dilemma

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Started 1 year ago by oneshot
Latest reply from djk
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oneshot
Member

So, I consider myself pretty well read, smart even. I think I can attribute it to a couple of things. 1. My mother had me watch the news before school growing up, and 2. we had tons of books around the house that I could grab.

Now, my daughter is 3 years old, and if I do say so myself, pretty smart. We have a ton of books around my reason being that I feel it is good for her. But I also feel that they're clutter and what if she is not interested in books like I was, it might be a waste???

Any parents out there with comments or suggestions?

Posted 1 year ago #
susanintexas
Member

I don't think it is so much the OWNERSHIP of books that encourages reading and the love of books. Much more important are (1) reading to your preschool child (experts recommend 30 minutes a day) (2) Modeling reading to your child -- read yourself and let her see you get pleasure from it.

You can get the books from the library (in fact, letting her chose books there can also be inspiring for her.) That way, you have a constantly rotating small and manageable pool of books in the house.

I'm also not all that sure that you can predict what books she will want to read when she is able to read for herself. Collecting books now that she may not be able to read for another 5 or 6 years may end up being frustrating for you both if they are not the books SHE wants to read then.

Posted 1 year ago #
bandicoot
Member

i agree.
book ownership isn't as important as book access and general respect for books.
she will learn both from you.
and i think that teaching kids to love books is the first, most important and single best thing you can do for their education.

Posted 1 year ago #
Zora
Member

Going to the library can be a fun excursion. When my daughter was little, we went at least once a week. She loved picking out books. Sometimes we'd stop and get a snack afterward, which made the trip even more of an event.

Letting her pick out and buy a book occasionally, at a bookstore, was also a treat. She had her own bookshelves, with the books she had chosen, or chosen to keep.

Having books around the house helps, but so do modelling reading, reading aloud, library visiting, and bookstore shopping.

Posted 1 year ago #
chacha1
Member

Actually ... I wrote about this earlier this year: a study by the University of Nevada - a big study, analyzing data on 73,000 people in 27 countries over 20 years - found a that child born into a household in possession of 500 books would, on average, attain three more years of education than a child with no books at home. The more books, the greater the educational benefit; and the presence of books was found to be twice as important to a child's progress in school as its father's level of education. Study author Mariah Evans is quoted as saying, "You get a lot of 'bang for your book.'"

So agreed, modelling reading, reading aloud, the library, and other activities are important, but just having the books in the house makes a huge difference. Probably because the child then sees books as a normal and even necessary component of a well-furnished home.

Posted 1 year ago #
irishbell
Member

I have 5 daughters- 3 of which liked to read on their own- during the school year and in the summer/vacation times. The oldest really only started enjoying reading when she became a stay at home Mom (when I really started enjoying reading). The youngest of my girls 14- could care less about reading! I probably have more books in the house than I did when the older ones were younger, so I don't know about that particular study yet. I have a kindle now- maybe she would think it cool to read on that.
I read to my girls extensively when they were little and they LOVED it.
I think some people are readers while others are not and enjoy spending their time otherwise.

Posted 1 year ago #
SunshineR
Member

irishbell: you did the gardening part of the reading process: planting the seeds of interest, taking the time to read to your children. That is one of my best memories of growing up, along with music. I still love them both....again, YMMV.

Posted 1 year ago #
mydogspot
Member

It seems to me that you have to have books available in order for a child to become a reader. I know when I was a kid, I read whatever books I found in the house. These were often library books that my older sister brought home, so I was introduced to Anne of Green Gables and A Wrinkle in Time. We had some ancient color fairy books that had been my dad's when he was a kid, so I discovered fairy tales. I now see my 8 yr old picking up and reading whatever is close to her. Yesterday she was pulling out books on anatomy and a children's atlas from her bookcase. If we didn't have these right here in our house, what would she be doing? What would she read? I think it is tremendously important for parents to have lots of books available at home, as well as having lots of trips to the library.

Posted 1 year ago #
Lori Paximadis
Member

I was an early reader; by the time I hit kindergarten, I was reading at almost a second grade level. I never owned a lot of books, but library trips were a regular part of my week growing up. I'd take out stacks of books every week. The ones I did own tended to be gifts, or purchased through the Scholastic book fair, or the ones I really loved that I read over and over again (Little House and Nancy Drew).

I firmly believe that it is *access* to books (and other reading materials, like newspapers and magazines and mail and signs and cereal boxes) that matters, not ownership.

I went through a bit of crazy book acquisition for the several years I worked at a bookstore -- seriously, who wouldn't with regular 40% staff discount days and a marrow-deep love of books? -- but I've moved a good chunk of them along and am probably down to 200 or so, not counting the comp copies of those I've worked on or Kindle titles. Probably 20 of those are reference books necessary for my editing work and another 40 eye-candy inspiration for my jewelry that the library doesn't have. Libraries are fantasic resources that help us keep our own shelves uncluttered. :-)

Posted 1 year ago #
mugwump
Member

I agree with mydogspot; I read whatever was in the house when I was a kid. We went to the library, too, but there always seemed to be times when I was bored and read whatever I could find.

Books aren't really clutter, in my view, unless you have them overflowing the available space. I own about 200 now, and they all fit on one large tall bookshelf. They are a pain when you move, but they are cheaper to ship than most anything else. Of course, I haven't moved in 14 years.

Posted 1 year ago #
Periwinkle
Member

Chacha - I wouldn't say that's necessarily cause and effect. The people who own lots of books are likely to be the ones who read more and read with their children, encourage them to read etc. The people who don't enjoy reading or don't think it's important aren't likely to own as many books. It's not the books that cause the attitude to reading, it's the reading that causes the books.

Posted 1 year ago #
chacha1
Member

Periwinkle - yes, of course. I'm sure that book-related parental involvement plays a big part. But the fact remains, if the only reading material in the house is a Wall Street Journal or a USA Today, a child is not necessarily going to be interested enough to pick it up and read.

The study didn't examine cause & effect - or at least, the story I read about it didn't try to draw inferences. It was merely an association: lots of books in the house = higher educational achievement in the children.

In order to model reading behaviors, the adults in the house have to have reading material available, and it has to be a variety of material appropriate not only for themselves but for the age range of their kids. I was reading adult fiction at 10, but continued to happily read work written for my age and younger.

I can only speak for myself, but my parents both worked and they didn't have time to take us to the city library - 20 miles away - every Wednesday when my sister and I had finished the books we picked up on Saturday. So we read the books they owned.

Posted 1 year ago #
pkilmain
Member

Growing up we had both - some books at home, and lots of library books all the time. My mother especially was a voracious reader and took us to the library at least once a week. When we got to jr high/middle school, we had access to that library and the public library was only a short walk.

As an adult I own about one bookcase full of books (haven't counted too many) but I still continue to have a heavy library use. Now of course, I also have electronic books - both for the kindle and my MP3 player. I can't imagine what people do who don't read. :)

Posted 1 year ago #
susanintexas
Member

Neither of my parents read fiction but were readers of non-fiction (we subscribed to 3 daily newspapers and 5 weekly news magazines, for starters.) I grew into a voracious fiction reader (and when I was about 10 was given an uncle's collection of the complete Dickens and Twain, which entertained me for years) but my brother has NEVER read a book cover to cover since required to in high school. However, we both have a lively curiosity and can't stand not knowing anything -- we look it up, doubtless a legacy of a home that had encyclopedias, dictionaries and shelves and shelves of reference books. I had a weekly trip to the library when my brother was at his cub scout meeting and stocked up on fiction then. Our house was not big enough to accommodate my reading habit :)

Posted 1 year ago #
djk
Member

my parents were big readers, fiction and non. but not all my siblings were/are.

But I am! We had fabulous dictionaries (which I now own and which make me smile every time I look at them) and encyclopedias with medical dictionaries with folie pages of the body's systems on different transparent pages which overlaid a skeleton. I have always loved biology as a result of poring over these pages, lying on the living room floor Turkish carpet, propped on my elbows, puzzling over those marvelous words...duodenum, jejunum, transverse colon, descending colon, etc etc. Then there was the Latin-English dictionary. That was my adolescent porn
and words--looking up word after word and cross-referencing everything. We had a wealth of books, and a library habit too.

I believe some books must simply be on hand to foster a love of the mystery contained in each. But the rest can be library books. I was so liberated the day it dawned on me that the public library was my personal storage system.

Posted 1 year ago #

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