If we stop telling kids what to read, they might start reading again

By Max Ehrenfreund January 10 - The Washington Post

A rain shower sends Maynard Elementary School kindergarten student Maya Roby to shelter during a literacy program in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP/The Knoxville News Sentinel, Paul Efird)

As a treat for Hanukkah last month, Sandra Stotsky took her grandchildren to the New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton, Mass. They were wandering around aimlessly. The store in a suburb of Boston has 32,000 sq. ft, of books, but the kids had no favorite authors, nothing they'd been longing to read.

Stotsky, a self-described "professional Jewish grandmother," had plenty of suggestions. After all, she'd written the educational standards for Massachusetts's public schools, which were widely regarded as the best in the country until 2010, when they were replaced with the Common Core. She was appalled when one of her granddaughters eventually picked Catching Fire, the second book in the The Hunger Games trilogy.

The book, Stotksy said, was too easy, and in any case, she didn't think it conveyed the values that she wanted her grandkids to grow up on. "This isn't what grandma is getting you for Hanukkah," Stotsky recalled telling her.

Stotsky's experience illustrates a broader debate among experts about childhood reading: whether students should be allowed to read what they like, or whether they should be encouraged to read specific books -- ones that are challenging and edifying, books that will make them into better readers.
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