Monday, February 20, 2012

The Future of Children's Books

'So here's a conundrum.. If you have kids, you get told over and over limit their screen time. And you're also told, instead of screen time, get them reading more, which is all well and good, except that these days, many children do their reading on a screen, which raises some interesting questions about how children read today and what direction things are headed in children's book publishing
             2012 National Public Radio®.

Read the discussion in this topic here:  http://www.npr.org/2012/02/18/147099486/the-future-of-childrens-books 

Since we, in the Caribbean,  are so linked into the rest of the world this could also be our future - at a slower pace.

 

Monday, February 6, 2012

Today's Food for Serious Thought

Here's an excerpt from an article in the Vancouver Observer
Since we don't do much of this kind of research in the Caribbean  (that I know of) we have to look at the trends elsewhere and match these to our own observations. Check out the article
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/new-education/2012/01/30/parenting-advice-how-make-teenagers-read-book


Based on research over the last 20 years teenagers that don’t read books are less likely to attend college, have reduced language skills, experience depression more frequently then non-readers and have lower paying jobs. That is a lot to be alarmed about. Research also notes that reading fiction has significant benefits to the brain including increasing attention span, developing empathy, improving overall social cognition and enhancing reasoning ability. Reading books benefit our teenagers in so many ways.