Boy Kicked Out Of Reading Competition Because He Reads Too Much [View all]

[babylonsister]

Boy Kicked Out Of Reading Competition Because He Reads Too Much
August 21, 2013 | Filed under: Education,Headliner,Uncategorized | Posted by: Miranda Burbank



One of the largest impediments to a good education is summer vacation. If those three months or so are spent in front of the TV or even being physically active, a child is likely to lose a lot of what he learned over the previous school year. For that reason, many school districts and municipalities try to provide learning opportunities that last through the dog days of summer. Hudson Falls, NY offers a reading contest for school children – one in which the student who reads the most books wins. However, they have determined that the boy who reads the most reads too much and they’ve asked him to drop out.

Nine-year-old Tyler Weaver of Hudson Falls, NY loves to read. In fact, over one summer vacation, Tyler read 63 books. Marie Gandron, a library director in Hudson Falls, thinks that’s too much – that Tyler’s reading discourages other children from entering their annual reading contest. In a phone conversation to Tyler’s grandmother, Katie Weaver, Gandron said, that Tyler “hogs” the contest every year and that he should “step aside.”

“Other kids quit because they can’t keep up,” Gandron said.

Gandron further told the reporter she planned to change the rules of the contest so that instead of giving prizes to the children who read the most books, she would draw names out of a hat and declare winners that way.

Educating to the lowest common denominator is not a new phenomenon in the U.S. Advanced students are often at similar disadvantages to learning-disabled students. Advanced students get bored and their grades, attendance and behavior often suffers as a result.

Reading can help level the playing field. It can introduce unmotivated students to the love of learning and it can keep advanced students engaged and challenged. By taking the reading requirement out of a reading contest, Gandron may think her heart is in the right place, but she’s assuming that the only purpose of a reading contest is to win. Winning isn’t the goal. Reading is the goal. I’m sure that many of the contest’s past “losers” won the biggest prize of all, which was a new-found love of reading. As a library director, she should understand that.

more...

http://samuel-warde.com/2013/08/boy-kicked-out-of-reading-competition-because-he-reads-too-much/