On getting pre-teens and teens to read books
Lenona
One of the differences between exercise and challenging books is that
even 9-year-olds who don't like running around as much as they did as
toddlers can still see and feel the good effects of exercise in
themselves, while the benefits of reading challenging books take far,
far longer for kids to appreciate.
Therefore, you can order kids to play outdoors and not worry too much
about whether they enjoy it or not, since they already understand the
need for it, and they can be more or less expected to exercise as
adults if you keep it up.
However, most experts agree, you cannot afford to take the same blunt
approach to leisure reading, since the goal is to make them LOVE
reading, not just do it.
Indeed, it's too easy to imagine the following scenario:
MOTHER: "Sorry, darling, but no, I will not let you have more than 15
hours a week of screen time."
TEEN: "Why NOT?!"
MOTHER: "For starters, you need more exercise, and -"
TEEN: "So? I'll just stop reading books! THAT'LL give me more time to
exercise! I only read to make you happy anyway and I'm sick of it. My
FRIENDS don't read, and every hour you take away from my video games
and Facebook is ruining my social life! Why can't you see that?"
(Notice that the mother hasn't even mentioned reading yet and probably
was cautious enough not to do so for fear of a possible backfire, but
backfire was what happened anyway.)
Of course, that would be a good time to point out that even playing
video games with friends does not help face-to-face social skills
(which are important and irreplaceable, of course), since you're
staring at the screen, but too many kids have only marginally more
belief in the value of FTF than they do in reading books.
Anyway, many authors have already written books about getting older
kids to read, so I hereby list a few of their works:
Jim Trelease's "The Read-Aloud Handbook" (constantly updated, I
believe)
Mary Leonhardt's "Parents Who Love Reading, Kids Who Don't" (1995;
she's a 9th-grade teacher)
Michele Landsberg's "Reading for the Love of It: Best Books for Young
Readers" (1987 - she's a bit too smug at times and unfairly puts down
Judy Blume without once mentioning "Tiger Eyes," but I like it
anyway.)
Lenona.