Dear Annie,
And a happy new year to you, too. Seems like a good time to talk about one of the waves of the future: electronic learning stuff.
The past almost-20 years have been such a whirlwind of adults constantly learning new technologies. The entertainment/education industry keeps morphing along to keep up. My main feeling about technology and kids is, what's the rush? Parents still want to be the main source of values for their children, and we all want them to grow in developmentally appropriate ways. Digital learning stuff isn't all at odds with this, but a lot of it sure is.
Let me just do my rant about the Tag reader, then I'll get back to the Bigger Picture. We sell it in the store (as a toy, not part of the book department), but I am less than enthusiastic about it. Why would one want a machine to teach a kid to read? Maybe the parents don't like to read? Maybe they don't have time to teach their kid? Maybe they want the kid to be the best reader in pre-K, and they think this is the way to push her ahead? Maybe they want to get him accustomed to digital interface so that he can segue seamlessly into hand-held games (Leap Frog has another product that does that even better)? Maybe she's not seeing enough commercial-laden daytime TV, so they want her to get used to the Disney marketing machine in other ways? Okay, I'm getting very crabby here.
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, the book that's included with the Tag reader, is a book that customers of many ages get nostalgic about: there's lots of warmth in those memories. The lower case letters of the alphabet climb the coconut tree, all fall out of it, get briefly comforted by the adult (upper case) letters, head home, then plan another assault on the tree. It's an alphabet book with suspense (will there be enough room?), rhythm (chicka chicka boom boom), sense of humor, and simplicity. It's one of those books a child can sit alone with and make up words if s/he's not reading yet. Unless, of course, they have an electronic device that eliminates that leap of imagination and fills it in for them. It's a book I can imagine you and Jeff having some fun hamming up as you read it out loud. How does the Tag do with the line, "Skit skat skoodle doot/Flip flap flee/Everybody's running to the coconut tree"?
The parents I see at the store who feel powerless in the face of their children's digital obsessions are the ones who didn't think about it when the kids were younger. As you know, Bob and I banned television from our home when our girls were growing up. It worked well for us: the girls were close enough in age that they created a world of imagination games which kept them entertained and thinking. Worries that they wouldn't fit in with friends who watched TV were groundless. I also know that complete abstention isn't the only satisfactory route. But I think parental understanding of the technology that comes in the door is essential, and the limitations on using it help to keep everyone sane. It's not necessary for one's children to be as techno-immersed as everyone else's: the concept that one's own family does things differently is not difficult for kids to grasp.
Because of the onslaught of constantly-changing technology, it's not uncommon for some parents to say, better to get our kids into digital toys and games now so that they don't get left behind. I would argue the opposite: put it off until the technology is something they actually need. They'll be able to figure it out then in half the time their parents can, whatever it is.
Love,
Deborah
Showing posts with label Martin Jr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martin Jr. Show all posts
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The technology of reading
Dear Aunt Debbie,
First off, Happy New Year! I hope you all rang it in joyfully. We saved your Christmas box until last night, and devoured much of it immediately -- I'll post on a few soon.
I know exactly what you mean about that itchy preposterous feeling. I'm having trouble as well coming up with more good examples, but my most recent one came while reading The Knife of Never Letting Go, which I otherwise found gripping and thought-provoking.
MINOR SPOILER ALERT for those who haven't read it yet -- you might want to skip the next paragraph if you don't want to know something about the plot, though I'm not giving away any of the book's biggest secrets.
For much of the book, Todd carries with him his mother's journal, which his adopted father Ben gives him when he's sent running away from Prentisstown, and which tells the story of her life on New World up to the day of her death, when Todd was a baby. Ben also includes a map and a brief page of writing and tells Todd to read them when he gets far enough away from his hometown to be somewhat safe. Trouble is, Todd can't read well -- it's serious work for him, and his macho instinct kicks in and he doesn't want to ask for help. But when it becomes clear to Viola, the girl he ends up traveling with, that one of the things Ben has written is "You must warn them," I find it extremely hard to believe that Todd wouldn't immediately hand the book over to Viola and ask her to read the whole page. And why doesn't she take it out of his bag and read it when he's comatose for five days and she's just sitting there watching him? I spent much of the book wanting to know more about what was in that inner book, and the lack of use it gets feels ultimately uncomfortable to me --weirdly dismissive of Todd's mother and anything she might have had to teach Todd or Viola.
We spent much of the first day of the new year reading, and Isabel practiced for the land-speed record of pulling books off shelves as quickly as we reshelved them. Eleanor played as well with one of her new Christmas presents: a Tag reader, a generous gift from Jeff's aunt. Are you familiar with the system? It's a chunky pen which you can load up with software and then use with special Tag books in astonishing ways: the pen will read individual words aloud, or make sounds when passed over an object, or read the whole story, or ask questions as part of identification games. I am both awed by the technology and a little uncomfortable with it -- I'm an old-fashioned book person, with no interest myself in electronic readers, and I'm not sure how this kind of reading experience will fold in with all of Eleanor's others. The pen also somehow takes in data about how Eleanor is using it, which raises privacy concerns for me. It makes me feel pretty old-fashioned (she said, writing on her public blog).
The book we got with the pen is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault. It's a nice alphabet rhyme of a book, and I like the fact that all the letters are lower-case, as Eleanor is less familiar with them than with capital letters. She played with it a bit this afternoon, but spent the most time touching the pen to the sample page catalogue that came along with it, getting glimpses of a Tinkerbell book and jonesing for Disney Princess books. We've ordered the interactive world map for her birthday -- not what she most wants, but what we'd rather have in the house than sparkly princess noises. I'm curious to see how this pans out. I'll report back.
May the first days of 2011 bring you much joy.
Love, Annie
First off, Happy New Year! I hope you all rang it in joyfully. We saved your Christmas box until last night, and devoured much of it immediately -- I'll post on a few soon.
I know exactly what you mean about that itchy preposterous feeling. I'm having trouble as well coming up with more good examples, but my most recent one came while reading The Knife of Never Letting Go, which I otherwise found gripping and thought-provoking.
MINOR SPOILER ALERT for those who haven't read it yet -- you might want to skip the next paragraph if you don't want to know something about the plot, though I'm not giving away any of the book's biggest secrets.
For much of the book, Todd carries with him his mother's journal, which his adopted father Ben gives him when he's sent running away from Prentisstown, and which tells the story of her life on New World up to the day of her death, when Todd was a baby. Ben also includes a map and a brief page of writing and tells Todd to read them when he gets far enough away from his hometown to be somewhat safe. Trouble is, Todd can't read well -- it's serious work for him, and his macho instinct kicks in and he doesn't want to ask for help. But when it becomes clear to Viola, the girl he ends up traveling with, that one of the things Ben has written is "You must warn them," I find it extremely hard to believe that Todd wouldn't immediately hand the book over to Viola and ask her to read the whole page. And why doesn't she take it out of his bag and read it when he's comatose for five days and she's just sitting there watching him? I spent much of the book wanting to know more about what was in that inner book, and the lack of use it gets feels ultimately uncomfortable to me --weirdly dismissive of Todd's mother and anything she might have had to teach Todd or Viola.
We spent much of the first day of the new year reading, and Isabel practiced for the land-speed record of pulling books off shelves as quickly as we reshelved them. Eleanor played as well with one of her new Christmas presents: a Tag reader, a generous gift from Jeff's aunt. Are you familiar with the system? It's a chunky pen which you can load up with software and then use with special Tag books in astonishing ways: the pen will read individual words aloud, or make sounds when passed over an object, or read the whole story, or ask questions as part of identification games. I am both awed by the technology and a little uncomfortable with it -- I'm an old-fashioned book person, with no interest myself in electronic readers, and I'm not sure how this kind of reading experience will fold in with all of Eleanor's others. The pen also somehow takes in data about how Eleanor is using it, which raises privacy concerns for me. It makes me feel pretty old-fashioned (she said, writing on her public blog).
The book we got with the pen is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault. It's a nice alphabet rhyme of a book, and I like the fact that all the letters are lower-case, as Eleanor is less familiar with them than with capital letters. She played with it a bit this afternoon, but spent the most time touching the pen to the sample page catalogue that came along with it, getting glimpses of a Tinkerbell book and jonesing for Disney Princess books. We've ordered the interactive world map for her birthday -- not what she most wants, but what we'd rather have in the house than sparkly princess noises. I'm curious to see how this pans out. I'll report back.May the first days of 2011 bring you much joy.
Love, Annie
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