OCR Text |
Show Education Gaps: Learning Loses By DR. DARVI. J. McCARTY Educational researchers tell us that "gaps" in the school routine like summer vacations can result in learning loses if students don't keep their brains at work when they're away from the classroom., THAT'S WHY educators urge parents to keep their kids reading during the summer. Fine, but what kinds of books do young people want to read? JOAN T. FEELEY is glad ou asked. She's a professor pro-fessor of reading at William Paterson College, and she reported the findings of a research team at that institution that studied youthful reading habits. She tells us that during the first four eais of reading, boys and girls like to read the same kinds of material animal stories, fantasy and lain talcs. Boys of that age also show interest in non-fiction, such as books on machines, sports and science. ONE STUDY SHOWED that first-graders preferred prefer-red stories about pranks over "PolKanna" themes, and kid interaction over parent-child interaction. Little girls favor stories about girls, and bos go for ones about boys. Fairy tales and fantasy are the greatest reading interests of first and second grade children in ten countries. A SHARP SPLIT in reading interests occurs in the fourth grade. Girls seek fiction more than bos do. The girls of this age espccialK like stories u ith m s-tery s-tery or adventure angles. Bos show more preference prefer-ence for non-fiction like sports, cars. war. history, biographv and science. The bovs of this age do show some interest in science fiction and m stories, though. JUNIOR HIGH school boys still seem to hold those interests. But junior high school girls add adolescent romance ro-mance and popular adult-fiction to their reading, according to Joan Feclev. SOMETIMES. KIDS are at a loss to find a hook that will really interest them. The parent who understands under-stands what they're likelv to like can help them to find good books this summer and close the summer sum-mer learning gap. |