Kindle, Schools, and the Love of Reading

Kelly asks on her blog:

• How about a Kindle’s impact on schools?

• Put a new Kindle in the hand of a child already pre-downloaded with some rich literature and watch their eyes light up on the first day of school.

• Will children discover a new love for reading?

All I know is that I have read about two or three times as much since I got my Kindle–it’s like I have developed a new love for reading.

The path for the Kindle in schools may be a difficult one, though, and the main problem isn’t price. The main problem will be getting educators to see the Kindle as something that enables reading and getting them to run with that concept. An earlier post talks about ways of making sure that kids can’t add material to the Kindle. I ask, is that such a bad thing? When school administrators embrace the idea that choice is a critical component in the motivation to read, we will see a big jump in the “volume and diversity” of reading that experts tell us is the key to reading gains.

Kelly is right, I think: putting the Kindle in my hands changed the process of reading for me. Will it capture the imagination of children and put a new light in their eyes for reading? Of course it will. The question is, will anyone dare?

Tags: achievement, administrator, books, Kindle, reading, school

This entry was posted on June 20, 2008 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Kindle's Impact on Student Reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.