Kids do not necessarily need to read chapter books to attain literacy.
Kids do not read today; not novels like when I was a child. When I was a kid, if I was not playing outside or watching T.V. (part of the T.V. Generation!), my face was in a book. To this day, I am a good, fast, comprehending reader who regularly scans the soon-to-be-released lists from Barnes and Noble (and gets excited about a new James Patterson or Janet Evanovich). Neither my son nor my daughter will read books. When they were really small, they liked to have books read to them (the same ones over and over again—I memorized Goodnight Moon so I could close my eyes and lay back while they held the book). But now, when we are ordering Scholastic Books from school, they don’t want the chapter books the third and fourth grade teachers want them to buy, so that they do not fall behind in reading—they still want sticker books and things that come with a stuffed animal. But, they are both gifted readers (genetics?). Like anything, reading has to be practiced regularly, but I, even as a teacher and a parent who loves a good book, pooh-poohs the fact that they must be reading books to become literate. My kids probably read more than I did at their ages (remember, I mentioned that I went outside and watched television a lot). They are constantly on their computers or video games, reading and processing information. They have learned that they must read in order to keep up with their peers, playing the latest and increasingly difficult video games. For the most part, the instructions are written (“Have your parent supply a valid credit card number so you can obtain a year’s subscription to Toon City!”). Anyone who cannot read in today’s world, cannot play!
