It's pretty cool. You can touch the screen and learn definitions of certain words, and play games, but what happened to good ol' fashioned book reading... Of course, I chided the TV... as I put my Kindle to "sleep"...
According to the website, this V.Reader is the best selling e-reader for kids.
My next train of thought was... "back in my day we did it the old fashioned way... we watched Reading Rainbow on PBS" :) I didn't have cable.
You know the tune... "Butterfly in the sky... I can go twice as high..."---click here if you need a little trip back in time
Of course, if you asked my parents.... They're the only ones who did it the old fashioned way (they're also really old...) "by flipping tattered pages from books passed down from their parents."
and they're parents would say - "but we did it by candlelight, after we walked up hill both ways to our one room schoolhouse".... ok I get it. We all have to evolve.
The Googler in me yearned to hear that song again. After I found it on YouTube and played it a few times, I wikipedia'd it and found it only went off the air in 2006. Due to the advent of e-readers, and the internet, iPhones, and iPads, etc. I'm sure...But those things all cost money, a lot of money.
What I learned in my internet research was that Reading Rainbow was not only designed to educate, but also to help kids find a good book the next time they went to the library. You know, that place with free books...FREE books.
I know parents everywhere are always trying to find ways to entertain their kids and sitting them down with an educational e-reader is a better choice than most, but what about reading together? Not only does a lively and fun read entertain kids with the story, but if you really get into it as the narrator... the kids get a kick out of you! And they get a feel for the way a book "sounds" as they're reading. The way they should "sound" when they talk!
Have you heard the younger generation on TV? - reality stars especially - they sound flat. There's no rise and fall or any sort of inflection in their spoken word. Using all caps and exclamation points in your tweets don't count either. Don't get me started with how often I hear the word "like"... and I don't mean when it's used correctly as a verb... Yes, this is directed towards the Kardashian family especially.
With a generation growing up texting and emailing, requiring very little interaction with real people... I'm afraid the art of "good" conversation is being lost. I know I'm ranting but it's such an easy fix.
Read a book, out loud, to young people, and make a fool of yourself doing it. It's FREE! It's a good reminder of how cool being silly is, and the kids forget that reading doesn't have to be "work".
If you're in the Des Moines area and want to check out my dad... he's an especially good storyteller, every Sunday at church! ha
P.S. Like it all began in 1983, out of ingenious beginnings... apparently it's 2.0 version is in the works. An app that would bring Reading Rainbow back! And... the books are being read and recorded... by real people. I hope I get the call... I sure do enjoy making a fool of myself :)
RRkidz.
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