{"id":672,"date":"2014-08-26T11:38:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T15:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/?p=672"},"modified":"2014-08-26T11:38:39","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T15:38:39","slug":"will-making-kids-read-instill-a-love-of-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/will-making-kids-read-instill-a-love-of-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Making Kids Read Instill a Love of Reading?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"origin_4351943418\"<\/a>For years elementary teachers have been trying to sell the idea that if we assign nightly reading to students that it will make\u00a0them learn to love reading. We tell our struggling readers, and their parents, if you read every night you’ll start to love reading.<\/p>\n

Wait . . . really?<\/p>\n

So if there’s a skill I don’t like and am not good at, practicing it will make me love it? I don’t buy it. Will practicing long division make me love long division? Will practicing doing the dishes make me love doing the dishes? Will practicing scrubbing bathrooms make me love scrubbing bathrooms? No, no, and no.<\/p>\n

Will practicing a skill that I am not good at make me better at it? Of course it will. But we need to stop trying to sell the idea that practicing a skill will make kids love it. Given how much long division we make fourth graders do, you’d figure we’d see kids doing long division for fun in their free time – but we don’t. Because practicing a skill won’t make you love that skill.<\/p>\n

Will practicing a difficult skill help you improve. Yes, of course. Will practicing a difficult skill make you love that skill? No, of course not. We need to stop telling people it will.<\/p>\n

photo credit: \u00d0enise<\/a> via photopin<\/a> cc<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years elementary teachers have been trying to sell the idea that if we assign nightly reading to students that it will make\u00a0them learn to love reading. We tell our struggling readers, and their parents, if you read every night … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cpchat","category-elemchat"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B5HK-aQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678,"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benschersten.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}