The books assigned for reading this week have made a tremendous contribution to my understanding of the way I should arrange reading classes for children. The books we were assigned to read are Essentials of Young Adult Literature By Carl M. Tomlinson and Entering the World of Children’s Literature by Nancy Anderson – they are both dedicated the most efficient methods of structuring reading classes, choosing literature by topics and genres, and designing the reading course the way you want to achieve stipulated goals. The book of Andersen is devoted to selecting readings for junior students – children in the kindergarten, so it was especially useful for me. I am working as a kindergarten teacher and repeatedly face the challenge of choosing the right set of literary works for readers who cannot handle large volumes of information. For this reason, literature should be chosen in a very precise way for kids not to lose their interest in studies and to receive as much information, joy and pleasure from reading as possible.
The book by Tomlinson et al. is also highly helpful in handling the challenge of literature choice for young adults – it is indeed extremely difficult to get both kids and adolescents engaged in reading, so it is essential to raise their agile interest and curiosity from the very beginning of their lives. For this reason, the book provides a wonderful overview of adolescent literature by types and genres and outlines the major guidelines that can be pursued in the process of education.
Both books are well-structured and provide a comprehensive idea of the reading classes’ specificity and all peculiarities that an educator should take into consideration in the process of planning the classes. From the very beginning, it becomes clear that the books are written by educators for educators: they provide a set of extra-curriculum activities that can be included in the classes and make them more attractive for such fragile and changeable groups of the population as children and young adults. They include discussion topics, exercises, and hints to make the classes varied. In addition, the authors took care about the structure that may be easily altered and will correspond to the needs of individual educators and target groups.
An interesting part of the book by Andersen is dedicated to the minority writers, which constitutes its outstanding value. Indeed, this type of literature is typically neglected by the educators who teach representatives of ethnic, religious, and racial minorities. Children have the right to know their literature and to understand the motives, beliefs, and traditions their people have to develop adequately. However, they are obliged to accept the commonly designed studying curricula and have an opportunity to study the way their ancestors did only at home, under the condition that their parents pay adequate attention to their ethnic or religious education. The book Entering the World of Children’s Literature corrects this negligence and gives a successful, full, and informative collection of minority writers and their works to be studied by kids who do not suit the commonly accepted profile.
Making a conclusion from everything that has been said today, I would like to admit that the books produced an incredible impression on me and opened up a new world of alternatives that I can take up in the process of reading classes with my kids to enlarge the scope of their knowledge. In case they feel this literature is close and interesting for them they are likely to pursue their literary ventures, which raises the chance for their becoming intelligent and literate people who can expand the space of the world literature by themselves and make up their own preferences by themselves.
References
Andersen, N.A. (2009). Elementary Children’s Literature: Infancy through Age 13. Allyn & Bacon, Inc.
Tomlinson, C.M., & Lynch-Brown, C. (2006). Essentials of Young Adult Literature. Allyn & Bacon, Inc.