Why not kindles instead of laptops?

[EmmanuelleMakro]

I see lots of clamour for laptops for schoolchildren, but honestly they would be better off reading rather than trying to replicate schoolwork st home. And given the risk if laptops being damaged/stolen:sold why not tap up Amazon fir kindles instead ?
Cheaper and much easier for working parents to supervise and obviously ebooks could be purchased by gvt on s license basis.
Children should be using this time to read and seems like this would solve a lot of lot practical issues as well as addressing the woeful literacy gap.

My dc love their kindles but for home schooling, laptops are much better.

My children do theirs on a cheap kindle fire.

I posted a thread about how to download Google play and therefore download Google Classroom and Meets and Windows apps.

It is doable.

My 11,10 and 5 year old do it.

@EmmanuelleMakro

Missing the point! The point is not to do school work on a kindle -utterly absurd! But to read. There is s big literacy gap between homes with books and those without. Not many other distractions so a golden opportunity to promote reading and let children explore books. And the kindle has a built in dictionary to look up unfamiliar words. Much more robust (and less sellable) than a laptop which will probably be diverted for gaming anyway.

I mean in that case there's always books....

So you want everyone to have kindles AND laptops OP?
What is the point in that? I can download books onto my laptop or phone. I don’t need a kindle.

Children learn very little through reading. Most school work we are going can’t be done on a tablet of any kind

Because they're totally unsuitable and have terrible compatability outside the amazon environment.

Great for those kids that love literacy.
Absolutly pants for the kids that are mathematicians and scientists- you know, the kids that will grow up to do the research to counteract the next pandemic that comes along.
School needs to be about balance and variety. Yes, give time to reading and literacy, but not at the expense of everything else.

PS our library is shut during lockdown.

Cheeserton Good point.
Do you want everyone to be given a free Amazon prime account toI OP?

As far as missing the point and just reading goes, good luck learning maths that way, for example. And this could go on another year or more. Two years of just reading? That won't work really, eh?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4139792-I-have-found-a-way-to-get-google-play-on-a-cheap-kindle

Great for those kids that love literacy.
Absolutly pants for the kids that are mathematicians and scientists- you know, the kids that will grow up to do the research to counteract the next pandemic that comes along.
School needs to be about balance and variety. Yes, give time to reading and literacy, but not at the expense of everything else.

I agree wholeheartedly with your second point but my God, your first paragraph Tier... Subject rivalry and hierarchy is alive and well I see.

So you want children to stop all learning and just read? Do you have children op? Because the clamour for laptops is to enable lessons without which our children will be even more behind in their education.
I think you are missing the point of the clamour for laptops actually

We don’t have a laptop, my son uses a tablet and gets on fine, people just need to make do with what they have available to them.

We are struggling to do the live lessons on Microsoft Teams on ipad! I wouldn't even attempt it on the Kindle. We have a desktop computer as well which is perfect for Teams but we have two school age children so one has to use the ipad.

@Goodbye2020Hello2021

*Great for those kids that love literacy. Absolutly pants for the kids that are mathematicians and scientists- you know, the kids that will grow up to do the research to counteract the next pandemic that comes along.* School needs to be about balance and variety. Yes, give time to reading and literacy, but not at the expense of everything else.

I agree wholeheartedly with your second point but my God, your first paragraph Tier... Subject rivalry and hierarchy is alive and well I see.

Sorry, it wasnt meant like that. The OP has already said literacy is important. And in my head that meant those kids with a flair for it becoming the next generation of authors, communicators and journalists had been implied as the only valuable contributors. The OP just seems to have forgotten that the world cannot exist with linguists in isolation. It needs everyone -the linguists, the mathematicians, the geographers, the historians, the scientists, the designers, the medics, the key workers. Everyone.

Tier I’m sorry! I teach a forgotten subject so I’m very prickly! All I hear is English, Maths, Science...
Everything you say here is spot on >
The OP just seems to have forgotten that the world cannot exist with linguists in isolation. It needs everyone -the linguists, the mathematicians, the geographers, the historians, the scientists, the designers, the medics, the key workers. Everyone.

@EmmanuelleMakro

Missing the point! The point is not to do school work on a kindle -utterly absurd! But to read. There is s big literacy gap between homes with books and those without. Not many other distractions so a golden opportunity to promote reading and let children explore books. And the kindle has a built in dictionary to look up unfamiliar words. Much more robust (and less sellable) than a laptop which will probably be diverted for gaming anyway.

Books on kindles don’t have pictures and pictures are essential for early readers. There are a lot of free books available online for early readers which can be accessed on a lap top.

Only some subjects require reading; no interactions; no ability to check work; no accountability; no creativity etc etc.

For my year six daughter, I strongly agree that if she did nothing educational but read entertaining fiction for several hours a day, for a year or two, she would get more benefit than doing anything else. (Maths and other subjects can wait.) I strongly suspect it would be more beneficial even than just going to school as normal, if that were possible.

When I was in the last year or two of primary school I was reading two or three novels a week, using my parents library cards to access the adult section of the public library. I was top of my class for English for the rest of my school career. I didn't need any formal learning to be better than most at spelling and grammar. Or anything else tested in formal exams, including creative writing.

The problem, as someone has pointed out, is that merely giving someone access to books doesn't make them a reader. When I was DD age, my options for daily media entertainment where radio, vinyl and books. No competition from TV, computers, or internet. They simply didn't exist in that time and place.

Reading is beneficial for children who can already read by themselves, and haven't yet done enough that there are diminishing returns from doing more.

Both my DCs use Google classroom and Google Meet and they log in on chromebooks onto their school google account and it is all in there. My chromebooks cost 150 each. I originally bought them for myself and OH but they have been brilliant for school.

Are you serious?

Do you think providing education is just reading?

What on earth kind of schooling did you have, op?

I honestly have no idea how anyone with any common sense would think this is a good suggestion.

What about video lessons? Maths work? Access to school materials and interactive tests? And stuff like maps, complex information like you'd find in geography diagrams, the ability to email in questions or contact schoolfriends, or participate in group homework?

How on earth can anyone do that just on a kindle?!

This is the type of thing a 100 year old without access to the internet would say. It's like saying to give a child an encyclopedia and they'll be educated. Not by modern standards they won't. Kindles and reading is only one part of education.