Kids living in houses without books?

[ButterfliesAreWeird]

My son just received another of those books we get given by the government (funded by them atleast). My Mother said that they started this scheme because around 1 in 4 children were starting school without a single book in their household. Is this right? That sounds like a lot, but then again it would need to be for them to start handing out books I guess.

I was a mad keen reader as a kid in a non reading family and constantly berated for having my nose in a book and letting the pots boil over and not listening to instructions because I was reading. My Dad in particular seemed to see it as a personal affront that I would rather be reading than interacting with the family.

I was an avid library goer though and spent all my spare cash on books. I kept them piled up on my windowsill because we didn't have any bookcases. My oldest ones are all faded except for a strip at the bottom where the window frame was.

Interestingly, after my dad, died my mum discovered this big love of reading. Now she always has her nose in a book and favourites she reads over.

The National Literacy Trust says that 15% of people in the UK are functionally illiterate That is just over 5 million people.

It´s not 1 in four but it is a lot, and a serious cause of concern. It´s not a question of kindles replacing books.

I was glad to see that it has improved since 2005 when I started teacher training . I remember being very depressed back then when they told me on my PGCE that it hadn´t improved since 1948.

Kazzy the amount you read to him in his first decade of life set up a substantial foundation though - a teen who doesn't read now but was read to daily until age 10 or 11 isn't really a case that proves reading doesn't build vocabulary/ story telling skills/ the ability to structure written work etc. He had that by age 10, if you read to him daily from baby/ early toddler hood until then.

The National Literacy Trust says that 15% of people in the UK are functionally illiterate That is just over 5 million people

Wow, that is a depressing statistic :(

I can't imagine growing up in a house without books, I was always reading a book as a child and we had many bookcases stuffed full of books. I do mostly use the library these days because it's free of course but DD has a full billy bookcase (two shelves English books and one shelf Finnish - I mostly buy English ones for her as she can get Finnish ones much more easily in the library), and we have a full one downstairs in the study with my books in, and then OH's books (mostly old school text books and a bunch of history books as that's what he reads most) are on a couple of shelves in the lounge. If I had the money I'd buy a lot more books though - I tend to buy a few books from the book depository (free shipping even if it's just one book!) every few months but have run out of space for new ones.
Some books I read just once but I can't bear to get rid of them, just in case I want to read them again one day in the future. Most books get read over and again.

The books are there. Some parents just do not see the value in reading to their child.

Well said, it's not always a lack of money! Lack of parental guidance is probably more important in lots of ways.

Households without books are that way by choice. Nobody seems to want secondhand (even brand new, never read) books anymore (apart from MN obviously). The charity shop I volunteer in dumps (sends to be recycled) sacks full of books every day. The people who donate them say they cant give them away and no one wants to buy then no matter how cheap they are. They are going the same way as VHS tapes and CDs.

Julie
That is just not true.
My local Oxfam Bookshop does a roaring trade and is often advertising for more stock.

I've often wondered whether the little girl managed to find a love of books through school, and power to her grannie's elbow for doing the right thing.

Just because you have a houseful of books and love reading doesn't mean your child will follow suit - both DH and I love reading, we have loads of books at home, really encouraged our DS to read - did all the usual bed time stories etc etc - I doubt if he has read a book for pleasure since leaving primary school - he just about managed to scrape a pass in his Eng Lit GCSE having paid a private tutor.

I look back on how smug I was as a new mother will all my book reading and am embarrassed.

unlimited - always return! This is part of the joy! I have recently loaned Milan Kundera books to my Russian SIL that I read 20 years ago - her perspective is so different to mine.

I am now re-reading Of Mice and Men with my 11 year old. We have the book, Kindle, audio, DVD. This is not less. The message is not lessened by the medium.

They are going the same way as VHS tapes and CDs.

No they're not. I saw some statistics showing just how well sales of books are holding up, and in fact, latest year's figures are showing an increase in sales. People are moving back to real books and away from kindles/e-readers etc., whose sales have stalled. It was that kind of muddled thinking that caused libraries to be closed across the country, many of which were reprieved and re-opened when the scale of the real demand was realised.

I have thousands of books myself, and ds also has hundreds of books.
I didn't really read bed times story to my ds. My parents never read me bed time stories. Still, I became early reader watching my parents read, and ds was the same.
I love real books. Reading books on screen doesn't feel the same.

when I did teacher training, back in the dark old days, the national statistic was something like the average number of books in a household was 7.

Considering I have several thousand, that is a lot of houses with no books.

I read and re- read nearly all my books. I have a real thing about throwing books away

See, if nothing else, this is why libraries (and properly funding libraries so they can hire trained library staff) is so important!

Dsis has no books in the house because they are untidy. We have about 11 between the three of us plus what we have on our kindles.

Year 7 used to get a free book.
They could choose from a selection of about 10. We used to read the blurb with them and then put in the order. You can’t imagine how excited a lot of them were to receive their own book! I think it was an excellent scheme.

Hasn’t run for about 7 or 8 years now I think.

We have Bookstore books in our area and they are great! We love "Alan's Big Scary Teeth"

*Bookstart!

But families who don't value books, don't use the library

I'm an avid reader, dh is not. I've written more books than he's read in the last 10 years. My kids though, are odd. I could never get any of them to sit down and read as small children. Dd1's teacher once told me I must have read lots to her at home because she was so literate. Not at all, the only thing she read were tv listings. But now they are older dd1 reads for pleasure and manages to get her kids to sit down and listen to stories, dd2 writes thousands and thousands of words of anime fic and my dyslexic son reads avidly. Dd3 has little interest though her vocabulary is fabulous.

CauliflowerSqueeze- the Y7 at our local secondary got a free book this year, the scheme is based on deprivation in the school and needs the school to be proactive in applying but it still exists.

Oh really?

I think the scheme I am thinking of was open across the country at the time.

BrizzleDrizzlesurely books are no more untidy than any other kids stuff though? Or are as tidy as you tidy them

@SLeepingstandingup BrizzleDrizzlesurely books are no more untidy than any other kids stuff though? Or are as tidy as you tidy them

your guess is as good as mine, we have shed loads of books but Dsis doesn't have a single one in the house