4 million children don't own any books.

[MincePieFlavouredVoidka]

Here

What a sad story - as someone who is always surrounded by books I find it hard to imagine them not being around.

Also what about bookstart? Both of my younger DC's have been given books by them, is it not countrywide?

do you think campaigns like 'the gift of reading' (link further up thread) are worthwhile?

Beertrickspotter - we don't even have a statutory requirement to have a library in secondary schools and as for having a professional librarian running it...

Public libraries are being closed all over the country and loads of my colleagues in secondaries are being made redundant and their books stocks are being removed or dispersed to make way for banks of computers. Whereas the best professional school librarians are experts in balancing information needs from a range of media.

I used to survey all our Yr 7 students in the first term and found that about 10% said that they didn't own any books. A large number were actively hostile to the very idea!

Why can't we lable parents as lazy/feckless? I really can't understand it. These people are failing their children in a really fundamental way. They are teaching their children that ignorance is a good thing. They are actively closing doors that would otherwise be open. Yes they are to blame. If we keep pussyfooting around pretending no-one is to blame, least of all the poor parents , then we will continue to see increasing numbers of children unable to read, write or contribute in any meaningful way to our society.

This doesn't surprise me, there seems to large numbers of people who don't value education at all.

Label them what you like. Does it help the children? That's all I was wondering. Is it worth supporting the literacy trust's Christmas campaign?

As much as I'd love to support their campaign, I can't help feeling that if your child doesn't have ANY books and you need someone else to come along and promote the value of books to your child then as a parent you are pretty shit.

And therefore the poor child almost certainly has much more to worry about than whether or not he/she has a book.

There's no excuse. Children's books can be bought for pennies at jumble sales; school table-top sales; at car boots; at libraries on the 'remaindered' shelves; and for slightly more but still cheaply at charity shops.

The challenge is to provide an incentive for all parents to want to acquire them and keep them in their homes.

Some do regard books as 'clutter.'

Literacy is central to all those other things 'the poor child' has to worry about though. It seems such a basic right. Shouldn't it be everyone's problem?

Apparently it is the single most effective way of reducing maternal mortality in developing parts of the world, increasing female literacy.

What is the female functional illiteracy rate amongst disadvantaged communties in the UK? That would seem to be pretty bloody crucial to understanding where to target literacy programmes, and thus hopefully lead to a valuing of books in the home.

Whilst its sad, I don't really see what can be done about it. Parents who have no books are very unlikely to have any interest in education and this is unlikely to change.

I suppose the simplicity of giving a child a book, in the knowledge that book ownership is linked to improved reading ability, is why this campaign is so appealing. It seems like a small, easily accomplished thing that would bring about some improvement.

I grew up in a house with no books (I don't think you can count a dictionary and a microwave cook book as reading material). I was given 2 for Christmas when I was 8 and would read them over and over again. It happens. It shouldn't, but it does. My mother doesn't read very well, she can't spell either. I can't remember either of them reading or listening to me read and I only started reading properly once I started secondary school.

I think poverty is a huge factor. Not because of the lack of money but because of the damage it does to a person's self esteem. If you feel worthless are you going to take the time to encourage your child? No.

wish I could substitute belief for knowledge in my last post, would like something to have faith in anyway

glad you got those books for Christmas belle

So am I. I now write children's fiction.

I am envious, love children's literature.

what do you think of this campaign?

I have a friend who dotes on her only child and he gets everything he asks for. (It's not done as a way of avoiding spending time with him, both his parents do a lot of activities with him). He has every electronic game you can think of (DS, x box, wii, playstation, you name it) and his room is lined with shelves of games and dvds.
Never seen a book in their house though. Reading is just a chore to him, something to be done for homework and forgotten about, which makes me sad. His parents are intelligent and run a successful business and they clearly adore their son, it's just the idea of reading for pleasure doesn't even occur to them. They obviously had a halfway decent education and their son goes to a private school, yet somehow they've all emerged devoid of any love of books or reading. I wonder how that happens? I wonder if there's something else schools could be doing to promote the enjoyment of reading for its own sake? (rather than as a necessary evil on the road to getting an education). Because clearly a love of books isn't always being passed down the generations as it should be (IMO) so something has gone wrong somewhere. I think we can all see that the problem isn't lack of opportunity to obtain books, but rather a lack of interest.
I was very lucky, both my parents were professional bookbinders, so a family interest in books was inevitable.

Pixel :) must find my way back to tack room, how are you?

all those activities involve reading related skills though, although it is impossibly bleak to imagine a life without the love of books somewhere near its centre

I once house-sat for a family (couple with a baby and a lot of naughty dogs and a horse) who had no books, except for the Argos catalogue. It was really weird to be in a house without anything to read. They must actually talk to each one another all the time?

If you asked my DS (also 8) if he owned any books, up until last week he'd probably have told you no....................as he didn't have any books of his own, just the books o the shelves that belonged to all of them........actually both he and DS1 were absolutely over joyed to buy soe books the other week - the first time they'd ever got their own books...........we haven't yet found space for them on the already over crowded bookshelves bu we're getting there

and of course if the parents can't read - does that make them lazy?? or something else...................

If the parents can't read and they grew up in the UK that makes them ignorant. There is no excuse for a 'home grown' adult who can't read. Education is provided at no cost until aged 16. All you have to do is show up and follow instructions given by your teacher. I would hope that someone who has spent more than 10 years in education can read and write.

Mike Bloomberg is hated by teachers here in the NYC but literacy rates are soaring thanks to his 'no kid left behind' policy. My friends who are teachers in Manhattan and Queens public schools tell me that now that children can't move up to the next grade, parents and pupils are making much more of an effort. It is tough on teachers but my friend who teaches in a really rough school in Queens says it makes her job easier and more enjoyable to have parents involved and who encourage their children to learn.

My maternal grandmother got a scholarship to grammar school and was told that she could not take it up (uniform too expensive/ family wanted her to go out to work mid teens). Her father burnt her school books. Ignorance/ poverty/ jealousy of a bright child on his part I suppose. She ended up as a cook in service.

She was very proud when I got a place in Oxford

I work in a library - thankfully in our county there are no closures. I had some training recently and I asked how we can improve take up of the service when some people just refuse to be helped. The trainer couldn't answer :(

I agree that it's not as simple as giving DCs books - I read a couple of years ago about a project (possibly in the US?) where children were given free books once a month until they were five. Something like that anyway. It was abandoned because it made no difference whatsoever. Having books is pointless if there is nobody to help you learn to love them.

I think the survey raises more questions than it answers. Of the children living in a family that doesn't own a book, how many have access to a TV or a laptop or a games console? It's easy to form the correlations without having the full picture.

Totally agree with xStarGirl, this extrapolating of a small number (1 in 6 of 16,000 conflated to 4million!!) is meaningless. And oh, quelle surprise, it is accompanied by a fundraising campaign

Poor show by the National Literacy Trust.

I do agree about taking statistics with a pinch of salt... But IMO, even if the DCs in the study were the ONLY ones to have no books, it's still sad for them :( it's just as bad for one individual child as it would be for a million other DCs, IYSWIM?

It's hard for book lovers to believe that some people don't even realise what is offered by the world of books. I'm frequently surprised by it in my job, anyway... And libraries don't even reach the DCs who need us most, as their parents don't bring them.