Addressing the Reading Disaster Among African-American Children

Popular award-winning children’s author, Walter Dean Myers, has been named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.  Myers’ conversation with Jenée Desmond-Harris, writer for The Root, is peppered with his assertions about the importance of literacy as the passport to opportunity for black children.  He reminds readers “that equality of opportunity is meaningless if black kids aren’t literate.”  Like others, he is trying to spread the word “that those who miss out on literacy will be lost.”  He notes that as the country comes out of its economic troubles, it is the people with skills who will recover better, and reading skills are the basic skills that they need.  Participation in the penal system, for example, is a common consequence of not reading in the African-American community.

His advice to parents is to begin reading something age appropriate to the child at 2 months and to read to the child every day.  As the parent reads to the child, s/he should encourage the child to look at the pictures and to participate by engaging the child in conversations that will cause the child to make predictions, recall facts, etc.

He recommends the following books for African-American children by black authors:

• A Million Fish … More or Less by Patricia C. McKissack (author) and Dena Schutzer (illustrator)
• Baby Says by John Steptoe
• Black Cat by Christopher Myers
• Bright Eyes, Brown Skin by Cheryl Willis Hudson and Bernette G. Ford (authors) and George Ford (illustrator)
• Brown Angels: An Album of Pictures and Verse by Walter Dean Myers
• Dancing in the Wings by Debbie Allen (author) and Kadir Nelson (illustrator)
• Girl of Mine by Jabari Asim (author) and LeUyen Pham (illustrator)
• He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands by Kadir Nelson
• Let’s Count, Baby by Cheryl Willis Hudson (author) and George Ford (illustrator)
• Please, Puppy, Please by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee (authors) and Kadir Nelson (illustrator)

Related articles

• Walter Dean Myers, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature 2012-2013 (survivingtothriving.wordpress.com)
• Another Reason to Encourage Your Son to Read (uzimacommunityblog.wordpress.com)

 

Another Reason to Encourage Your Son to Read

Reading proficiency is so important that many localities determine their future prison needs by looking at the number of fourth graders who do not score proficient at the end of the year.  Fortunately, most students do not end up in the prison system, but if you or your son have aspirations for him to be a professional, it may be more important for him to read outside of school than to be an athlete with hopes of getting a scholarship to attend college!

The Science Daily website reports in the article “Reading at 16 Linked to Better Job Prospects” the findings of researcher Mark Taylor from the Department of Sociology at Oxford.  Taylor found that the extra-curricular activities of students at age 16 and concluded that no other activities—including sports, visiting museums, going to the movies, etc.—predicted professional careers as much as reading outside school.    He found that it was “the only out-of-school activity for 16-year-olds that is linked to getting a managerial or professional job later in life.”

Many experts agree that getting boys to read more is a challenge because reluctant readers need to read what interests them.  A recent New York Times article, “Boys and Reading – Is There Any Hope?” by author Robert Lipsyte spells out some considerations for getting boys to enjoy reading more:

• Boys seem to prefer nonfiction.
• Boys need books that cause them to reflect on the kinds of men they may become.

Lipsyte was part of a celebrated author panel of authors whose writing appeal to boys.  They included:

• Kenneth Oppel, author of Darkwing
• Walter Dean Myers, author of Monster (Myers, an African American author, writes about urban situations that may appeal to your son.)
• Chris Crutcher, author of Whale Talk
• Terry Trueman, author Stuck in Neutral

Parents may want to go to go to the Guys Read website for ideas about books that might appeal to their sons:  http://guysread.com/   Also, the following video featuring two popular authors for boys talk about what might work for your son: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/multimedia/VIDEO_PLAYER/BCVideoEmbed.swf