People who love books must have the habit of reading. From a deeper perspective, reading is a hobby of people, not an automatic, mechanized, insensitive, accustomed and dull habit. For example, eating every day is a habit, but loving cooking and food is a hobby. Through the careful deployment of ingredients, condiments and calories, it creates a certain taste and brings us spiritual pleasure, which is different from eating a full stomach. The same is true of reading. Even if we have a fixed reading time every day, books will always bring us some touches, some feelings, some shocks and some warmth. Those who love books can reap these blessings from reading.
Because of his work, Uncle Monkey often takes the high-speed train. What I do most on the high-speed rail is reading paper books. Sometimes I look up at other passengers, hoping to find some study companions, but most people are still looking at their mobile phones, occasionally a few scholars, and often reading reference books for certain exams. Do we adults really dislike reading?
In April this year, I saw a report-20 18 National Reading Survey Report released by China Press and Publication Research Institute. There is such a set of numbers, and it is interesting to compare them. In 20 18, the average reading volume of paper books for adults in China was 4.67, while that for minors aged 0- 17 was 8.9 1 book in the same year. Then make a breakdown of minors: 14- 17-year-old minors read the most extracurricular books, which is11.56; Children aged 9- 13 read 9.49 books per capita; The per capita reading of children aged 0-8 is 7. 10.
Judging from this survey figure, adults in China are indeed inferior to minors in reading habits. Numbers only reflect the time that everyone spends on reading, but in fact, they can't reflect the result of reading, that is, how much information, knowledge and ideas have been harvested, and they can't measure the spiritual value brought by reading, that is, how many times we found * * * songs in books, and were moved, comforted and gained strength.
There are many ways to improve minors' reading immediately. For example, parents are concerned about the policy orientation of the future senior high school entrance examination and college entrance examination. But the danger is that once anything is linked to the utilitarian purpose of taking the exam, it will certainly turn into the pressure of children and the anxiety in parents' hearts, and turn into extracurricular remedial classes like mushrooms after rain, so children's schedules are more tense and free time is more scarce, and free time is precisely the soil and sunshine for children to fall in love with books spontaneously.
The first story told by Uncle Monkey is why children should take reading as an interest rather than just forming a habit. One summer, Jimmy Lin took his son Kim on a trip to Lyon, just in time for the children's reading activity held by the listed library. Whoever reads the most books in two weeks will get a big gift. Jimmy Lin also signed up for Kim. A week later, Kim finished reading three books, while other French children didn't finish reading any. Jimmy Lin encouraged his son to make persistent efforts. At this time, the staff of the city library came and said to Jimmy Lin with a first prize gift: "The gift can be given to you first, but I hope your child will give up this reading activity."
Jimmy Lin was surprised and asked, "There is still a week left. Why give gifts in advance? Why let my child quit? " The staff said: "Because your child studies for the sake of studying, he just wants to be the first, but he doesn't understand the content and doesn't feel the pleasure of reading." Reading is not a competition, much less a utility. He is so crazy about reading that if he wins the first prize, he will set a bad example to other children. When he quits, other children will have no pressure and anxiety brought by competition, and then they can feel the joy of studying hard. " This incident touched Jimmy Lin a lot. He said with emotion, "We educate our children to study, the purpose is not pure, and setting goals seems to be to complete the task. This trip to France made me understand that reading is a kind of relaxation and enjoyment. It's as simple as children reading just because they are happy. "
The second story told by Uncle Monkey is that reading depends on children's internal drive, not external drive. It is said that a psychologist in America did an experiment. He selected some pupils who love reading very much and divided them into two groups. One group (control group) did not do any reward and punishment mechanism, and let them study according to their own interests. The other group (experimental group) set up a reward and punishment mechanism, counted the number of books read every month, and rewarded 5 dollars for each book read. After a semester passed, the reading habits of the children in the control group did not change, but the children in the experimental group had interesting changes: they read more books, but generally the books they read were thinner. After that, the experimenter withdrew a $5 bonus and passed another semester. Guess what? The children in the control group still love reading as always, while the reading volume of the children in the experimental group has actually dropped below the level before the experiment.
Did you find out? Children who once loved reading, because of the addition of material rewards, their original spontaneous reading behavior became full of utilitarianism, so they tried to take shortcuts, and when the reward mechanism stopped, their original reading motivation also decreased. Material rewards have replaced the intrinsic motivation of children's love of reading. Undoubtedly, this is a short-term effective, limited and long-term negative incentive.
In China, people pay more and more attention to the reading of minors, which is a very good phenomenon. However, in this kind of "concern", we should calmly distinguish utilitarian components and carefully use some short-term effects. For example, many schools and institutions now carry out some activities of reading and punching cards, which can only become a mere formality and cannot reflect the essence. A while ago, it was reported that a Chinese teacher set up a virtual "reading bank" for primary school students. Every time a child finishes reading 1 page, he can get a virtual 1 cent in the passbook. At the end of the semester, children can find their parents to cash in. This kind of material motivation still emphasizes external drive, but ignores children's enthusiasm for reading. This form is certainly effective in the short term, and the negative is greater than the positive in the long run.
To make children fall in love with books, we actually only need to do three things: first, be a good example of loving reading; Second, prepare enough good books for him; Third, give him enough free time. Parents and friends, we might as well evaluate ourselves. How do you do these three things?