Damn it, Obama, when are you gonna get this e-book thing? Check out Donalyn Miller’s literacy efforts and connect the dots!
Barack Obama drew a $500,000 advance for a children’s book, a mere five days before swearing a presidential oath. I’m happy for him. Literacy has served The First Reader well. So has technology—as shown by his fondness for BlackBerry-style devices and using the Net to raise campaign money.
Why, then, isn’t the First Reader more open to e-books: the natural confluence of tech and lit? Obama’s White House would not even endorse Read an E-Book Week despite a request from its founder, Rita Toews (photo)—a message that I myself followed up on with his staffers. Is Obama going, in some irritating ways, to be George W. Bush II and tune out nonlobbyists, nonWall Streeters, nonpoliticians, noncorporations?
TeleRead vs. just more YouTubing
Such thoughts sound rather small-minded, given such presidential distractions as Afghanistan and the Iraq War. But they are not if you consider the importance of reading as a booster of test scores, career prospects, civic involvement, empathy, you name it. The more books around to serve the needs and interest of Americans, especially children, the better off we’ll be. While I approve of Obama’s interest in broadband, what will we use it for? More YouTubing?
A well-stocked, well-structured national digital library system in the TeleRead vein—carefully blended in with local schools and libraries—could go a long way. Legislation tied to the current Digital Promise initiative might be one place to tuck away the funds for pilot projects, as part of a master plan. If not, how about other avenues? See a past post, TeleRead, Obama, and text literacy vs. Kevin Kelly’s ‘screen literacy,’ in addition to the Digital Promise site.
‘Book in every backpack’—or a lot of e-books?
For powerful evidence that children will thrive with a wide variety of books available, the First Reader might check out A Book in Every Backpack, a blog post on the Teacher Magazine site, by Donalyn Miller (photo), a sixth-grade teacher of language arts and social studies.
I am known around my school as the teacher with the huge library. With over 2,000 books, our class library holds mythic status among my students (both current and former). They often conduct tours, leading friends and younger siblings through the stacks, proudly showing off our books and making recommendations. These tours usually end with our guests filling out library cards and checking out books to read. My willingness to share our books with any child who wants to read them is well-known, too. I acquired every book on my own through donations, book club points, countless clearance and garage sales, book swaps, and other methods. I can loan my books as I please.
I decided long ago that putting books in children’s hands over and over again was the best way to encourage them to read. Reading advocates like Nancie Atwell, Jim Trelease, Richard Allington, and the father of free voluntary reading, Stephen Krashen, agree with me. A significant factor in getting children to read is providing access to books—mountains and mountains of books. But regular access to books is beyond the grasp of many children in America. Considering research findings from numerous studies, we could rename the achievement gap the library gap. Students in poverty have the least access to books because of poorly funded and staffed school libraries, limited public library use, and fewer books at home. Additionally, classroom libraries, which positively impact reading interest and achievement, are less common in low-income schools. If you lead a kid to books, you can get them to read, but the books have to be available.
There seems to be ample funding for the latest test-prep or reading incentive programs, despite a lack of research proving such programs work. If you’re curious, check out the Best Evidence Encyclopedia at the Johns Hopkins Center for Data-Driven Reform to find data on your district’s reading programs. Wouldn’t this federal windfall be better spent on providing real books, an endeavor proven to work? I believe that a paperback book or two in every backpack would do a better job of improving reading achievement than another test-prep workbook (no need to talk about which program improves students’ attitudes toward reading and which one doesn’t).
Exactly. It would be wonderful to go on to write that Ms. Miller has discovered e-books and that many more titles than a mere 2,000 will soon be available to her students. But instead, I find not one mention of e-books by her or 29 commenters responding to her post.
Just by making teachers aware of the potential of e-books—as economical ways to increase the availability of titles, while also lightening children’s backpacks—Obama could perform a real public service by officially recognizing Read an E-Book Week and encouraging educators to act and adapt. How many schools of education really get into e-book-related issues? As a UVA professor named Glen Bull and I have independently concluded, successful use of e-books relies on a triad: content (books), the right hardware and appropriate pedagogy, so that, for example, students learn how to identify the best books and other content when many more choices are available.
Obama could also promote volunteerism in the tech community. Large tech employers could do their share by setting up the right e-book-related volunteer programs in partnership with school districts and literacy groups.
What about the hardware issue? Apple, instead of just regarding schools as cash cows, could aggressively encourage recycling of iPhones and iPod Touches as e-book readers—maybe even with the installation of new firmware, which, if need be, could disable the phone functions? Meanwhile in the next few years there will be oodles of used iPods and netbooks waiting to be recycled and stocked with e-books. Not to mention other possible choices for children and teacher. How about the rumored iPod tablet? Furthermore, keep in mind that the next version of the OLPC laptop will be far, far more optimized for e-books than the current model, and that the costs will eventually meet the $100 goal after all. Let’s also remember the rise of the Kindle, and the fact that Kindle-style machines could be the new large print for millions of elderly Americans.
So the possibilities are out there—variants on the above, if not the exact specifics I’ve laid out here. It’s too late for Obama to have endorsed E-Book Week’s 2009 incarnation, but he should get hopping now and make clear his intentions for next year. Awareness, as noted in the paragraph above, is half the battle. And not just in the States. Rita Toews herself is Canadian, and if Obama’s people keep on being so blind to e-books’ potential, then I mind mind it a bit of Canada beats the U.S. to the punch and is the first to recognize The Week.
Related: Plans to introduce Plastic Logic machines to Detroit newspaper readers and deal with digital divide issues along the way. Is it possible that newspapers ought to take an interest in e-books and e-libraries for the masses—given the multiuse capabilites?
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