March 12, 2025 • 19 mins
Research from Princeton University reveals that mandatory reading logs actually decrease children's interest in reading. While a quarter of Australian parents barely read to their kids at all, the solution isn't forcing children to track their reading time—it's making reading irresistible. This episode exposes why reading logs are counterproductive and reveals the three crucial keys to raising passionate readers. If you've ever battled with your child over filling in their reading log or worried about their reading habits, this episode offers game-changing strategies that actually work.
Quote of the Episode: "Reading is the key skill to education. It's literally the gateway to all other skills. And if we can get this one thing right with our kids, they're going to make it all right in the world."
Key Points:
- Research shows mandatory reading logs reduce children's motivation and interest in both recreational and academic reading.
- 25% of Australian parents read to their children once a week or less.
- There's up to a million-word annual gap between children from book-rich and book-poor homes.
- 56% of parents feel insecure about their own reading ability, impacting how much they read to their children.
- Three essential strategies for fostering a love of reading:
- Read to children regularly, using engaging voices and interactive questioning.
- Model reading behaviour by having parents visibly read physical books.
- Allow children complete autonomy in their reading choices, even if parents consider the material "below standard".
Resources Mentioned:
- Princeton University study on mandatory reading logs and motivation by Sarah Pak
- Oxford University Press research on Australian family reading habits
- "Wings of Fire" graphic novel series [affiliate link]
- "The Magic Faraway Tree" by Enid Blyton [affiliate link]
- "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman [affiliate link]
- "Donald Duck's New Toy Train" (Little Golden Book)
Action Steps for Parents:
- Remove any mandatory reading tracking systems.
- Create easily accessible reading spaces with books within arm's reach.
- Read to children daily, using expressive voices and engaging discussions.
- Let children see you reading physical books regularly.
- Allow children to choose their own reading material without judgment.
- Keep screens separate from reading time - stick to physical books.
- Make reading a joyful activity rather than a chore.
- Ask interactive questions about stories to enhance engagement.
- Read slower than you think necessary to aid comprehension.
- Create regular family reading times.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Reading locks for homework. Color it in, make sure you've
done the right amount of time. Is it a good
idea or is it a bad idea? I just sounded
a bit like our kids when they're mad at us.
I'm so ack very.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Today we're going to discuss the question of reading logs
because it came up recently when a parent asked me
at a parent night, what's the deal? How do we
play this? I'm just not sure, but my child chafes
at the reading lock. Hello, welcome to the Happy Family Podcast,
Real Parenting Solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
(00:42):
We are Justin and Kylie Colson.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We love to read in our house. I would actually
say we are voracious readers.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I thought you were going to say ferocious for me.
Voracious is the right word. Yeah, someone must have been
reading big vocabulary. I love it.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
We have six children and every single one of them
are bookworms, to the point where we've had I would say,
numerous children who've almost been run over hit vehicles by
vehicles as they've walked their way to school with their
nose in a book.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
When we used to live in Wollongong, I know I'm
cutting you off. But we had this one daughter who
would read so much she would literally just read as
she walked and literally almost got hit by the bus
more than once because she'd just walked to school with
her nose in the book.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
We've had multiple children with torches under the covers after
lights out all the time, and our biggest struggle has
actually been keeping them in books. In that We've got
a ten year old who's now reading books that are
five and six hundred pages long. Yeah, which means you're
often it's trying to find books that are appropriate for
(01:54):
her age and yet stimulate her reading level. It's a
really tricky place.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'm not going to bury the lead. I'm going to
come out and say it right now at the top
of this podcast episode. None of our kids have ever
filled in a reading log. I have forbidden it. I'm
anti reading log And that's our conversation today. Number one,
what the problem with reading logs is? And number two,
how to get your kids still love reading, which is
something that we've done quite well.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Reading is the key skill to education. It's literally the
gateway to all other skills. And if we can get
this one thing right with our kids, they're going to
make it all right in the world.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I love the way that you said that. Let's go
through some stats. I think there's some relevance here. It's important.
Oxford University Press did some research in Australia with Ossie
families found that twenty five percent of parents only read
to their kids once a week or not at all.
That's a quarter of families and not reading their kids
in any meaningful way on a week to week basis.
(02:55):
Fifty six percent of parents were worried about their own
reading ability and therefore we're unlikely to read to the
kids because they don't like how they read.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That to me is staggering.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
We have an issue in this country with people who
are barely functionally literate. This has been an ongoing issue.
We've got a great education system, but too many kids
fall through the cracks and become adults who really struggle
to read, who don't enjoy reading it all. Happy to
listen to an audiobook, but don't want to pick one
up and read it. Wow. The other thing that came
out here is that only fifty percent of parents are
(03:30):
routinely reading to their young children. That drops to thirty
percent in lower income families. There is a relationship between
socioeconomic status and the amount that you read to your kids.
Something that's also fascinating to me is the relationship between
your education level and your income level and how many
books you've got in your house. So kids that come
from more educated families and wealthier families tend to be
(03:54):
around books a lot, and they reckon that. There's a
word gap between those who are surrounded by books and
those who aren't, those who are being raised in well
educated families and those who aren't. Up to maybe a
million words a year the kids in the lower socioeconomic
groups are missing out on. So if you're not getting
(04:14):
that extra million words a year across a lifespan or
across a decade of childhood, that adds up to an
enormous amount from a literacy point of view. And whatever
it was that you said before about reading being the
gateway to all education, reading is the foundational element of
helping our kids to thrive. You look at those stats
and it's clear, it's abundantly clear. If kids don't read,
(04:40):
then they're not going to become better readers, which means
that they're less likely to become leaders, they're less likely
to do well in any number of other domains doesn't
mean that they can't. It's just harder for them.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So what happened at your recent parent night that has
sparked this conversation.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah. So I've made no secret of this, and I've
been making noise about it fifteen years. I'm not a
fan of homework in primary school. There's just there's not
a shred of credible evidence that supports its use What's
curious to me is when I'm at parent knights now
and I say it all the teachers. I always I
make a big deal that I'm like, oh, no, the
principles here. I hope I'm not going to get kicked out.
(05:16):
I hope that they'll have me back after I say this.
And then I'll talk about how in primary school there's
just no evidence to support its usefulness. And the teachers
all start applauding, but the parents look at me like
I've just swallowed poison in front of them. They can't
believe that I've done it, and they're saying, why would
you say this? Like homework, Homework's great, And so I
talk through all of the research around limited efficacy. Kids
(05:41):
who already know how to do it, it's boring for them.
Kids who can't do it, it's just frustrating, makes them
feel even more incompetent. And then I make a very
clear point. The one thing that is associated with great
academic outcomes in primary school is kids reading. But we
should not be telling our kids to fill in the
homework log, to color in the homework wheel, to show
(06:03):
that they've done their ten pages or their twenty minutes
or whatever they should read because they love it. That's
my emphasis. The principle is always applaud The teachers always say, oh,
thank goodness, because we hate assigning homework and having to
follow up on homework as well. But the reading log
thing really created a bit of a stir at this
parent night recently, and that's why I thought, doctor's desk,
(06:25):
let's do it well.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It wouldn't be a doctor's desk if you weren't referring
to a whole heap of numbers and stats and things
that hurt my brain. What is the research telling us
about reading locks?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I don't want to hurt your brain. I'm going to
refer to one study, although there are more studies than
just this one. These studies really built out of what's
known as the motivation literature. Okay, so there's a whole
lot of other research that supports what this one study
is talking about. A lot of people say, well, anyone
can find one study that says one thing. So I'm
(06:57):
using this as an example of an entire research body
that underpins what I'm about to say. This is from
Princeton University, So we're talking about a very prestigious university
with excellent researchers. Somebody called Sarah Pack at Princeton did
this research paper looking at the effect of mandatory reading
logs on children's motivation to read. Got a whole bunch
(07:21):
of second and third grade students. They were assigned either
a mandatory log or a voluntary log. They were surveyed
about their motivation to read at baseline, and then two
months down the track once they've been keeping the log
for a couple of months. And here's what Sarah and
her colleagues found. Students with mandatory reading logs expressed declines
in both interest in reading and attitudes towards recreational reading
(07:46):
in comparison to peers with voluntary logs, and attitudes towards
academic reading decreased significantly from pre to post test across conditions.
In other words, by making a child feel in a
reading log, you essentially help them to see reading as
something that is not fun to do.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
This reminds me of the conversation we had with healthy
Cone in relation to punishment by rewards, we're actually suggesting,
by putting a mandatory ceiling on it, whether it be
you read for ten minutes or you read ten pages
or whatever it is, that we actually have to give
them a reason to do it, because doing the task
(08:29):
in and of itself is not stimulating, is not worth
their time actually rewarding. And the devastation of that is
that this study recognizes that previous two having reading logs,
there was actually a level of motivation. It would have
varied from child to child, of course, but there was already.
(08:51):
We're born curious, right, We're born desiring to understand and
know the world around us, and reading is a wonderful
way that we can do that, and we've just literally
chopped it off at the legs.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, it's turning and reading into a chore. And like
you said, it puts a ceiling or a limit on it.
It's kind of like the whole hey, kids, you need
to go and practice the piano for thirty minutes. And
when my mum used to say that I procrastinated, I
fiddled around on the piano as long as I sat
at the piano for thirty minutes, and I watched the
clock the whole time, rather than looking at the music
or considering the music that I might produce. By having
(09:23):
to do it as a chore, it made it horrible
and I couldn't wait to quit the piano. It just
doesn't work. So after the break, let's talk about how
we can help our kids to love reading. Okay, Kylie,
we got to talk about how to help kids to
(09:44):
just fall in love with reading.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So I actually don't have a single memory of my
parents reading to me, and I might be doing them
a disservice, but I don't remember at all being read
to as a child. What I do remember is my
dad used to tell me stories, so he would come
to my bedside and he would share stories with me
by my bedside. As opposed to reading, I don't feel
(10:08):
like as a child I had a great love of
books at all. I wasn't a particularly curious child and
wasn't until I got really, really sick as a fourteen
year old, and one of my leaders from church brought
me a book. I was stuck at home for three
months without being able to go to school. I wasn't
socializing and she handed me this book and I was like, yeah, whatever,
(10:30):
I'm never going to read that. And one day I
was so bored that I picked it up.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I was so bored.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
And I picked it up and I devoured that book
from cover to cover within a couple of days. That
was the turning point for me. And so when I
think about this idea of how we go about creating
a love of reading, for me, having books accessible to
your kids is number one, hands down, such an important
(11:03):
part of that process.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So that ties in with our experience that we shard
on I'll do but it' tomorrow. A couple of weeks ago,
with our daughter, we left the that my gut friends.
I've got friends in my gut that helped me to
be healthy. Whatever that book was, we left it there
so that she would see it, and she walked past
it dozens of times before she finally picked up and
decided to read it. And all of a sudden, here's
this kid who's saying, I need to improve my diet.
(11:25):
I need to get this stuff into my belly because
I've got these gut friends that will do good things
for me if they get the right nutrition and nutrients.
So the accessibility of books is crucial, not.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Having them like you can't have them on the bookshelf
half the time, especially for younger kids.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Because they're just decorative.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, they've got to be within arm's reach.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So recently Emily has loved playing with a lego, but
now that we've got a baby walking around the house,
we've had to put it away and she won't pull
it out because that's too much effort because it's not
in sight.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Reduce the friction, make make it the easy option. And
this is why people are looking at phones right Because
the phones are friction free and they're massively stimulating. You
don't have to do nearly as much work as you
do with other things. You know what, though, it's a
hollow reward compared to what you get from a book.
Let's talk about how to get your kids to love reading.
You don't remember your parents reading to you. From the
(12:21):
time I was born, my parents read and read and
read to me, and I knew my books so well
that if they tried to skip a line because they
were tired, and they were falling asleep on the floor
beside me while they read, I would rouse on them.
I'd get them in trouble and say, no, that's not
what it says, and then I would recite what the
words were on that page because I couldn't read, but
(12:41):
I knew that book inside and out. I know.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
A few years after we got married, your mum sent
us a copy of the Little Golden Book, Donald Duck's
Toy Train.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Donald Duck's New Toy Train. Thank you very much. Yes, Donald,
I'm fifty years old this year. They were reading it
to me when I was three. I still remember the
first couple of pages. Donald Duck had a new Toy
Train and it was a beauty too, And then it
starts describing all the carriages to the little red caboos
on the back, like I still remember it. Like that's
(13:12):
the impact that reading has on you, You remember it
those years later. It bonds you with your kids. Read
Read number one. Read to your kids. Read slower than
you think you need to, so that their minds can
keep up with what you're saying, and use voices and expression.
Ask them questions about the pictures, ask them questions about
(13:34):
the characters, ask them questions about what they would do.
I remember reading The Magic Far Away Tree to the kids,
our kids, and saying things to them like, what would
you do if you were climbing up the tree and
this happened? How would it feel to go down the
slide with Moonbeam or mister sauceman Man or whatever it
is like? Asking them questions as you read, or going
through The Princess Bride and having them terrified about what's
(13:57):
about to happen. It makes the book come alive when
they see your love for it and they see your
interest in not just the book, but in their reactions
to the book. Oh, read to them.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So that's your number one tip.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Have I made that clear?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I'm so passionate about this.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I think number two has to be we have to
model it. They have to see our love of books.
You do a pretty good job of it, because on
any given day there's about.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
There are dozens of books. How many books. I'm usually
reading at least three books at a time.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You are, and they are so varied, there's no it's
there's such an eclectic array of genres and topics at
any given time.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I'm reading a book at the moment called How Infrastructure Works.
You just fell asleep when I said, why would you
read that?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Why would you read?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
That's so incredible, it's fascinating, And I've got all my
psychology books. Anyway, make sure the kids see you reading
instead of staring at your phone. Model it, Model it,
model it. We're almost out of time. The third one,
the third key thing, and I want to share a
story here. We don't have time for it, so I'm
going to do it quickly. Is the importance of autonomy.
I'm a book snob. What I mean by that is
(15:12):
I like to read books that are either outstandingly good fiction,
and I don't read much of that, maybe a handful
of fiction books a year, or I like to read
books that are really intelligently written by really intelligent people
who are going to it's going to change the way
that I think. I like to read really provocative, thought
provoking books. I mean I like to read textbooks and
academic papers. So when we could not get our youngest
(15:35):
daughter to read, and she came home one day with
a graphic novel about dragons, called Wings of Fire. And
when I say this at Parent Knights, Kylie, everybody just
cracks up because everyone knows we's a fire. I was
in san so I'm like, you're not reading this. The
plot's pathetic, the characters are poorly developed, the illustrations aren't
(15:56):
even good, and it's so basic. And you looked at
me and said something like, hay, parenting expert, she wants
to read. Let's just let her read the graphic novel.
And I reckon because it's so short. I mean it's
one hundred and fifty pages or whatever, but it's a
graphic novel. So she read it what four times in
two days? And you, in and of.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Itself, she read it four times in two days.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Which made me angry. You're saying this is great, and
I'm like, no, because it's rubbish, but you sort of
I mean, it's not like you went behind my back,
but you sneakly went down to the bookstore and purchased
the entire series. And she read the entire series what
eight times in a month or something. And then you
came to me and said, have you seen her devouring
these books? And I was frustrated and said they're rubbish.
(16:38):
They're rubbish. I'm not happy about it. Like a couple
of you spent money on graphic novels because I'm a
book snob, and you said, yeah, but she's reading, and
then you went and bought her the first novel. So
these graphic novels have been turned into one hundred and
fifty page books.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Well, they were actually books first.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Oh, is that right?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
The graphic novels came after, and I brought her the novels,
but she wasn't interested.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Okay, so the novel was already there. Yes, So because
she's now read the entire set of graphic novels, she
picked up the first novel and she read it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And that's when I went, I still don't like that
she's reading this stuff, but she's reading real books now.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, the funny thing is we have gone past graphic novels.
Now she hardly picks them up at all, even though
they would be still considered some of her favorites. And
now we're on to five hundred and six hundred page novels.
Just because it's about finding whatever peaks their interest. So
maybe it's automotives, maybe it's dinosaurs, whatever it is. It
(17:35):
doesn't actually matter.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I don't care if it's a magazine, just song is
not online. Keep them offline because research shows that they
process it differently when they're holding paper in their hands.
So that's the only thing I'd say. I know that
some people will be upset about that, but I'm still
a bit of a purist and a little bit of
a snob, and the evidence is definitely in favor of
holding them one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, So it's a whole experience.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
The amazing thing is Kylie, as you said, she's now
reading these huge books, and we are begging her to
close the book and go to bed, or close the
book and get in the car, or close the book
and come to dinner, or I mean, if she walked
to school, we'd probably have worries about her getting hit
by buses, like some of our other kids who have
almost had the same thing happen.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's interesting. We've been to a few appointments lately and
she's been sitting in the reception area reading a book,
and when the doctor has come out to meet with.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Us, double take.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
She's literally she's like, Wow, you don't see that very often?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Oh wow, yeah, yeah, you've never told me that that's beautiful. Well,
we really have. This solves the issue of reading logs.
They're just unnecessary. They put a ceiling on kids' motivation
and interest, and they feel like a chore. They make
reading feel like a chore. There are better ways to
get your kids to love reading. We hope that this
has been helpful. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. More information and more resources
(18:50):
to make your family happier are available at happy families
dot com dot IU
Reading locks for homework. Color it in, make sure you've
done the right amount of time. Is it a good
idea or is it a bad idea? I just sounded
a bit like our kids when they're mad at us.
I'm so ack very.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Today we're going to discuss the question of reading logs
because it came up recently when a parent asked me
at a parent night, what's the deal? How do we
play this? I'm just not sure, but my child chafes
at the reading lock. Hello, welcome to the Happy Family Podcast,
Real Parenting Solutions every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
(00:42):
We are Justin and Kylie Colson.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We love to read in our house. I would actually
say we are voracious readers.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I thought you were going to say ferocious for me.
Voracious is the right word. Yeah, someone must have been
reading big vocabulary. I love it.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
We have six children and every single one of them
are bookworms, to the point where we've had I would say,
numerous children who've almost been run over hit vehicles by
vehicles as they've walked their way to school with their
nose in a book.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
When we used to live in Wollongong, I know I'm
cutting you off. But we had this one daughter who
would read so much she would literally just read as
she walked and literally almost got hit by the bus
more than once because she'd just walked to school with
her nose in the book.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
We've had multiple children with torches under the covers after
lights out all the time, and our biggest struggle has
actually been keeping them in books. In that We've got
a ten year old who's now reading books that are
five and six hundred pages long. Yeah, which means you're
often it's trying to find books that are appropriate for
(01:54):
her age and yet stimulate her reading level. It's a
really tricky place.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'm not going to bury the lead. I'm going to
come out and say it right now at the top
of this podcast episode. None of our kids have ever
filled in a reading log. I have forbidden it. I'm
anti reading log And that's our conversation today. Number one,
what the problem with reading logs is? And number two,
how to get your kids still love reading, which is
something that we've done quite well.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Reading is the key skill to education. It's literally the
gateway to all other skills. And if we can get
this one thing right with our kids, they're going to
make it all right in the world.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I love the way that you said that. Let's go
through some stats. I think there's some relevance here. It's important.
Oxford University Press did some research in Australia with Ossie
families found that twenty five percent of parents only read
to their kids once a week or not at all.
That's a quarter of families and not reading their kids
in any meaningful way on a week to week basis.
(02:55):
Fifty six percent of parents were worried about their own
reading ability and therefore we're unlikely to read to the
kids because they don't like how they read.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That to me is staggering.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
We have an issue in this country with people who
are barely functionally literate. This has been an ongoing issue.
We've got a great education system, but too many kids
fall through the cracks and become adults who really struggle
to read, who don't enjoy reading it all. Happy to
listen to an audiobook, but don't want to pick one
up and read it. Wow. The other thing that came
out here is that only fifty percent of parents are
(03:30):
routinely reading to their young children. That drops to thirty
percent in lower income families. There is a relationship between
socioeconomic status and the amount that you read to your kids.
Something that's also fascinating to me is the relationship between
your education level and your income level and how many
books you've got in your house. So kids that come
from more educated families and wealthier families tend to be
(03:54):
around books a lot, and they reckon that. There's a
word gap between those who are surrounded by books and
those who aren't, those who are being raised in well
educated families and those who aren't. Up to maybe a
million words a year the kids in the lower socioeconomic
groups are missing out on. So if you're not getting
(04:14):
that extra million words a year across a lifespan or
across a decade of childhood, that adds up to an
enormous amount from a literacy point of view. And whatever
it was that you said before about reading being the
gateway to all education, reading is the foundational element of
helping our kids to thrive. You look at those stats
and it's clear, it's abundantly clear. If kids don't read,
(04:40):
then they're not going to become better readers, which means
that they're less likely to become leaders, they're less likely
to do well in any number of other domains doesn't
mean that they can't. It's just harder for them.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So what happened at your recent parent night that has
sparked this conversation.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah. So I've made no secret of this, and I've
been making noise about it fifteen years. I'm not a
fan of homework in primary school. There's just there's not
a shred of credible evidence that supports its use What's
curious to me is when I'm at parent knights now
and I say it all the teachers. I always I
make a big deal that I'm like, oh, no, the
principles here. I hope I'm not going to get kicked out.
(05:16):
I hope that they'll have me back after I say this.
And then I'll talk about how in primary school there's
just no evidence to support its usefulness. And the teachers
all start applauding, but the parents look at me like
I've just swallowed poison in front of them. They can't
believe that I've done it, and they're saying, why would
you say this? Like homework, Homework's great, And so I
talk through all of the research around limited efficacy. Kids
(05:41):
who already know how to do it, it's boring for them.
Kids who can't do it, it's just frustrating, makes them
feel even more incompetent. And then I make a very
clear point. The one thing that is associated with great
academic outcomes in primary school is kids reading. But we
should not be telling our kids to fill in the
homework log, to color in the homework wheel, to show
(06:03):
that they've done their ten pages or their twenty minutes
or whatever they should read because they love it. That's
my emphasis. The principle is always applaud The teachers always say, oh,
thank goodness, because we hate assigning homework and having to
follow up on homework as well. But the reading log
thing really created a bit of a stir at this
parent night recently, and that's why I thought, doctor's desk,
(06:25):
let's do it well.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It wouldn't be a doctor's desk if you weren't referring
to a whole heap of numbers and stats and things
that hurt my brain. What is the research telling us
about reading locks?
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I don't want to hurt your brain. I'm going to
refer to one study, although there are more studies than
just this one. These studies really built out of what's
known as the motivation literature. Okay, so there's a whole
lot of other research that supports what this one study
is talking about. A lot of people say, well, anyone
can find one study that says one thing. So I'm
(06:57):
using this as an example of an entire research body
that underpins what I'm about to say. This is from
Princeton University, So we're talking about a very prestigious university
with excellent researchers. Somebody called Sarah Pack at Princeton did
this research paper looking at the effect of mandatory reading
logs on children's motivation to read. Got a whole bunch
(07:21):
of second and third grade students. They were assigned either
a mandatory log or a voluntary log. They were surveyed
about their motivation to read at baseline, and then two
months down the track once they've been keeping the log
for a couple of months. And here's what Sarah and
her colleagues found. Students with mandatory reading logs expressed declines
in both interest in reading and attitudes towards recreational reading
(07:46):
in comparison to peers with voluntary logs, and attitudes towards
academic reading decreased significantly from pre to post test across conditions.
In other words, by making a child feel in a
reading log, you essentially help them to see reading as
something that is not fun to do.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
This reminds me of the conversation we had with healthy
Cone in relation to punishment by rewards, we're actually suggesting,
by putting a mandatory ceiling on it, whether it be
you read for ten minutes or you read ten pages
or whatever it is, that we actually have to give
them a reason to do it, because doing the task
(08:29):
in and of itself is not stimulating, is not worth
their time actually rewarding. And the devastation of that is
that this study recognizes that previous two having reading logs,
there was actually a level of motivation. It would have
varied from child to child, of course, but there was already.
(08:51):
We're born curious, right, We're born desiring to understand and
know the world around us, and reading is a wonderful
way that we can do that, and we've just literally
chopped it off at the legs.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, it's turning and reading into a chore. And like
you said, it puts a ceiling or a limit on it.
It's kind of like the whole hey, kids, you need
to go and practice the piano for thirty minutes. And
when my mum used to say that I procrastinated, I
fiddled around on the piano as long as I sat
at the piano for thirty minutes, and I watched the
clock the whole time, rather than looking at the music
or considering the music that I might produce. By having
(09:23):
to do it as a chore, it made it horrible
and I couldn't wait to quit the piano. It just
doesn't work. So after the break, let's talk about how
we can help our kids to love reading. Okay, Kylie,
we got to talk about how to help kids to
(09:44):
just fall in love with reading.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So I actually don't have a single memory of my
parents reading to me, and I might be doing them
a disservice, but I don't remember at all being read
to as a child. What I do remember is my
dad used to tell me stories, so he would come
to my bedside and he would share stories with me
by my bedside. As opposed to reading, I don't feel
(10:08):
like as a child I had a great love of
books at all. I wasn't a particularly curious child and
wasn't until I got really, really sick as a fourteen
year old, and one of my leaders from church brought
me a book. I was stuck at home for three
months without being able to go to school. I wasn't
socializing and she handed me this book and I was like, yeah, whatever,
(10:30):
I'm never going to read that. And one day I
was so bored that I picked it up.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I was so bored.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
And I picked it up and I devoured that book
from cover to cover within a couple of days. That
was the turning point for me. And so when I
think about this idea of how we go about creating
a love of reading, for me, having books accessible to
your kids is number one, hands down, such an important
(11:03):
part of that process.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So that ties in with our experience that we shard
on I'll do but it' tomorrow. A couple of weeks ago,
with our daughter, we left the that my gut friends.
I've got friends in my gut that helped me to
be healthy. Whatever that book was, we left it there
so that she would see it, and she walked past
it dozens of times before she finally picked up and
decided to read it. And all of a sudden, here's
this kid who's saying, I need to improve my diet.
(11:25):
I need to get this stuff into my belly because
I've got these gut friends that will do good things
for me if they get the right nutrition and nutrients.
So the accessibility of books is crucial, not.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Having them like you can't have them on the bookshelf
half the time, especially for younger kids.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Because they're just decorative.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, they've got to be within arm's reach.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So recently Emily has loved playing with a lego, but
now that we've got a baby walking around the house,
we've had to put it away and she won't pull
it out because that's too much effort because it's not
in sight.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Reduce the friction, make make it the easy option. And
this is why people are looking at phones right Because
the phones are friction free and they're massively stimulating. You
don't have to do nearly as much work as you
do with other things. You know what, though, it's a
hollow reward compared to what you get from a book.
Let's talk about how to get your kids to love reading.
You don't remember your parents reading to you. From the
(12:21):
time I was born, my parents read and read and
read to me, and I knew my books so well
that if they tried to skip a line because they
were tired, and they were falling asleep on the floor
beside me while they read, I would rouse on them.
I'd get them in trouble and say, no, that's not
what it says, and then I would recite what the
words were on that page because I couldn't read, but
(12:41):
I knew that book inside and out. I know.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
A few years after we got married, your mum sent
us a copy of the Little Golden Book, Donald Duck's
Toy Train.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Donald Duck's New Toy Train. Thank you very much. Yes, Donald,
I'm fifty years old this year. They were reading it
to me when I was three. I still remember the
first couple of pages. Donald Duck had a new Toy
Train and it was a beauty too, And then it
starts describing all the carriages to the little red caboos
on the back, like I still remember it. Like that's
(13:12):
the impact that reading has on you, You remember it
those years later. It bonds you with your kids. Read
Read number one. Read to your kids. Read slower than
you think you need to, so that their minds can
keep up with what you're saying, and use voices and expression.
Ask them questions about the pictures, ask them questions about
(13:34):
the characters, ask them questions about what they would do.
I remember reading The Magic Far Away Tree to the kids,
our kids, and saying things to them like, what would
you do if you were climbing up the tree and
this happened? How would it feel to go down the
slide with Moonbeam or mister sauceman Man or whatever it
is like? Asking them questions as you read, or going
through The Princess Bride and having them terrified about what's
(13:57):
about to happen. It makes the book come alive when
they see your love for it and they see your
interest in not just the book, but in their reactions
to the book. Oh, read to them.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So that's your number one tip.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Have I made that clear?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I'm so passionate about this.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I think number two has to be we have to
model it. They have to see our love of books.
You do a pretty good job of it, because on
any given day there's about.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
There are dozens of books. How many books. I'm usually
reading at least three books at a time.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You are, and they are so varied, there's no it's
there's such an eclectic array of genres and topics at
any given time.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I'm reading a book at the moment called How Infrastructure Works.
You just fell asleep when I said, why would you
read that?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Why would you read?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
That's so incredible, it's fascinating, And I've got all my
psychology books. Anyway, make sure the kids see you reading
instead of staring at your phone. Model it, Model it,
model it. We're almost out of time. The third one,
the third key thing, and I want to share a
story here. We don't have time for it, so I'm
going to do it quickly. Is the importance of autonomy.
I'm a book snob. What I mean by that is
(15:12):
I like to read books that are either outstandingly good fiction,
and I don't read much of that, maybe a handful
of fiction books a year, or I like to read
books that are really intelligently written by really intelligent people
who are going to it's going to change the way
that I think. I like to read really provocative, thought
provoking books. I mean I like to read textbooks and
academic papers. So when we could not get our youngest
(15:35):
daughter to read, and she came home one day with
a graphic novel about dragons, called Wings of Fire. And
when I say this at Parent Knights, Kylie, everybody just
cracks up because everyone knows we's a fire. I was
in san so I'm like, you're not reading this. The
plot's pathetic, the characters are poorly developed, the illustrations aren't
(15:56):
even good, and it's so basic. And you looked at
me and said something like, hay, parenting expert, she wants
to read. Let's just let her read the graphic novel.
And I reckon because it's so short. I mean it's
one hundred and fifty pages or whatever, but it's a
graphic novel. So she read it what four times in
two days? And you, in and of.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Itself, she read it four times in two days.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Which made me angry. You're saying this is great, and
I'm like, no, because it's rubbish, but you sort of
I mean, it's not like you went behind my back,
but you sneakly went down to the bookstore and purchased
the entire series. And she read the entire series what
eight times in a month or something. And then you
came to me and said, have you seen her devouring
these books? And I was frustrated and said they're rubbish.
(16:38):
They're rubbish. I'm not happy about it. Like a couple
of you spent money on graphic novels because I'm a
book snob, and you said, yeah, but she's reading, and
then you went and bought her the first novel. So
these graphic novels have been turned into one hundred and
fifty page books.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Well, they were actually books first.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Oh, is that right?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
The graphic novels came after, and I brought her the novels,
but she wasn't interested.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Okay, so the novel was already there. Yes, So because
she's now read the entire set of graphic novels, she
picked up the first novel and she read it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
And that's when I went, I still don't like that
she's reading this stuff, but she's reading real books now.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, the funny thing is we have gone past graphic novels.
Now she hardly picks them up at all, even though
they would be still considered some of her favorites. And
now we're on to five hundred and six hundred page novels.
Just because it's about finding whatever peaks their interest. So
maybe it's automotives, maybe it's dinosaurs, whatever it is. It
(17:35):
doesn't actually matter.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I don't care if it's a magazine, just song is
not online. Keep them offline because research shows that they
process it differently when they're holding paper in their hands.
So that's the only thing I'd say. I know that
some people will be upset about that, but I'm still
a bit of a purist and a little bit of
a snob, and the evidence is definitely in favor of
holding them one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, So it's a whole experience.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
The amazing thing is Kylie, as you said, she's now
reading these huge books, and we are begging her to
close the book and go to bed, or close the
book and get in the car, or close the book
and come to dinner, or I mean, if she walked
to school, we'd probably have worries about her getting hit
by buses, like some of our other kids who have
almost had the same thing happen.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's interesting. We've been to a few appointments lately and
she's been sitting in the reception area reading a book,
and when the doctor has come out to meet with.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Us, double take.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
She's literally she's like, Wow, you don't see that very often?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Oh wow, yeah, yeah, you've never told me that that's beautiful. Well,
we really have. This solves the issue of reading logs.
They're just unnecessary. They put a ceiling on kids' motivation
and interest, and they feel like a chore. They make
reading feel like a chore. There are better ways to
get your kids to love reading. We hope that this
has been helpful. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. More information and more resources
(18:50):
to make your family happier are available at happy families
dot com dot IU
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