Kindles to encourage more reading at Harpenden school

I completely agree with you. Been reading to my son as soon as he was born (maybe for my own sanity at first!). I think the kindles will be interesting for a while, but like you say if the interest is not there then nor is the reading. It has to start with the parents. My son is now 5 and is coming on leaps and bounds in his own reading, and I believe this is down to the fact that he sees myself and my husband reading for pleasure and... he is an Enid Blyton fan too! Although I help him with that one!

Whilst I think the Kindles may stimulate interest in the short term I doubt they will have any long term effect. Interest in reading is more to do with stimulating the child's interest and imagination. This is started before a child can read, probably before they can talk, by their parent's reading to them. Nowadays too many people are too busy (allegedly) to do this regularly. The bond between child and parent is an important part of this and can not be replicated in a nursery or school. Once they get to school the endless obsession with curriculums, targets and assessments can instil a word phobia in some children. This is also not helped by the dull rubbish given to children to read. Mine never had a problem as we read to them from the beginning and always encouraged them by guiding them to interesting books. One teacher tried to pull me up for getting one of my son's reading Enid Blyton – he devoured the Secret Seven – why? A friend's son was struggling and I suggested they try him on something more interesting. His reading ability raced forward after that. If we fail to stimulate children and continually assess them on turgid texts no real progress will be made.