Reading Is Out of Style

    I'm sitting here watching "You've Got Mail" and thinking about the fact that children reading continues to have a downward trend. Though books like Harry Potter and the Twilight Saga has reopened the doors to reading books most kids/teens stop at these books and don't bother to open up another one. It's a shame because I can't help but think about all the adventures they're missing out on. However, though I know laziness can have a huge part in keeping kids from reading, I think that most of the fault lies with parents.

    Most busy and hard working people barely have much time to eat let alone spend hours with their kids teaching them to read. Obviously I'm thinking more about kids as young as four barely starting out with school. These are the kids that absorb the most but often absorb the wrong things. I have a cousin who was about three and already she knew her ABC's. Another cousin of mine, same age, had no idea how to recite the ABC's. The schools here aren't exactly great but they're not bad.

    I think in order to get around freely in their daily lives (parents less prepared to actually have kids are more prone to doing this) parents rely on T.V. and movies and other similar forms of entertainment to keep their kids busy. We start them out too early on Television and video games. I love video games and I love T.V. and movies but as a child I also remember constantly being with a book in my hand whether that was Dr. Seuss, Amelia Bedilia, or in my later years Harry Potter.

    There so much difference from the life I grew up with and the life that, say, my nephew is currently leading. Sattelite, Cable…I never had that. We grew up with a T.V. antennae where ten channels were all we had. The only time I really enjoyed T.V. was Saturday morning when I'd get up at seven just to sit in front of the T.V. to watch cartoons until around one o'clock when all the "adult" programs started. And any other time I watched T.V. was when I got out from school for an hour or two and most of the time it was PBS (with the exception of Sailor Moon and Gargoyles). The rest of my time was spent outside, running around, getting scars.

    I came in sweating and dirty. The only time I played video games was when I could sneak in a few minutes when my brothers were out. Then when that got boring enough (playing video games alone can be fun but only for a while) I would go outside. My brothers and I spent our time plucking the little green balls from the tree in the front yard and pelting them at each other. Those things hurt! But it's something I wouldn't trade in for anything. My nephew is five years old and still can't read. I hear my brother trying to tell him about how important reading is but even he doesn't read. I have a cousin who cringes at the thought of reading. When did it become un-cool to enhance one's vocabulary? When did using one's imagination go out of style?

    This is just my little rant. Reading isn't a fad people. It's something we'll always have to do.