Chapter 16 7.Do not read "useful" books

A parent of a first-year junior high school student was worried that his child could not write essays, and asked me how to help his child learn to write essays. When I learned that her child reads very few extracurricular books, I suggested that she strengthen this aspect, and recommended two novels to her.She bought this book for her child. The child read it and liked it very much. After reading it, she wanted to buy other novels to read.She was very happy to call me for that.But after a while, when I saw her again and mentioned the child's reading, she looked sad again, saying that the child doesn't like reading extracurricular books now, and she didn't know what to do.

It turned out that after her child finished reading these two novels, she hurriedly bought an anthology of middle school students' essays for her child.My mother's understanding is that reading extracurricular books is to improve the level of composition. What's the use of just reading novels? Only by reading the composition selection and learning how others write can I learn to write.But the child is unwilling to read the composition selection.Parents put conditions on their children and said: You can only buy other books after reading the composition selection.Although the child agreed at the time, he was reluctant to read the anthology. As a result, the anthology was thrown there all the time. The child no longer mentioned buying extracurricular books, and the reading that had just started was stranded again.

This parent's approach is really amazing. She doesn't understand the nutritional value of novels, and she doesn't realize that reading needs to be accompanied by interest.She thinks that reading novels is not as "useful" as reading essays.This kind of thinking, it's like trying to give your child vitamin supplements, but replacing a basket of fresh apples with a box of preserved fruits, it's a big mistake. I have always disapproved of students reading anthologies, so I never let Yuanyuan read them.Most of her extracurricular reading books are novels, in addition to biography, history, essays and so on.Only in the third grade of high school, in order to grasp the main points of composition writing for the college entrance examination, did I read a book "College Entrance Exam Composition Selection".Yuanyuan’s excellent grades in college entrance examination composition may have something to do with the perfect composition she has studied; but what I want to emphasize here is that without her continuous reading for more than ten years and the well-established good Writing, it doesn't matter how many "full score composition selections" you read before the college entrance examination.

Nowadays, many parents do not pay attention to their children's extracurricular reading, but are keen to buy composition selections for their children and subscribe to composition magazines for primary and middle school students.This is a huge misunderstanding. I have read some anthology and composition magazines for elementary and middle school students, and the articles published on them are of course well-organized. It is not easy for a child to write such words.But no matter how well they are written, they are just some students' exercises, and they are very childish in terms of language, thinking and readability.These things are just exercises, not creations. Except for teachers or editors, who would like to read these things.

What's more, many writers have too much traces of adult guidance, say some insincere words, and even have the relics of the Cultural Revolution and stereotyped accents.It can neither enrich children's knowledge in language vocabulary, nor guide children's progress in thinking, but teaches children to speak false words in writing.Read these things to children, how can they like it. The introduction of many elementary and middle school students' composition selections is very interesting. Three or two people, get a book number, rent a private house, and then distribute letters for essays all over the country in the name of a certain composition competition organizing committee.Basically, anyone who contributes can be selected, and then you will be told how many prizes your composition has won, the winning works will be published together, how much each copy is, and at least how many copies you need to buy, etc.After the parents send the money, most of them can indeed receive the books with their children's works, but the books are very thick, and the words inside are small and dense. Judging from the catalog, there are many winners, and it takes a long time to find them. To find the name of your child.The quality of this composition selection can be imagined.

If the above-mentioned method of paying for publications has been popular for a period of time, it has become a bit clumsy; the following emerging method of paying for publications is more clever, and it is easier to fool parents and teachers. I heard a primary school teacher tell me such a thing.A national educational research institute sent an invitation to her primary school to do a joint project.The content of the so-called "topics" means that primary schools must subscribe to at least 500 copies of a magazine that should be run.This magazine is dedicated to publishing primary school students' compositions, with 12 issues throughout the year, each of which costs 6 yuan.In return for each partner school, each elementary school can publish two or three students' compositions in the magazine or a colorful cover about the school every year.During the period of cooperation, the cooperative school can invite experts from the teaching institute to give lectures at the school, and the fee will be charged separately.Individual teachers will also have the opportunity to sign on the "topics" of the teaching department in the future.The magazine does not publish the compositions of students from non-cooperative schools, and does not issue them to the public (because there is no issue number).

Regardless of whether this can be called a "project", let's just look at what the children gain from the perspective of the students. Each student spends 72 yuan a year to buy this anthology of primary school students' essays, and each school must have at least 500 children to subscribe, so a school will contribute at least 36,000 yuan to this magazine a year.Then only 2 or 3 students have the opportunity to publish their work in this unpublished magazine-this is not the most uneconomical place, the most uneconomical is that such a magazine children will not be interested in reading it , 72 yuan is basically a pile of waste paper.

The teacher lamented how valuable it would be if each child bought two novels with this money, and then brought all the books together and set up a book corner for each class.According to the teacher's understanding, the "subject" of the teaching institute not only cooperates with primary schools, but also cooperates with middle schools, and there are quite a few cooperative units. I asked her strangely, is it not allowed to assign extracurricular tutoring materials to students now? How can the school organize students to subscribe to magazines? The teacher said that the school does not force, and always emphasizes "voluntary".But the teachers couldn't stand the mobilization of the school principals, the students couldn't stand the teachers' mobilization, and the parents couldn't stand the children's demands; coupled with the signs of "subjects" and "teaching institutes", a school with more than a thousand students It's easy to get 500 subscribers together.

I can understand the concern of this conscientious teacher.Replacing daily reading with reading anthologies or writing magazines is a misunderstanding of reading and reflects a shallow understanding of how to develop students' writing skills.It's not that the operators don't understand this clearly. All parties in society have their own interest calculations, and eager for quick success can make people indifferent and blind.The poor children are not only a waste of money, but also a waste of a learning opportunity. The teacher lamented that not only adults, but also children have become utilitarian now.Many children don't like reading outside the classroom, and want to find a shortcut to writing essays. They also think that reading essay magazines can improve their essay writing skills, so they are very enthusiastic about subscribing to this magazine run by the "National Teaching Institute".In fact, she observed that these magazines were in the hands of the children, and they just flipped through them to see if there were any things from the school. As for the contents, almost no one read them seriously.

It is understandable that children do not have the ability to choose, and we have no control over the behavior of the "national educational research institute", but parents and teachers have the responsibility to introduce some good books to their children.In the choice of reading books, at least do not do to others what you do not want.A good-looking novel and a selection of essays are placed in front of you. Ask yourself which one you like to read, and the answer will come out. So the first thing I want to emphasize here is that as a regular reading material, composition selection is meaningless.

There is another situation.Although some parents did not buy selected essays, they only bought selected essays and short stories for their children.They think that children are young and have tight homework, so they are suitable for reading short things.Whenever I see parents choosing books such as Selected Proses of Nobel Prize-winning authors for their children, I can’t help but wonder, should children read them, especially children in elementary school? Considering the continuity and accumulation of reading for primary and middle school students, I think we should focus on reading novels.The first is that novels are more attractive and can be read by children; the second is that a book tells a big story, which can attract children to read hundreds of thousands of words in one go.Most primary and middle school students are not interested in prose, especially translated prose; however, no matter how wonderful the short story is, it will only be 10,000 words at most after reading it.Children can read a big story in one go, but few of them can read 20 small stories in a row one after another.Frequent reading of novels makes it easier for children to develop the habit of reading a lot.Good short stories can be recommended to children, but don't be the main force and the only one. On the issue of what to read, we should not only give some guidance to the children, but also respect the wishes of the children. One of the central purposes is to mobilize the children's interest in reading as much as possible, first consider interesting, and then consider useful. The first novel my daughter Yuanyuan read was Jin Yong's martial arts novels.The reason why I suggested her to read Jin Yong's books was that Jin Yong's novels are full of suspense and interesting plots, which can attract people to read on; moreover, his writing is very standardized, with sophisticated style of writing, and it feels popular and smooth to read; it is full of emotions of love and hate. , in line with children's aesthetic psychology; there are some descriptions of love, but they all have the purity and cleanliness of the world.So I also suggested to many people later, let the children go to Jin Yong. In fact, I am not a fan of Jin Yong's novels. If I saw his works in middle school, I might like them very much, but I have been working for many years when I read his novels, and my reading taste is no longer here.Later, I read two volumes, just to encourage Yuanyuan to read more. As soon as Yuanyuan came into contact with these books, she was really fascinated, and she read all fourteen of Jin Yong's martial arts novels in less than half a year.I thought she should read better books after reading these books, so I recommended a few classics to her, but I found that she was not very interested. One day we saw a set of books selling "Huan Zhu Ge Ge" in a bookstore. She was keen to watch this TV series at the time. Bought a set so she could learn about the storyline before the show aired.I remember that there were many books in the set, and she finished it quickly because she was so interested in the story.At Christmas, I bought the whole set of "My Fair Princess II" as a gift for her. Yuanyuan liked it so much that she finished reading so many books in one go, and more than once.She would often open a paragraph casually and read it for a while with great interest. Many people are criticizing Qiong Yao's novels for being superficial, and criticizing "Huan Zhu Ge Ge" for not having "taste", as if letting children read such books is pointing them out.I think so, whether there is taste or not depends on who it is aimed at.Qiong Yao's works are indeed not the works of Huang Zhong Dalu, but Qiong Yao's writing is also very standardized, mature, and clean. For an 8-year-old girl, she likes cute little swallows and the ups and downs in the plot. This Books are just right for her.As for the "classics", I believe that as long as she has enough reading foundation, she will be interested in some classic works one day. I have met a parent who paid great attention to her child’s reading. She began to tell Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales when the child was in kindergarten. This is a pure text collection of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales and an anthology of essays by the Nobel Prize-winning writer.The result can be imagined, the child "doesn't read extracurricular books well". There is also a parent who bought "Anna Karenina" and so on as soon as he considered that the child needed to read some books. As a result, he also frightened the child directly. These parents provide "classics" for their children, and others may not criticize their choices.Although children don't know which book they need, they know which book they don't need. They have only one attitude towards things they are not interested in: rejection. Therefore, when choosing a reading list for your child, you must understand the child and then give suggestions.Don't choose from the eyes of an adult, and don't use "whether it is useful" as a value judgment. What you need to consider is the child's acceptance level and his interests. I also met a parent who was shocked when she found out that her child in junior high school liked to read the works of Han Han, Guo Jingming and other people who became famous at a young age.In fact, she has never read the works of these people. For some reason, she subjectively believes that these works are unhealthy and uninteresting, and always prevents her children from reading them.As a result, conflicts often arise with the children. The children refuse all the books she recommends, and secretly read the books she does not allow. My suggestion is that if parents read books often, they know which books are good, and they can recommend them to their children; if parents can always recommend books that interest them, the children are actually willing to listen to their parents’ advice. of.However, if parents rarely read books themselves, they should not dictate their children's reading casually. The initiative of choice should be given to the children. The Chinese syllabus promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 2000 stipulated 30 classics that middle school students must read, 15 of which are Chinese and foreign.I don't know if it has been revised in recent years.These 30 books are all classics and can be used as a reference for selection.But whether it is suitable for all middle school students needs to be considered. After all, some works are too far away from the lives of children today, and the readability is not very strong. Maybe it is just suitable for children to read when they grow up. He will never reject something that is really suitable for children. What he rejects is either because the product itself is not good enough, or it does not match his reading ability. Here I would like to remind parents that children must be allowed to buy books in regular bookstores, and not from street stalls or some dubious small shops, in case they buy books with vulgar contents.All books that are bought in regular bookstores and that are of interest to the child should be suitable for him to read. Even for adults, lasting reading interest comes from the "interesting" rather than "useful" of books. Not reading "useful" books does not mean not to choose good books for children, but to take children's interests as the core element in the selection and not use "useful" as the selection criterion. In fact, "interesting" and "useful" are not opposite, interesting books are often useful books.A good novel has no less influence on children's writing than a composition anthology, and even more than an anthology.Mr. Tao Xingzhi once suggested using it as a Chinese textbook.So, I say "not reading useful books" here is an overkill to emphasize the focus on "interesting".Only by being "interesting" can children achieve reading activities; only by realizing activities can they achieve "usefulness". ●As a regular reading material, composition selection is meaningless. ●Considering the continuity and quantity accumulation of primary and middle school students' reading, I think we should focus on reading novels.The first is that novels are more attractive and can be read by children; the second is that a book tells a big story, which can attract children to read hundreds of thousands of words in one go. ●If parents read books often, they know very well which books are good, and they can recommend them to their children; if parents can always recommend some books that interest them, the children are actually willing to listen to their parents' advice.However, if parents rarely read books themselves, they should not dictate their children's reading casually. The initiative of choice should be given to the children. ●Be sure to let children buy books in regular bookstores instead of street stalls or some dubious small shops, in case they buy books with vulgar contents.