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Comment by benihana | Hacker News Reader

I grew up with this show, I always looked forward to watching it in school, and I'd watch it at home as well. I loved the adventures and special effects, and just adored watching it.

Having said that, this show did absolutely nothing for me when it came to reading. It didn't inspire me to read, it didn't get me reading, it didn't make reading exciting for me. None of those elementary school programs (Book-it, book fairs, Reading Rainbow) did. I didn't start reading books until I found books that didn't condescend to and patronize children. When I discovered there were books with real situations and characters that acted real (and featured violence and sex and bad language), that's when I realized that books were good.

It's odd, enjoying this show for its entertainment value, but realizing it was completely ineffective in its goal, especially when so many people seem to think this is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

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My mother gave me a blank check for book fairs and those Scholastic order sheets, and I blame it almost entirely for anything that I've done since. It only dawned on me as an adult how expensive that investment must have been for her at the time. The way I found as a child to find books that didn't condescend to or patronize children was to raise my reading level by reading many, many, books that did accept that I was a child and not a little adult.

I was a few years too old for Reading Rainbow (I was already 7 when it came out) but I enjoyed the theme song and that Kunta Kinte was reading children's books.

My mother gave me a library card, a bicycle, and carte blanche to spend all day every weekend at the library.

I didn't quite realize how much time I spent there until I started having trouble finding books I hadn't read in the YA racks.

> It only dawned on me as an adult how expensive that investment must have been for her at the time.

Isn't this so damn true about so many things, though? I have never contributed to a kickstarter before, but I sure as hell kicked a few hundred in here.

I believe that both Reading Rainbow and Book-it (and of course my parents' support of the programs and of reading in general) were extremely influential to my viewing reading as a socially normal and desirable thing, a viewpoint that was critical to my continued reading through the socially tumultuous years between childhood and adulthood. It rings true to me that I didn't love books until much later when I was able to read really good ones (with the possible exception of Animorphs, which was a great series...), but I really think the goal doesn't have to be to get kids to love books, but rather to get them to avoid following their peers in hating or fearing them.

Maybe, but your conclusion doesn't follow from evidence. For one, you might have been too old for the show. For too, how is that the Reading Rainbow stories were engaging to you, but the content of those same books was not?

Perhaps Reading Rainbow showed you that there are some books that are good, and it was a positive force that was temporarily overwhelemed by the negative force of the poor selection of books you found.

It also seems unlikely that in elementary school your problem with books was "not enough sex"

Huh, after reading this, you've crystallized my own feelings towards this show, which are almost identical.

The Goosebumps series was the perfect segway to loving reading for me: the idea that kids could get into, and then get themselves out of, dangerous situations that parents didn't respect or understand (though they too were often in danger they didn't realize), being classified in the "scary" genre, and the subtly charged boy/girl relationships (without being overtly sexual) made them much more interesting than typical 7-10 year old material.

I tried out the current Reading Rainbow app a few months ago for my brother (who was around 8 at the time), and he had absolutely no interest in it. Maybe I'm just overestimating the age of Reading Rainbow's target demographic?

That's funny, because I would call Goosebumps typical 7-10 year old material.

It was ineffective for you. A little bit of observation bias, perhaps?

Not surprising to hear that about Book-It specifically. Book-It hasn't been shown to be effective, and may have made kids less likely to read[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_Hut#Book_It.21

It's anecdotal, but one of my best friends would read something like a book a week because he got to look forward to pizza every weekend if he did. His reading comprehension speed is 4-5 times that of mine as a result today.

Definitely not the same for me. Book-it...er pizza was amazingly motivating as child. So much so that when my wife noted that I was reading enough a few years back, I said get me a pizza for every book I finish. I finished more books that year than any in my adult life. Having said that, it was sustaining and I've now retreated back to reading HN most of the time!

You know, I saw this, and I felt exactly as the first part of your post sounds. But I never thought of it in terms of the second. Interesting.

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