Years ago it was ‘Tinkle’ or ‘Chacha Chowdhary’ for the young readers, but today novels by Roald Dahl and JK Rowling are overshadowing the joy of reading comics.
For a student reading is one of the essential parts of learning. These days with the introduction of new curriculums in schools the sphere of reading is broadening up. Now the young readers have skipped to exciting novels from those picture based comic books. The content is attracting them more than the stomach-aching jokes or those adventurous short stories.
The Pioneer talked with some of the young students and also the educationalists of the city to know what trend these so called ‘children’s novels’ have brought in changing the reading habits of a child.
While talking about this, Coordinator of Middle Year Programme (IB-MYP), at Eastern Public School and Cambridge International Examination (CIE) Arshi Shahab said, “Well, first it all depends on the choice of the reader. On second thoughts, I would say that yes, a trend of reading novels more than comics have increased among the young readers. The first reason what I believe is that the youngsters are getting more inclined towards learning literature and developing a good command over the language. Secondly, I think that children enjoy reading these books as they have content.”
As per a research about reading habits of children, it states that boys’ loves to read comics as they enjoy watching pictures and girls are more into reading the content. A good book is always has a salutary effect on the mind of the reader. It elevates the spirit and thought and moreover it will augment the store of knowledge. And so these days novels are more in demand than those story books.
An English educationist Nabeela Khan said, “Earlier comics and short story books had a trend but with the changing time the trend has also changed. Today children want to grab more and more knowledge, they have become tech-savvy and they have interests in all the fields of knowledge. As far as we talk about literature, I believe that ‘novel based children movies’ excite them more to read these books. Moreover, comics are fun-filled but novels have abundance of vocabulary.”
One of the students of an international school Arjun believes of grade 6 that reading Wimpy kid elevates his skills in writing. “I read Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I love its all series and then I try to write my feelings on a piece of paper to improve my writing skills.”
Another student Maryam Khan of grade 5 says that she is a poetic person, as she writes poems at this age. “Roald Dahl is my favourite. His poetries and stories excite me too much and then I am drawn to the world of imagination. I have a small reading hut as well in my room where I read Roald Dahl in peace.”
Reading novels brought a revolutionary change in the personality of children and that is why they are more inclined towards heavy books than fun filled comics.
