The POWER of Picture Books v. High-Stakes Testing & Common Core
In 2010, I read an article in The New York Times that both saddened and infuriated me. In “Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children” by Julie Bosman we learned about a bookstore in Brookline, MA, a beautiful community surrounded by Harvard, MIT, Tufts, etc., where parents were rejecting picture books. They skipped buying them for their children in favor of chapter books.
Here’s why:
Parents have begun pressing their kindergartners and first graders to leave the picture book behind and move on to more text-heavy chapter books. Publishers cite pressures from parents who are mindful of increasingly rigorous standardized testing in schools.
Picture books v. high-stakes testing–what an awful switch for children. Pushing them this way meant they would miss out on the beauty and wonder of picture books, and they would lose an important precursor to learning how to read.
What about picture books five years later?
In response to The New York Times report, a group of children’s book authors and illustrators got together to call November Picture Book Month. I decided to write The POWER of Picture Books v. High-Stakes Testing & Common Core: