Some children are voracious readers. They look beyond the vast size of the Harry Potter or Twilight series and focus on the stories themselves. They see reading as an adventure, and the bigger the book, the bigger the accomplishment. Other children are reluctant readers. They read what they have to for school and nothing else. They see reading as a chore instead of a pleasure. The Kindle has the ability to change that mentality. Readers see the book one page at a time on the Kindle, instead of a large 500 page book. By breaking the book down into smaller chunks, the book is perceived as less intimidating.
On the Amazon Kindle forums, there is a story written by the mother of a young teenager who does not like to read. But once she tried the Kindle, she was hooked. The post on the forum also pointed out the font adjustment feature on the Kindle. Setting it to a larger font size equates to easier reading. Many posters in the forum alluded to the fact that making the font larger does the trick.
Considering that the Kindle is not a book, but a container for many books, kids can find their niche in reading. They have a large selection to choose from. So, if one kid likes fantasy, they can quickly choose Harry Potter, or if another prefers the Chronicles of Narnia, then it is right there as well. The Kindle has great potential to be incorporated into the classroom. Young readers will have vast libraries of books right at the click of a button.
I’m buying my first k2 for my son who will be 13 next week. My thoughts on why a kindle and why now I think is interesting. My son loves to read and he consume’s a large number of books. My thought is that he’s at the age where the books he reads, he’ll want to keep and reread forever. By getting him the kindle now, he’ll always have them in the kindle ecosystem. So when he’s older, he won’t have dusty boxes in the basement, but a live collection that is easily browseable and transferable to the device-du-jour. Just my $.02. I’ve collected a bunch of book suggestions, and I’m committed to buying $100 in books to preload the kindle. See a share of the suggestions here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/RWC9QHS797617/ref=cm_sw_em_r_lm
Interesting that Harry Potter is cited since Rowling has not made the books available as ebooks.
As a school librarian I have experience with helping children (including avid and reluctant readers) select books. You’ve brought up some very valid points about book and font size.
Many times I will help a student find a book that might interest them, but they look at the number of pages or the size of the font and don’t want to read it, even though both their teacher and I agree that it is at their individual reading level. The kids don’t hesitate to say that the book is too thick or they think the font is too small.
By the way, it works in reverse also. Younger children often try to pick large books with small words because they think it will make them seem like good readers or they want to emulate older siblings/friends. If all the kids were reading on Kindles, it would negate the entire size / font issue. Sometimes perception is everything.
A larger font or a different level of contrast between ink and paper are often helpful for children who have difficulty with reading.