Flannery O'Connor on the teaching of literature in school:
"And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed."
Forcing kids to read things they hate just simply doesn’t work. Our reading philosophy at Alpha is simple: kids learn to love reading by reading what they love.
Sure, it’s important for kids to be exposed to classic literature. But being forced to read highbrow literature as a young teen is often the very thing that makes kids hate reading in the first place. Many of them never bother picking up a novel again. If the goal is to have students fall in love with reading and become life-long readers, then we should cater the material to their interests. Whether it’s comic-books, books about insects, or a biography on the Kardashians, there has to be a better way.
We built our own app called Teach Tales to solve this problem.