Getting Children From Low-Income Families To Read: Book Analysis

The title of the article read is “Getting Children from Low-Income Families to Read: What Works”. It was written by Janet Siew Poh Law and published in the Journal of Reading and Literacy in 2012. The article focuses on getting children from low-income families to read. Law also talks about why it is important for children to read and how people of all walks of life can help children. The author has the thesis statement of “Therefore, there is a compelling need to get children to read, especially those from families with low incomes” (Law, 2012, p. 8). The author has several key ideas which include how reading and academics are related, at-risk children are usually from low-income families, at-risk children need the most help, and some ways
In addition to being convincing, the article was well researched with many reputable resources. Additionally, Law provided her own data from the results of kidsREAD program instead of leaving the reader to wonder what the results looked like. In my opinion, Law could have compared the end results with children of middle to upper income families. By doing that, we can see if the children from low-income families are almost caught up to their classmates. It would also show if the one-hour weekly reading session helped or hurt the low-income students. While reading the article it felt like low-income and at risk was repeated multiple times. Yes, research is important and so is the data to back it up, but nearly two pages of repeating it for two pages is a little much. It can make readers stop reading the article if they feel it will only repeat what has been said. Despite the repetition, the article was not one sided as it focused on low-income and at-risk students. Had Law talked more about upper income children the article would have a more one-sided feel to it. Once I got past the repetition of
Personally, I wanted to see the results of the program and if it did help children like it claimed. Law also explained how the kidsREAD program helps children in addition to giving ideas on how to get it started around the world. If I were given the opportunity I would ask Law for ideas on how to do this with middle grades, as many middle grade students still need help with reading. I would also ask if she thought how reading for one-hour twice a week would affect the children. The one thing I did realize after reading the article is that reluctant readers should be treated as their own case. It did raise some questions about reluctant readers, such as what is the difference between a reluctant reader and a shy reader? I know there are some students who can read to themselves quite well but when asked to read out loud it trips the child up. So, how can we help them without forcing them to read out