One of the single most vital skills we can develop is the ability to read. Learning to read is critical for growing, getting a job, a career, and in being able to tell the difference between fact and fiction. It's a critical skill, and tools that help promote those skills are priceless. The sooner in life we develop it, the better off we are. Today, Amazon announced a Kindle designed specifically for kids.
Why I like it:
Anything that promotes literacy for children is a good thing in my opinion. The younger you are, the easier it is to form the neural pathways that lead to learning. Statistics have shown that the sooner a child learns to read the more often he or she learns to read and the greater success he or she has later in school. E-readers make hundreds of books easily available at the touch of a finger. Having access to that many books, that many potential learning tools, could never be a bad thing. It has also been proven that the best way for someone to pull themselves out of poverty is through education. Add to that an allegedly drop-proof case, a built-in dictionary and the entirety of Amazon's library of Kindle books and you have a sure-fire winner.
Why I don't:
I love to read, and I love things that give me access to what I want to read, when I want to read it. As an avid reader, though, I've never quite gotten used to an e-reader. E-readers take some getting used to, and the most unfortunate thing with them is that they take away the visceral feel of holding a book. The smell, the texture of the paper, the weight of it in one's hands... These are all things that have an impact on avid readers. Another problem I have with it is something most would consider advantageous: it's an electronic device. While e-readers have massive battery lives, they still have a limit to that battery life. A paperback is limited by time to read in, not charge on a device. My final problem is the price. The new Kindle Kids Edition comes with a price tag of $200. Not exactly the kind of thing a low-income family can just scrounge up from under the couch cushions. Putting a prohibitive price on education limits who can have access to it and prevents those who need it most from being able to take advantage of it.
The verdict:
The Kindle Kids Edition is a great tool to add to Amazon's arsenal of products, and a fantastic way to get books into the hands of kids a way they won't likely reject outright. And while I understand the reasoning behind the cost, I can only wish it were a little less expensive and a little more accessible to those who would stand to benefit from it the most.
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