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Calling Comic Book People
Oct. 8th, 2012 05:09 pmI do tutoring for kids who speak English as a second language. My kiddos are 4-6th graders, so roughly ages 9-12. They are not great readers; they're probably all about a grade level or so behind. But, they've all reached the age where it starts to matter what they're reading in order to save face with their classmates. In other words, while in 2nd or 3rd grade, it's not such a big deal to not quite be reading chapter books, but in 4th or 5th grade, you apparently get made fun of for reading the easy reader books while everyone's moved on to real chapter books. So, my kids get the chapter books out of the library for their independent reading, but they're still a little too hard for them, and while they can read most of the actual words on the page, they don't always know what's really happening in the story. Therefore, they struggle, it's hard, and they don't like to read. This is a bit of a problem, because as we all know, reading is pretty damn important and it only gets more important as they move into the higher grades. So, I spend a lot of time trying to encourage them to practice their reading skills.
I was thinking, while I was browsing in the library today, that maybe graphic novels might be more attractive to these kids than straight prose. The thing is, I know very little about graphic novels/comic books. It's just never really been my thing. I have no idea what's good and what's not good, and where to start looking for things that would be age appropriate. I know that fandom in general is often very comics conversant, so I'm hoping by throwing this out here, someone might have some suggestions for where to start. Again, these kids are between 9 and 12 years old. I would like to err on the side of more G to PG rated, particularly since the tutoring is sponsored through a church program. We're pretty liberal folks- Episcopalians- so magic on the order of Harry Potter type things is fine, but I don't want to push boundaries on sex and violence with other people's kids, you know? Have any suggestions? Know someone who does? I'd love to hear about it.
I was thinking, while I was browsing in the library today, that maybe graphic novels might be more attractive to these kids than straight prose. The thing is, I know very little about graphic novels/comic books. It's just never really been my thing. I have no idea what's good and what's not good, and where to start looking for things that would be age appropriate. I know that fandom in general is often very comics conversant, so I'm hoping by throwing this out here, someone might have some suggestions for where to start. Again, these kids are between 9 and 12 years old. I would like to err on the side of more G to PG rated, particularly since the tutoring is sponsored through a church program. We're pretty liberal folks- Episcopalians- so magic on the order of Harry Potter type things is fine, but I don't want to push boundaries on sex and violence with other people's kids, you know? Have any suggestions? Know someone who does? I'd love to hear about it.