No, you can’t have the iPad! A rant about school reading in the digital age.

As an educator, I understand the benefits of online learning tools, particularly the easy access they provide to a wide range of material and information. However, as a parent I cannot overstate how much I hate my daughter’s online reading programme. I’m not going to name it for fear of accusations of online slander, but I hate it. HATE IT. It is the ruiner of evenings, the sucker of time, and the destroyer of the love of the written word.

I’ve decided not to waste my family’s time on it anymore.

As I wrote to the girl-child’s teacher today, “Just thought I'd let you know that my daughter won't be doing her reading for the next week (maybe longer) because there is a blanket iPad ban in our house at the moment, thanks to a couple of pretty extraordinary tantrums.”

Naturally, I made concessions about making notes in her agenda about books read and comprehension attained – BECAUSE I AM A LITERARY SCHOLAR AND ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT THIS – but really and truly, I cannot cope with the iPad wars in the name of education. Just send her home with an actual book.

For those who don’t know these kind of programmes, they’re apps which have a full set of reading books. You work through the lettered levels, like you would with your old printed reading books. They look just like the books and you swipe to turn the page. It’s a solid interface. However, the app my daughter uses reads the book to the child first, then you need to sit with the kid while she reads it, and then there are 5 to 10 multi-choice comprehension questions. It’s a good programme and I’m sure it works well for self-directed learning in the classroom, but at home with reluctant and disgruntled children it takes FOREVER.

Let’s be honest here, a lot of school reading books aren’t the most exciting stories. Well, obviously The Hungry Lambs, Boat Day, The Stars in the Sky, and Sliding and Flying (ooh, mustn’t forget The Sweet Porridge!*) had awesome stories, but that was in New Zealand during my time in primers. These American readers are mostly dull, and as you get up the levels, they’re pretty long.

Photo courtesy of Waterview Heritage Project

My immediate concern with having the story read to my child first was that she avoided having to figure out words for herself, but there are other issues with the interface. It can be hard to track text on a backlit screen (that’s why Kindles are so great), and on an iPad you can’t use your finger to follow the text. Because every time you touch the screen you run the risk of turning the page, which is pretty frustrating for a little kid. Also, if I forget to lock the aspect, every time my daughter turns the iPad slightly, the page flips round. Awesome. Ooh, let’s make an annoying game of that, shall we? Oh, yes, we shall.

Of course, the most galling thing about this app is that it’s on an iPad, and as we know, iPads are portals to child wonderment in the form of games and videos and a misguided perception of cool stuff somewhere else they can’t quite access, so who wants to read a boring school book when you’re on an iPad. Thanks, Steve Jobs. Oh yeah, I know you limited your kids from using your devices, but now the schools have made them compulsory. Cheers for that.

With every story comes bitter complaints for a game. Just one game. Just one.

It’s an iPad. They never want just one game, so soon the whinging and the negotiations and wailings begin, quickly followed by the blind rage of having the precious bloody iPad taken from their singularly focused persons. 

Reading is fun!

But wait, there’s more. While all this is going on, you’re dealing with the other child protesting his lack of the iPad. “But why does she get it? I want the iPad! It’s not fair. I want to read too. I want a game.”

And my boy-child is even worse when it comes to the bloody iPad.

Suffice to say, it’s up high, away, not to be used again. Probably until I get grief from my daughter’s teacher for not doing the reading.

* Let it be known that I did not have to look up these titles from the Ready to Read collection; they were so universally important to New Zealand education and reading that I just know them. I’ll always know them. Here's a picture of The Hungry Lambs, because hungry lambs make me happy about school reading.