[HPforGrownups] Re: Was US POA audio modified from UK or US print?

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 95428

On 7 Apr 2004 at 19:10, thetruthisoutthere_13 wrote:

> Now, my nephew is a smart enough kid--he's not a genius, nor is he 
> an idiot--and has always been stronger in math than reading. For 
> years, no one could get him to read (and it never helped that his 
> custodial parent isn't a huge fan of education). So over one summer 
> break, my brother bought the first HP book for his son, and the kid 
> struggled through it, and immediately wanted to read the other 
> books. If the books hadn't been changed, it would have been 
> considerably harder--and remember it was already a struggle--for my 
> nephew. However, the same struggle wouldn't have existed for a child 
> in a similar situation in the UK, because s/he would have understood 
> the slang more easily, and wouldn't have been lost in the small 
> details, like jumper versus sweater

I don't really want to go too much into the theory of teaching 
literacy - partly because a lot of it is very controversial - but 
there's a school of thought (and this doesn't just apply to 
literacy education - that's just the context I've most studied it 
in so far) that it is *very* important educationally for children 
to be challenged by at least some of what they are reading - not 
too challenged to the point they give up - but they'll learn most 
effectively when they have to stretch themselves a bit. It sounds 
to me like your nephew encountered this with Harry Potter - and 
that's great. But I'd like to point out that - well, if he'd been a 
year younger when he encountered it, even with the changes, it 
might have just been too hard for him. If he'd been a year older 
when he first encountered it, he might have been able to handle it 
far more easily.

It seems to me that the reason this book was appropriate for your 
nephew had just as much to do with the time he was introduced to 
it, as the language. By happy coincidence, or possibly by planning, 
he was ready for that book - with work, yes, but it was possible.

His age when introduced was every bit as important as the language 
used.

Making a book easier to read is not necessarily a positive thing - 
because while it may make the book more appropriate for children at 
the same level as the 'new' version, it may make it less 
appropriate for children than the 'unaltered' version.

It comes down to the individual kids. There's no magic point, 
unfortunately - I wish there was.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia