The questions remains. Most people teach their young children not to write in books, not to tear or bend pages. As a reading educator this is exactly opposite of what we teach children to do in school in order to comprehend texts. Margin notes and highlighting are two very common comprehension tools teachers give students who are struggling with reading. So what is the right answer? Do you teach a young child that it is not right to mark in a text? In my opinion you should teach ownership skills here. If the student owns the text then he/she has the right to, and should, write in the book. Make those margin notes, underline unknown words, highlight key concepts. I know book purists are cringing here. I do have a few websites to back me up here: Careful Reading and Marginal Notetaking , How to Write Annotations, Annette's Paper Trail.
(To the right is an example of margin notes borrowed from Annette's Paper Trail. Where she discovered that margin notes in older texts are being considered literary archeology.)
What do you think? Can you live with someone writing in a book? What about dogearing a page?
I read with a pen in my hand and plan to teach my children to do the same. The books become my own when I mark them. What will happen to this intimacy with our books when electronic formats for reading become the norm for reading books? Will we be buying Kindles for the classroom, or for placement beside our children's beds as we read them night time stories?
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