Replacing Homework with Comic Books
by Reisa Schwartzman

How about the idea of replacing homework with comic books?

Recently I was reading the article about throwing out homework. As a parent, you juggle the balance between your child’s happiness with your responsibility to ensure that your children are learning what they need to know from school. When our son was in grade 6, he had a teacher that had a wonderful reading program. The idea was that each child had to read with the hopes that the non readers would eventually buy into the program and want to read on their own. Well, every night it was a struggle for us to encourage our son to read independently.

Yes, we did everything we were told since he was born to encourage good reading. We read to him every night, we had him read to us, he saw us reading, we turned off the tv and played games, and limited all the video games as well and did a lot of talking around the table. We had a quality relationship but nothing seemed to make him want to read. Then one day, my husband brought home a comic book. He suggested that our son read the comic books and he did. He got really excited to read Archie every day.

When we went to the parent teacher meeting, the teacher was not too impressed with our reading selection but we promised that our son would also continue to read other books as well. Our son was an average student, with a frustration building up inside as he was not getting the success he wanted from school. We continued to encourage him and kept bringing home the comic books. He kept reading them too!

Why am I telling you this story?

I know how parents and teachers worry about what will happen years later to their children and how you can suffer greatly with the stress that poor performance can bring. Years later, our son found his rhythm. Now he loves to read, and he reads challenging and mind boggling books! He figured out how to make things work for himself with lots of support and loving care but he really decided to do it. He graduated from high school with exemplary marks, was award winning and was accepted to all of his universities that he applied to on scholarship.

Yes comic books are a good way to make someone read. So don’t worry be happy!

About Griddly Games
Griddly Games creates award-winning party and board games that deliver innovative, engaging fun that brings people together while encouraging social interaction, learning, strategy and challenges that anyone (the entire grid of people) can enjoy. To discover more about Griddly Games, visit http://www.griddlygames.com.