Club Penguin Times

Thanks to Izzy Neiss for the link to the piece on newspaper reading in Club Penguin. I have been observing children reading and writing in Club Penguin this summer and they do find the newspaper, the 'Club Penguin Times', an interesting read. However, they report feeling a little dispirited that the poems and stories they submit to the paper don’t get published. No wonder if there are 30,000 submissions a day. And people bemoan the apparent lack of interest children have in writing and reading outside of school…As long as people continue to equate reading solely with extended printed texts on paper, we will continue to read scare stories such as this. Maybe the 'Club Penguin Times' could publish a different kind of report about children's engagement in reading?