Abstract
In spite of employing various reading techniques by teachers to motivate their students, some techniques may be less effective as they tend to repress rather than to motivate reading in children. Educators to some extent could unintentionally deter as opposed to allay the fears of reluctant young readers, consequently hampering the development of their intrinsic motivation for reading. This article sheds light into children’s appreciation of humour and its effect on their reading abilities; children’s reading preferences, and how to motivate them. The benefits and significance of humour socially, and cognitively through the facilitation of playful learning environment , reduction of learning anxiety, and the stimulation of students’ learning motivation, are liable of creating in children the desire for the tickling sensation that accompanies humourous reading materials. An appraisal of global trend of children’s strong preference for funny, riddles and joke books, in conjunction with an overview of the sense of humour, its appreciation and the use of humour as an adaptive mechanism in young readers, are among the noteworthy insights presented for educators to ruminate upon. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; mso-line-height-alt:0pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
Highlights
Humor as simple as it seems has greatly puzzled early philosophers and later psychologist, as it assumes the complexity of the human phenomenon for the intricacy of analysis (Ziv, 1976)
Educators to some extent could unintentionally deter as opposed to allay the fears of reluctant young readers, hampering the development of their intrinsic motivation for reading
Humor studied in relation to creativity revealed that highly creative children have better sense of humor than their peers and a similar correlation was found in another study with undergraduate students (Ziv, Shulman, & Schleifer, 1979)
Summary
Humor as simple as it seems has greatly puzzled early philosophers and later psychologist, as it assumes the complexity of the human phenomenon for the intricacy of analysis (Ziv, 1976). Humor studied in relation to creativity revealed that highly creative children have better sense of humor than their peers and a similar correlation was found in another study with undergraduate students (Ziv, Shulman, & Schleifer, 1979). Results of information gathered on what makes students active readers showed that children like ecstasy and funny (humorous) story books. Addressing the need for more effort in motivating boys to read, the author agreed with a body of literature that centers on the concept of a “good book” which tends to include books that are emotional rather than physical, adding that books with gross humor or scary stories are amongst the most appealing to boys. On a different note, Mohr (2006) in a three-part investigation into first graders’ preferences, selection rationales, and processes when choosing a picture book to own, discovered that most of the children selected informational books, especially animal books , a reaction which is viewed as a contradiction to the popular notion that children especially girls would prefer narratives
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