Do comic books count?

My children have required daily reading from school, with "advanced reading" level books that they are allowed to choose (from a pre-selected group). These are novel-type books and not always interesting to them, though sometimes. They would prefer to read science and fact-type books regarding different animal/plant species, etc...So we compromise...they "have" to read their required reading during the week until they reach their goal that has been pre-set by their teacher. Weekends, evenings, and any time beyond reaching their goal for the month is free reading - anything they choose. I'm always amazed at how quickly they reach their goal for the day and month so they can read what they choose (which is far better than the school's pre-selected choices because they choose science, history, etc...). We also live about 8 miles from school, grocery store, etc...so a book is always in the van and when we are waiting for dentist/doctor appts. Works for us.

Comic books absolutely do count!!! So do comics from the paper, as far as I'm concerned. We love reading the comics together everyday because it makes the kids think in different ways besides the literal meanings. We also get to share a good laugh together. My older kids grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes. There's some pretty heavy vocabulary in those comics.

Reading anything, even cereal boxes, helps kids learn. Think about the names of vitamins and ingredients in foods. Trying to sound out words like, Riboflavin, is good practice and makes their on grade level words so much easier to pronounce.

Letting them read pretty much whatever they get their hands on is fine with me. As long as they're reading!!!

Comics should absolutely count, as should science books. I was a bit miffed when my son got in trouble for refusing to check out a chapter book at school. He wanted two science books. How he handled the situation didn't help his cause.

In the end, I was upset because he got a mixed message about reading. Requiring a book to be checked out doesn't mean it gets read. The only thing that makes that happen is requiring book reports (and some kids figure out ways around that).

I will say his teacher encourages him to look up science facts on the Internet. He gets some reading done that way. We haven't counted those minutes in his reading log (just science and chapter books), but I'm thinking I should.

I know kids need to learn to read novels so they can learn about foreshadowing and character development, but I don't think we should discourage one kind of reading for another.

I, of course, told my son he had to follow the school rules, but if the science book is all he wants to read at home, that's fine. He's a reluctant reader and I'm not going to make him dislike reading anymore than he does. We do find chapter books that are interesting to him. I'll share more on this in an upcoming blog.

As for the comic genre, popular young-reader novelist Meg Cabot came out with a manga-styled book called Avalon High: Coronation. It's a King Arthur book and pretty cool. I showed it to my son, and he wants to read (partly because of the pictures). It's on our list of things to do.

Arizona Moms Editor Yvette Armendariz shares stories about raising her kids and tips for busy parents in her Time-starved (goddess) Mom blog. She and her husband are raising two children, ages 8 and 11.

Any reading at all counts. As important, a teacher once told me, is to have the child summarize what he or she just read. This builds critical thinking skills that are invaluable. The teacher suggested that as an activity while I'm preparing dinner - my son will read a book as part of his daily homework and then I'll ask him to tell me about it while I'm getting dinner going.

Susie is a discussion leader in the east valley for arizonamoms.com. She has two sons, ages 7 and 3.