[Foundation-l] Wikikids

[Ray Saintonge]

mathias.damour wrote:

>I don't think that "fragmenting community and leaders" is a
>real danger now that several Wikipedia have reached such a
>huge size both in articles and in editors.
>
>Some people have had the idea to make either special articles
>or a special wiki for children of each grade, or even for each
>grade AND each school. (because you would have to explain in a
>different way to a 9 years old child than to a 12 years old)
>see this discusion:
>http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:Wikis_for_children) I feel that
>it would be "fragmenting community" and that one single
>encyclopedic wiki for 8 to 13 year old children and for one
>language is a fair middle.
>
Having separate articles for kids in different grades, rather than 
having a single project covering a broad age range is not about the 
information; it's about reading levels which can change considerably 
between 8 and 13 years old.  Where a child finds the material too 
difficult, he can be completely turned off from reading.

A local school librarian explained to a meeting of parents how this can 
be a factor for choosing books for school libraries.  One thing they try 
to do, in addition to stocking the library with Harry Potter books is to 
choose other books with similar themes, but with a less demanding 
vocabulary.  These books can be recommended to poor readers so that they 
can feel involved in that type of story, and can be encouraged to keep 
reading.

Ec