The television shows and books people have today are nothing compared to what our parents had growing up. Nowadays, the adults scoff at the modern-age children rotting their brains with the shows on television like Spongebob. However, parents should know that letting kids subject themselves to those books and animations are important for the development of reading comprehension and critical thinking skills even if those shows seem like garbage in an adult’s point of view.
In the U.S., anime has been gaining immense popularity due to their increased accessibility. This leads to the problem of parents having their kids become obsessed with manga and anime. This causes the parents to force their children to put away the comics and pick up a real book. Some are even terrible enough as to throw them out when they begin to pile up. However, keeping kids away from their anime and comics is a terrible thing to do!
In manga, reading and rereading the same manga over and over again is the best way for children to naturally develop their language skills. It helps the child pick up on the deeper meaning behind those words. Every time a child wants to reread a manga of their choice, they discover something new. The words make more sense and the meaning behind them become much more clear. Also, they are also learning in a way that they love so they wouldn’t toss it aside like a textbook.
But what about anime? Anime uses pictures to convey its story rather than writing, but it also has ways of increasing a child’s reading comprehension. The secret is providing discussion that leads to critical thinking.
If a kid is interested in an anime, then they would start asking all sorts of questions that leads them to thinking critically. Simple questions like, “What was the most interesting part?” or “I wonder why the character did that…” can inspire critical thinking in children.
In addition, anime and manga can also drastically broaden a child’s vocabulary. In anime and manga, there are words such as “valiant,” “diligent,” or even “prosperous” that are taught in schools for vocabulary. As you can see, this proves the usefulness of anime in education taught in a more creative perspective.
Therefore, there’s no reason for parents or any adult to separate kids from what they’re actually interested in. With manga and anime in particular, there’s great potential for developing language skills!
Anime Critic 