Category — Kids & School

From Green Eggs and Ham to To Kill a Mockingbird, kids seem to pick the classics when it’s time to read, according to a study of 78.5 million books read by more than 3 million children nationwide.

Dr. Seuss’s book was the most popular choice among first graders, Renaissance Learning found. The company, which looked at kids in 9,800 schools for the study, manages a program in which students take computerized reading comprehension quizzes. Students earn points based on the book’s word difficulty, word length, sentence length, and total number of words. Many schools even award prizes to students for their efforts in the program.

Some teachers were pleased with the popularity of To Kill a Mockingbird, which topped the list for ninth-through-12th graders. Others say the book owes much of its success to the fact that teachers make it a requirement. (The report doesn’t distinguish between books that were assigned and those students chose.

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Competition for spots in acceptable state schools is so fierce in Spain, that parents are getting divorces in order to give their children an advantage. Under Spanish law, children living with a single parent get extra points on their applications.

Family courts have noticed that the numbers of official separation rose by 50 percent right before the deadline for school registration. In Spain, spouses can secure a divorce in only five weeks. After school placement is over, officials claim that many couples are back in court seeking reconciliation.

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