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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014 | D1
Summer Reading for Parents
A Flood of Children’s Learn-to-Read Books Makes Choosing the Right Ones Difficult
Violette Taylor, a children’s librarian, was getting ready for
summer at the Capitol View Library, in Washington, D.C., unrolling a bright banner promoting
“Fizz, Boom, Read,” a children’s
reading program emphasizing science. She sorted books according
to different reading levels in red
and yellow carts. And she braced
herself for the barrage of questions from parents eager to pick,
without help from teachers, the
right books for children to immerse themselves in on a hot afternoon.
Selecting books children can
read and enjoy largely on their
own is harder than it seems.
“There is a big difference
between reading levels,”
Ms. Taylor says. “We are
trying to help parents navigate through this.”
Publishers are trying,
too. They are filling shelves
with “leveled readers,”
learn-to-read books that are
labeled by number or letter
and designed to match children’s differing reading skills.
The books’ colorful badges can
be confusing, though. Each
publisher has its own labeling
scheme, and there is no movement toward aligning them.
Random House, owned by Germany’s Bertelsmann SE & Co., is
revamping its beginning reader
series “Step Into Reading,” with
new cover designs that have tabs
classifying them as “Sports
Reader,” “Comic Reader” or other
genres, so parents can get a quick
idea of what is inside. Books display the publisher’s own colorcoded reading stages, plus the
Fountas & Pinnell grading system
that many schools use. In July,
Random House will put out an
early reader starring a character
from picture books, Rocket, a dog
who loves to learn.
“When the marketplace is being flooded by a lot of competitors, you have to up your game,”
says Mallory Loehr, editor in chief
of Random House Children’s
Books.
Some parents complain that
children don’t seem to read much
anymore, but that hasn’t dampened publishers’ output of new
leveled readers. New titles from the top nine
leveled-reader publishers
on Amazon.com grew 68%
for the two-year period
ended in 2013, compared
with the previous two-year
period, says Seira Wilson,
an Amazon books editor.
Meanwhile, the number of all
new U.S. titles, published
electronically or in print, for
readers from ages 5 to 7 grew
4.6% from 2009 to 2013, according to Bowker, the New
Providence, N.J., bibliographicdata provider.
Behind the demand is many
Please turn to the next page
BY JOANNA STERN
When people are
considering a new
smartphone, they’re
constantly asking me
“iPhone or Galaxy S?”
But people searching
for a new tablet never ask “iPad or
Galaxy Tab?”
With its relentless marketing and
range of products, Samsung has taken
the lead in the global two-horse
smartphone race. But the tablet market is different. It’s still very much
Apple’s iPad versus the others. Although Samsung has, globally,
reached the No. 2 spot in tablet sales,
it has yet to gain real mindshare.
It’s not for a lack of trying. Keeping up with Samsung’s interminable
stream of tablets is like trying to
keep track of “Fast and Furious” sequels. In the time it has taken Apple
to release seven iPad models, Samsung has released nearly 40 distinct
models—10 in the past six months.
But with its newest Galaxy Tab S,
Samsung has finally decided to apply
its successful Galaxy S smartphone
strategy: Build a premium, flagship
product with better specs than Apple’s,
and then market the heck out of it.
Yes, I said “better.” Arriving in
Hello, Old Friend!
‘Olivia Goes to the Library,’ a Level One book by Lauren Forte and Jared Osterhold in Simon & Schuster’s Ready-to-Read program,
features the familiar pig, with few words per page and simple pictures. It is easier to read than a Level One book by other publishers.
In the Real World
‘Koalas,’ a Level One book by Laura Marsh from National Geographic Readers, is one of the many new nonfiction books for children.
The writing is slightly more complex, with more difficult words and more text per page.
The Tab S has aped many of
the Galaxy S’s successful
hardware features, matched
the iPad’s battery life and
beaten it on screen quality.
stores next month, the Tab’s hardware is an improvement over any
preceding Samsung tablets, including
a higher-resolution and brighter Super AMOLED screen, and a sleeker,
more svelte design. It also boasts
many features the iPad lacks, including a fingerprint sensor, a splitscreen app mode and multiple-user
account support. And even though
both models are slightly larger,
they’re priced the same as Apple’s
iPad Mini and iPad Air: The 8.4-inch
model starts at $399 and the 10.5inch version at $499.
The Tab S has aped many of the
successful hardware features of the
Galaxy S line of phones, matched the
iPad’s battery life and beaten the iPad
on screen quality. But the tablet’s
downfall is the same as Samsung’s
flagship phone: sloppy, subpar software.
I like to imagine that deep in Samsung’s labs, some mad scientist aimed
his “Honey, I Blew Up the Kids” contraption at the Galaxy S5 smartphone
and out of a billow of smoke emerged
the Tab S. The tablet has the same
plastic dimpled back, rounded rectangular home button and metallic frame
as Samsung’s newest phone.
However, at 0.25 inch thick, the
Tab S is actually thinner than the
smartphone and noticeably lighter
than Apple’s tablets. Both Tab S sizes
Please turn to page D3
It Cleans, Polishes and Scrubs: It’s a $27 Cloth and Water
Cleaning products tout a litany of
powers: fast action, germ fighting
and pleasant fragrance. How could
the house get as clean with just water?
Makers of microfiber cloths, fancy
sponges and high-tech brushes claim
their tools can do just that. Spritzing
some water—and splurging on a $113
mop or a $27 dusting cloth—can
achieve a sparkling home, these companies say.
There are different sponges for
scrubbing stainless steel, granite or
stove tops, and specialized towels for
mirrors, furniture and kitchen counters. Also, each room should have its
own cleaning cloth, preferably in different colors to avoid mix-ups, companies say.
A big challenge is convincing people to forgo the fragrance of traditional cleaners. For many, a scent of
pine, lemon or tropical breeze is a
lasting payoff for their efforts and a
bragging card to others that a room
has been recently cleaned.
The target audience for the new
products is people concerned that
chemical cleaners could pose harm to
their families, pets and the finishes
of wood floors, countertops and appliances. Increased scrutiny of household products’ ingredients, including
the Food and Drug Administration’s
current safety review of triclosan,
which is found in antibacterial soaps,
has prompted consumers to rethink
how they clean their homes.
Manufacturers of cleaning chemicals say their solutions are safe.
“There’s a lot of research, development and testing that goes into these
products before they’ve hit store
shelves, and they are safe when used
as directed,” says Brian Sansoni, a
spokesman for the American Cleaning Institute, a trade group. The industry emphasizes the health benefits of disinfectants and antibacterial
soaps because they kill harmful
germs.
KimberLee Torkko, a 57-year-old
bookkeeper, said concerns about
chemicals led her to cut back on
cleaners after she and her husband
built a new home in Ashland, Wis., a
few years ago. Now she cleans her
counters, windows, mirrors, floors
and furniture with microfiber cloths
dampened with water. She credits
her new approach with reducing her
allergy symptoms, preserving her
new floors and shortening her cleaning time. “Those cloths pick up everything,” she says.
Microfiber cloths are typically
made of nylon or polyester fibers
that are frayed into myriad microscopic strands. The tiny strands and
the spaces between them are intended to lift and trap dirt and germs
and absorb liquids. By contrast,
chemical cleaners typically dissolve
household messes and kill germs on
contact.
Microfiber-cloth brand e-cloth,
made by EnviroProducts Ltd., of England, promises “perfect cleaning with
just water.” The strands of its microfibers are 1/200th the diameter of a
human hair, and cloths carry 1.6 million fibers per square inch. As those
strands are wiped over a hard surface, they remove over 99% of bacteria, the company says. “These small
fibers have a drawing power like a
magnetic pull,” says Allan Coviello,
chief executive and owner of
TADgreen Inc., the U.S. distributor
for e-cloth, which sells for $7.99.
Cleaning with microfiber cloths
took off in Scandinavia in the 1990s
and soon after came to the U.S.
mainly through specialty stores, direct sales and commercial-cleaning
suppliers. Today, microfiber and
other chemical-free cleaning tools,
while still a small percentage of overall cleaning-product sales, are available widely on the cleaning-supply
shelves of major retailers.
Scientists for years have studied
microfibers’ ability to remove germs.
The findings have prompted hospiPlease turn to the next page
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3
4
No Chemicals: 1) Bathroom cloth by Zabada,
$30; 2) Dusting cloth by Casabella, $9.99 for
two; 3) Dusting mitt by Norwex, $16.99;
4) Cleaning cloth by e-cloth, $7.99
F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas
BY ELLEN BYRON
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F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas (4)
BY CECILIE ROHWEDDER
From Another
Galaxy, A
Worthy Rival
To the iPad