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Homework has really changed since Mario Garcia was a kid.

Nowadays, his son, Mario R. Garcia, 14, relies on the Internet as much as, if not more than, his textbooks — at least at home.

Garcia said it's important for parents to show an interest in their children's homework.

Read-i-cide n: The systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools. Reading is dying in our schools. Educators are familiar with many of the factors that have contributed to the decline — poverty, second-language issues, and the ever-expanding choices of electronic entertainment. In this provocative new book, Kelly Gallagher suggests, however, that it is time to recognize a new and significant contributor to the death of reading: our schools.

He suggests parents, teachers and schools are often so focused on academic achievement that they overlook a key tool to keeping children emotionally healthy through adolescence, something that may be more effective than medication or talk therapy. “Schools are naturally keen to promote kids’ academic achievement,” Dr. Bukowski said, “but friendship is something that teachers might want to pay attention to. It’s an important value. People have often said it should be the fourth R; that after ‘reading, writing, ‘rithmetic,’ it should be ‘relationships.’”