I like textbooks for many reasons. Textbooks are designed to develop very specific skills. When the kids want to work on any specific skills, textbooks are very helpful. Often when a child asks for a resource to learn a specific concept, we give books from 1 to 10 levels, they choose which level they want to start and end.
Few kids want to work on ‘reading’. One of them knows basic reading but when he started with English text book, he expressed ‘It is difficult, read and remember and give answer; He is practicing with text books to master the ability to comprehend.
Another child can also read, he wants to work on speed reading and reading bigger books like novel. He began with reading novel and found it difficult to comprehend. We began with text books to practice comprehension – all we need is the practice to read, understand and answer the question based on understanding. When this child is not able to give answers, he again goes back o reading. He has not come back to me for any other help except me giving that book that to him.
One child started with learning Hindi and using different level books to practice. With the support of some more Hindi resources he is able to work on his own using structured text books to guide him. I guess there is no issue with textbooks, for some reasons they have remained a tool to pass examination and are hated by some of the kids for the same reason. Remove the external reasons (examinations) and bring internal reasons (I want to develop that skill) and see the magic of text books. In all the above cases textbooks are actually helping them to learn independently.