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How to Breed Passionate Bookworms
Developing reading skills can be fun. Here are great ideas for encouraging your children to love reading from an early age
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This is the house that Jack built
This is the malt that lay in
The house that Jack built.
This is the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built
Outdated nursery rhyme, you may think. Not according to Cape Town librarian and early literacy expert Sharon Geffen. A rhyme like this “teaches sequencing, while others teach counting skills”. After chatting to Sharon I’m off home to dig out my childhood collection of nursery rhymes so I can start reading them to my 20-month-old son.
According to Geffen, nursery rhymes help children learn the skill of retaining info, which assists with both contents subjects and languages. And she knows what she’s talking about. She’s been running baby and toddler story time groups for the past 16 years. Her “pilot group” just finished high school – “this little girl matriculated with seven As, and so did this one,” she says, pointing out their photos in an article published about her story hour, when the children were still in preschool. Although she won’t take credit for their success, she is certain a culture of reading has played an important role.
“The skill of reading is the heart of all learning,” says Dr Louis Naudé, a Cape Town-based cognitive and remedial consultant. “In learning to love reading and improving one’s ability to read, competency is built in understanding the written word and in doing so children become more competent scholars.”
Developing pre-reading skills, however, doesn’t need to be all about work – especially not for the child. “Listening to stories, rhymes and ‘playing’ with sounds and words form the foundation for learning how to read, which is associating letters with sound,” says Naudé. “The more exposure to reading a child gets, especially if it is done in a playful and fun way, the more familiar he or she will become with the skill of reading. Plus it will be associated with their natural development of language, a process that starts at birth and is something children love.”
And that’s what we’re aiming for: engendering a love for reading in our young ones, a connection with words and other worlds that will, hopefully, help them at school, but as importantly, will set them on a journey of discovery. “Reading is a world like no other. You can taste riches, go anywhere, it takes you places,” says Geffen.
Breeding bookworms
So how can we introduce our children to reading in such a way as to ignite in them a passion and love for reading?
“Start early, right from birth, by reading aloud to your child,” says Naudé. “Reading for children should be seen as fun, not a chore,” Naudé continues, but just how can we make it such? “Delight them,” says Geffen, “don’t just fill them with facts. Change your tone of voice often and use different voices for the different characters.” Stories reflect emotions and attitudes, as we narrate stories we can use our voices to dramatise these. So throw off your inhibitions – and welcome audience participation.
Make reading a part of your day every day, “especially at bedtime,” suggests Naudé. Or build in a cuddle and story with Mom during the early morning bottle. How about a Dad’s-just-back-from-the-office story each evening? Create an enjoyable and affectionate interaction, and your toddler “will grow up associating these good memories with reading,” says Geffen. Most importantly, says Naudé, “let your child see you read. Share your love of books with them.” Introduce a reading hour for the whole family once a week at the same time and talk to each other about what you are reading, suggests Naudé.
Always have books around the house that your child can pick up and page through, suggests Tandi Erasmus of The Story Club, a Durban-based “book club” for children aged three to six. This doesn’t need to cost you a fortune: visit your local library, check out the children’s shelf at your second-hand bookstore or swap books with friends.
It’s easier to encourage reading when children are excited by the topic. “Learn what excites your child and select books according to these interests,” says Naudé. “My oldest son loved dinosaur books, whereas the younger one has always enjoyed trains and fell in love with the Thomas the Tank Engine series,” says Erasmus.
Choose age-appropriate books. Babies, for instance, need books that “are durable, in bright colours, with minimal text and with pictures of concrete, recognisable things (such as animals or household objects)”. Geffen suggests not reading fairy tales to children younger than four years of age. Sensible advice if I think of how I, at nearly double that age, would remove the Town Magicians of Bremen from my bookshelf and push it out into the passage, so did the folk tale haunt me. “A good book for two-year-olds?” I ask. “The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle,” she suggests, “or Virginia Miller’s Bartholomew Bear: Five Toddler Tales.”
If a younger child wants to hear their favourite book over and over again, bear with them, cheerfully and animatedly, of course. The repetition “is reassuring, and they’ll move on to the next book when they are ready,” says Erasmus.
“Give books as gifts and ask relatives to do the same,” says Naudé. Involve your child in selecting the book. Go to story time at your library or bookshop, or take them to “meet an author at a book launch; talking with other children about books may inspire them,” says Naudé.
“If you have a child who seems to be uninterested in listening to stories try buying good children’s magazines – they are sure to find an article that captures their attention,” says Erasmus.
Consider having a weekly television-free evening, let each child choose a book and spend the time reading. “Even my oldest daughter, who’s 13, participates happily,” says Erasmus.
“If your child has readers from school try ‘buddy’ reading: they read a page and then you read a page – this can make reading homework more fun. Always praise and encourage your child as they learn to read and never compare them to siblings or friends,” says Erasmus.
Both Erasmus and Geffen suggest choosing some of the children’s classics and enjoying them with your children: try “Robinson Crusoe, Little Women, Treasure Island, Oliver Twist and The Lost World,” says Erasmus. “The Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz shouldn’t be missed out on either,” adds Geffen, who suggests reading these to children from the age of six. “The Magic Faraway Tree is great from the age of four,” she says.
Don’t lose heart. “As your child grows and enters their teen years their interests change and there may be a period that they seem to read less. I believe, though, that once they are readers they will always be readers,” says Erasmus.
Was quite surprised stumbling on your web "feature". That's great! I could spread the "word" among all my friends, family and connections. And got a wonderfull response! Surely there are so many people (yes, young adults with children) that agree! Old times not really "old". Thanks for the privilege to share in this article as part of my investment in this generation. A blessed 2012 for Child magazine. Louis Naude