HOOKED ON READING
Martilla Morrison discusses how we can share the love of reading with our children
Picture the scene: beautiful beach on the Ile de Ré; miles of golden sand; pine trees gently blowing in the warm breeze; calm blue
sea; relaxed parents and children ensconced in a myriad of peaceful activities . . . and then cut to close-up: a small, red haired girl
is stomping round in circles, stomping round the little family group – who are all reading – stomp . . . stomp . . . stomp, pent up anger
clearly visible – until she finally explodes: “Why do I belong to such a boring, boring family? Just look at you – all you do is read . . .
and read” and with that she flops, defeated.
“Mrs M, I’ve given up telling him to read more
so from now on I’m going to lock him in the
dining room every Sunday, after lunch.”
“My daughter is a voracious reader but my
son won’t even lift a book. What can I do?”
“I gave my daughter Lord of the Rings for her
birthday but she will only read The Princess Diaries.”
Oh dear, what a mess we’re in when it comes to
our children and reading. It’s become such a serious
business. It’s become such a labour.
Children have to read every night; must get to level
five; can’t move up a level until next year; haven’t
reached the required target; must go back to
phonics – and so on and so on. Learning to read is
crucial but, as reported in the last issue of Eds Up:
“Picking up reading skills is part of child development
but the key is for the children to have fun.”
So where has the fun gone?
Reading with your child is vital. Yes, it is the single
most important thing you can do to help with your
child’s education. But let’s just forget about education
for the moment and return to encouraging a love of
reading for its own sake.
The youngest of children love the sound of a familiar
voice reading to them; it’s soothing, rhythmic and
bonding. Read with expression and experiment with
voices. Just five minutes a day can make a difference
and even the busiest parents can manage that.
Listening to a fluent reader will help your child learn
how a reader’s voice can help written words make
sense. Talking to them about the characters, looking
at the illustrations, and laughing together over
silly happenings all trigger the notion that reading
is enjoyable. Don’t worry if the book becomes
dog-eared, falls in the bath, gets covered with jam.
It really doesn’t matter. Let reading together become
a pleasurable habit. And don’t stop.
Whoever said you don’t read to
children once they start school . . .
or when they can read for themselves?
We all love stories and storytellers. From earliest
times, people have told stories and today we are
spoiled for we have stories in so many different
genres: books, films, theatre, dance, audio CDs,
comics, graphic novels – the list is endless.
Talking to a group of boys about to start the year
in which they took scholarship exams to their
chosen senior schools, one asked if I would stop
reading to them. The answer was most definitely
“No”. I considered it more important than ever.
The youngest of children love the
sound of a familiar voice reading
to them; it’s soothing, rhythmic
and bonding
Roald Dahl didn’t really enjoy his schooldays but in
his book, Boy, he remembers, with great affection,
the kind, “blessed, beautiful Mrs O’Connor with
her wacky clothes and her grey hair flying in all
directions” who came to his Prep School every
Saturday morning and read to the boys for over
two hours – whilst the masters retired to the local
hostelry: “And the result of all this for me, at any rate,
was that by the age of thirteen I had become an avid
and insatiable reader of good writing,” he says. So,
to get your child hooked on reading, I think you must
read to them and with them.
Make reading visible in your home
It’s also important that they see you reading and
reading for pleasure. Visit bookshops and libraries
together, create a special place for your children’s
books – and don’t insist it always has to be tidy.
“If we really
want our children
to become readers
for life, we would
do well to remember
that horses are much
more fun than carts ”
Michael Morpurgo
Schools have a lot to answer for these days
There are so many targets to be met in every subject
and the curriculum is, without doubt, overloaded.
Whilst hearing individual children read has become
marginalised, this is not as serious as it seems: there
are numerous other ways of achieving the same goals.
The greatest crime, in my opinion, is that very few
children are being read to, having their imaginations
fired or discovering the world of literature.
I am told over and over that there isn’t time to
read novels (too long) and meet all “the objectives”.
Your children may well be suffering from a surfeit of
extracts – chosen from genres allocated to particular
year groups. These passages (probably from
excellent books) are dissected beyond belief.
If you delve a little deeper, you may find that even
your older children may have never read “a whole
book” – and don’t want to anyway – because they
don’t understand what they’re missing. University
professors are finding that undergraduates on
English literature courses are no longer able to
complete some of the texts on the syllabus. They
read “summaries” online. So don’t assume that
school will get your children hooked on reading.
What can you do?
When your child can do the doggy paddle along the
side of the pool, you wouldn’t dream of considering
that child a swimmer so just because your child can
decode, don’t think they can read. Learning to read
quickly and fluently is like learning to ride a bicycle –
if you don’t cycle fast enough you will fall off.
This is the big issue. To enjoy reading, you need to
increase speed and fluency. Reading fluency has
been defined as: “The ability to read connected text
rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly and automatically with
little conscious attention to the mechanics of reading
such as decoding,” Meyer and Felton, 1999.
Reading slowly may result in:
• reading less than their peers
• having less time to assimilate what they’ve read
• using up energy trying to identify words
• difficulty building up concepts and ideas
• every passage being a struggle
Being able to read the words does not necessarily
mean that your child understands what they have
read. Some children sound like fluent readers and
this can make you believe they are good readers.
Talk about a book and ask questions that make
them think:
• How do you think this character feels?
• What would you do?
• Do you like these words? How do they make
you feel?
• If you could ask the character three questions
what would you ask?
• Where might we find information about . . . ?
If your child can’t read quickly enough, they will lose
the meaning and the enjoyment. The mechanics of
reading are very important but once mastered, help
your child to become an independent reader as
soon as possible and by any means. Don’t allow
anyone or anything to hold them back.
Build up reading stamina
Like running a marathon, preparation is crucial.
Encourage daily practice and help your children
to develop higher reading skills like: skimming,
scanning, predicting etc. The quality of the reading
is more important than the how.
What to read
• Choose books that are unputdownable
• Read the opening chapter to start them off
• Stop at a cliff hanger point
• Introduce your children to different types of books:
classic fiction, short stories, joke books, poetry
and non-fiction
• Find books associated with your child’s interests
• Cook together
• Read the sports pages or the fashion pages
• Holidays – research and plan together
• Visit museums and follow up with books on the
Romans or dinosaurs
• Read the book and watch the film (e.g. The
Railway Children)
• Visit the theatre together (e.g. Michael Morpurgo’s
War Horse)
• Read and recite poems together
• Play audio books in the car
• Don’t dismiss comics
• Talk about books
• Books don’t need batteries so they can travel
with ease: trains, boats and planes; granny’s
garden; doctor’s waiting room and all those times
spent waiting.
Choosing Books
As soon as possible allow children to take control.
Very soon, they will know their favourite genres and
will introduce you to authors you’ve never heard of –
there are more children’s authors than ever before
and there is a remarkable range of material available.
No one size fits all and some children read above
their level and some below. This doesn’t matter now
and again. Voracious readers often return to old
favourites. Remember too that you can read to your
children above their level.
Be aware of the length of a book, the number of
chapters, paragraphing, layout, illustrations and
vocabulary. Surprisingly, weaker readers can find
some modern books with their colourful illustrations,
variety of fonts and graphics, very confusing.
The ‘Five Finger’ rule
This is almost foolproof. Open any book at any page
and ask your child to start reading and raise a finger
each time an unknown word appears. If more than
five fingers are raised by the bottom of the page,
the book is too difficult.
Staying up
Don’t insist on books being finished and now and
again allow an extra five minutes of “staying up”
to finish. It’s not a very good idea to use television
and computers as either a reward or a punishment
and if you find someone reading under the duvet by
torchlight – tiptoe away and have a celebratory drink.
P.S. That little girl turned into a voracious reader!
This is the most fantastic website. It recommends
books from Baby and Toddler through to 14+;
it has books that are dyslexia friendly; books for
boys (please don’t believe the myth that boys
don’t read); books for reading ages and interest
ages; books chosen for reluctant readers and
best of all, you can download the opening pages.
There are books of the month, featured authors
and regular emails to keep you up to date.