adminFredrick Qaphelani Mabhikwa Successful Solutions
I WANT to conclude my series of articles on reading this week. In the first article I lamented the demise of a reading culture in our children and also in us the adults. In the previous article I pointed out some benefits of reading. I want to conclude this series of articles by sharing with you a few hints on how we can cultivate a reading culture in our children.
Now as I indicated in the other article, cultivating a reading culture like other trainings for children is best done at infancy. The child has to grow up with a reading culture; they cannot suddenly acquire it when they are old. At infancy, when they can’t read, read to them .I did indicate that the culture of reading bedtime stories to them is an excellent culture. When you read to them to get them to bed, you are inculcating into them the desire to read for themselves.
Sooner or later you will see them reading on their own. What is a challenge to most of us parents is that we underestimate the power of these cultures. Some of us are not at home when the children go to bed and such cultures become difficult to foster into our infants. When they come back from school or kindergarten ask them about school. What was interesting at school, what is it that they did and enjoyed. Ask the infants to read to you and ask questions about what they have read to you.
The little ones are really a joy to interact with when it comes to their school work. They will show you the “car” that they drew at school. Praise them, even if what is on paper is far from being a car. Show appreciation for what they have done at school. Let us be part of the homework process for the little ones. We must help them with their homework and show them at infancy that we are part of their learning process full time.
As I said the tide has changed. We never asked our parents about homework, it was taboo. The problem is that the fathers think the child’s homework is for the mothers because half the time when we come home we are drunk and the infants would be in bed already. The same mother who must cook the evening meal for the family has to help with the children’s homework while the father is busy speaking the Queen’s language at the bar giving armchair analysis of the world cup as if the TV panelists are not doing enough. Children will only develop a reading culture if both parents are involved in their learning from infancy. There are those of us who like taking work home at the expense of family time. I am not saying work must not be taken home but if it becomes a culture then thus a problem. Some of us give very little time to family as compared to the company. Little do we know that when we die because of stress related diseases caused by work pressure, the company advertises and replaces us before we decompose underground. Let us learn to give our spare time to the children after work, especially the little ones, the infants for learning purposes.
I also did say in the other article when we go shopping, let us not only do shopping for clothes and food, let us shop for knowledge as well. When we buy the little ones toys and clothes, let us buy them children’s books as well. I recently bought my little girl a pack of five children’s books by Uncle Arthur. They are very good stories.
She has read two and she is reading the third one and she is relating all the stories to me after reading the books. These books we got from an Organisation called “THE HOME, HEALTH AND EDUCATION SERVICES.”I am in no way marketing for this organisation but they have excellent children and family books and we are just trying to assist each other here. You can call them on 09-61845/6.
As for older children and teenagers, this is a bit of a tough area but they can still be redeemed to get them to read. As I indicated in my article “reading culture lost in children”, our children today are growing in a totally different environment from the one we grew up in. They are exposed to internet and the smart phones, things which we were not exposed to. Life today is faster than yesteryear. Cultures have changed drastically and the manner in which our children do things now, the manner in which they think is very different from us during our days. Those with teenagers will agree with me that generally they don’t listen.
You tell your son, “son when you get to that junction turn left” when he gets there he turns right, he wants to see what is it that you didn’t want him to see on the right turn and normally they see it “…trouble”. Now you might wonder how this is related to reading? I am saying this so that we get to appreciate the kind of child we are dealing with in 2014 in the context of a cultivating a reading culture.Generally, most of the times we are dealing with a spoilt child, a child who can’t do things for themselves. We are dealing with a stubborn child; we are dealing with a child who is very exposed to different cultures through the social networks. With all this, the child has no reading culture and cannot formally communicate in speech and writing.
A good reading culture in a child is the only way of ensuring a good school performance from a child. A child who doesn’t read out of school cannot perform well. Now for an older child to enjoy reading it starts from encouragement to reading short stories/novels. If you have a child whom you think needs to develop a reading culture, expose them to good novels with good themes. Buy them a simple novel you have read and ask them to read and then share with you what they have read.
Start small, preferably with short stories. I have in mind our own Charles Mungoshi’s Coming of the Dry Season and Some Kinds of Wounds a and abridged versions of the bigger novels.
Simple short stories or very short novels for a start will do. If you throw them a Daniel Steel thick novel at the beginning, you will find them sleeping on their bed, novel in hand with their mouth wide open. Start small. Before you can throw to older children bigger books or education books, where they are now doing analysis of issues, try to first expose them to simple stories. They need an appreciation of simple stories where they can critic the story, like which characters are bad in the novel, who do they like and why and what are the themes? Those who do literature at school are lucky, they have an opportunity of reading and analysing novels.
The Bible is a good book. Expose your children to the Bible at a very early age. Expose them to the New Testament, it’s easier to relate with. If you are a Christian you can relate the Christian calendar to them as they read–things like Christmas and Easter. The Old Testament is for more mature children it’s a bit complex. To make it more interesting you can then get the children Biblical films, for example the “passion stories” or the “birth of Jesus” and they relate the motion picture to what they have read.
In Zimbabwe our school curriculum is taught in English and we have no choice but to expose these children to the language. They just have to have an appreciation of the language. It is sad when children in high school cannot speak English or construct a sentence but this is the reality. Recently I attended an awareness meeting by one of our parastatals at the Bulawayo Holiday Inn and I sadly noticed sadly, that some adults could hardly express themselves in English. Someone had to help them ask their questions. These are adults with high posts at their workplaces. One of the presenters also had difficulties presenting in English. This is very sad. Having said this, all I am trying to say is that our children will NEVER be able to develop a reading culture and express themselves well in written and spoken English unless they are exposed to the language through reading.
In conclusion may I say that for us parents to try and cultivate a reading culture in our children we must be seen to read ourselves. It’s much easier when we preach reading and we are also reading not to adopt the “do as I say not as I do” approach, it doesn’t work. Reading the newspaper alone is not enough. The earlier we start inculcating a good reading culture in our children the better-“a stitch in time saves nine”.
Online Reporter