I was recently privileged to attend a talk by Marilyn Brocklehurst on Creating Readers. And I do mean privileged. To be honest she didn’t look much, sitting at the front of the school hall, bobbed hair and glasses on a chain round her neck looking for all the world like a Librarian, which she is by training. But when she started talking? Golly I was captivated. She spoke with such unending enthusiasm about reading and children’s books, of which she reads about 12000 a year- a copy of every children’s book published annually. The best of these make their way to the shelves of her Norfolk Children’s Book Centre and beyond: they have a truly global customer database.
In addition to reading books, offering feedback to publishers and writers, and supplying countries such as Ethiopia with Children’s Books, Marilyn tours the country- and the World- giving talks on creating readers, and encouraging a lifelong love of reading in children. If you get the chance to hear her speak, do go, and do ask her advice: I am sure that there is nothing she doesn’t know about Children’s Books. But if you are unable, here are some of the pointers on how to encourage a love of reading in children, picked up from Marilyn’s captivating talk.
Essentially it boils down to this: children should be given the opportunity to read for pleasure, from a wide variety of books, as often as they can.
To Create Readers you need to:
Model enthusiasm for reading. Your children learn from you primarily, and from their environment, and so much of the things we learn comes from habitual behaviour. Providing them with a variety of interesting books. Let them see you read. Don’t say things like “Oh I’m terrible when I’m reading a good book!” which associates negative language with the concept of reading.
Offer unfettered choice. This is where libraries are so essential, since most families are not able to buy every book ever printed, and nor should they. Choosing their own books, without parents ‘managing’ their choice, is paramount. Broad choice, variety in type of reading material for example, are important, but so is the comfort of the style of a familiar author.
Support Reading for pleasure: it is not up to us as parents to ‘teach’ our children how to read. A teacher’s job is to teach children to decode the words. But reading at home is essential to “teach” for pure pleasure. If they don’t want to read, read their school book to them. We have no idea why a particular book comes home from school- it may be to build confidence, encourage their skills, a topic that they love. Why spoil it with correcting words if gist is right. Focus on pleasure of finding details of stories. Don’t make it difficult or embarrassing. Encourage. Give your child time to practice, and support. Always read another book after a Biff book- whilst they are good for consolidation of skills learned, they are very very dull.
Parents have the biggest influence in children’s reading. Children crave our undivided attention, and reading with us offers that. Reading aloud to children is not cheating either: they are still learning. Your child needs to hear how the words come off the page, pronunciation, inflection: they get a rich experience from reading aloud. It helps develop their concentration skills. It gives access to Formal Language- complex structures, clauses, vocabulary. It can often be the case that reading aloud the first few chapters of a book makes the child interested in a book they would otherwise have dismissed. And by the same token, if it is clear that your child is not enjoying a book, let them stop reading. And just because children can read by themselves, it doesn’t mean that you should stop reading with them: read with them for as long as they let you. You will mourn the time when it passes.
Never put picture books away. They are essential for decoding words. Children read from pictures. Chapter books are not complex writing, but a picture book is words and images, which offer a richer reading experience. A book is never “too easy for you”. Never let go of picture books until they do.
And if they ask “can we read again?” Do.
Go on! You know you want to tell me what you think!