General Tips

Please, please, read to your children, every day, from the day they are born (Mem Fox)

Mem Fox, the Australian author of children’s books, was interviewed on Radio National’s Books and Arts program on the occasion of the 30^th anniversary of her book Possum Magic.

When you read to your children, you’ve got to be happy, expressive. There is a sort of dullness to some people’s voices. And you think, just cheer up. Get a little upbeat here. Keep a smile in your voice and a sparkle in your eye.

Really, children don’t mind how you read to them as long as you’re with them. I mean, one of the points of reading to children is to attach ourselves to our children and for them to attach to us and also to the book that we’re sharing in a beautiful, beautiful trio of gorgeousness – the book, the child and the adult. It’s the purest heaven, it’s so gorgeous. It is the most magical experience.

We are not encouraging them to read, we are making them learn to read. It’s just happening. We’re not doing anything special, just reading. But by doing that, reading, we are setting them up to learn to read quickly and happily at school. Children who have not been read to prior to going to school will find learning to read [more]difficult. Children who have 10 minutes a day, every single day, three stories or the same story over and over and over again, [are more likely to] end up learning to read quickly, happily and easily. So within the joy and happiness of reading to children we are providing them with the language development which is essential to learning to read. We are providing them with an educational future that’s [more likely] going to be happy and successful. We are developing their brains, and we are developing their social skills. Thousands of things are happening when you read to children.

As a literacy person I am focussing of course on the education[al advantages], but there are doctors, paediatricians, social workers, psychologists and speech pathologists who are all on the same band wagon.

Please, please, please please, read to your children in a lively way and read with love.

Premmies need to be read to even more than other children. We don’t always know where the gaps in their future capabilities will be. Reading provides an enriched environment that covers many of the fundamental skills we want to encourage.  One study found that at the very early age of 2 years, premmies who had been read to regularly had significantly increased cognitive capacities. As Mem Fox notes, reading is not just about reading. There are thousands of things going on when we read and read to our children.  It really is “magic”.

Follow –up

Mem Fox’s words are so inspirational, so this follow-up might sound a bit “academic”  or “nerdy”.

A professor in educational psychology in Canada recently published  a study examining what factors predicted future reading ability. The child’s home literacy environment and motivation predict many of the beginning literacy skills (such as letter knowledge and vocabulary), and these, in turn, predict the child’s later reading ability. Reading to your child is vital and games to teach them letter names and sounds are also important. Having a role model as a motivation to read also helps – parents reading at bedtime and parents loving reading themselves.  

Australia Post research for Let’s Read shows parents still need education about the importance of reading to children from birth

A  report reveals 51% of parents don’t realise reading books and sharing stories with children from birth gives them the best start in life

· Only 47% of parents are reading to their children from 0-4 months old

· Children aged 0-5 years are spending 8 hours a week watching television compared to 4.4 hours a week reading books and sharing stories

· 34% of parents do not understand the importance of reading and sharing stories with their children from birth

New Australia Post research* into how often and how early parents and carers are reading and sharing stories with children aged 0-5 years shows the need for more education around the importance of reading with children from birth.

Let’s Read encourages families to share books and stories with children from 0-5 years in order to help them develop the skills they will need when it’s time to start school.

The findings from the Australia Post research indicate that most parents understand the importance of reading and sharing stories with children aged 0-5 years but also indicates there are many parents and carers around the country needing additional education and access to resources in order to encourage early years literacy.

The end goal of learning to read is to be able to understand what is written on the page. In the beginning, at school, children learn to match letters to sounds and then work out whole words and sentences. But all this means little if at the end of reading a sentence the child cannot tell you what it means.

To understand words and sentences, children need to have quite a large vocabulary – thousands of words that they can say and understand when someone else says them. To learn these thousands of words  (an average of six new words a day from the day of their birth ) little  children need to be talked to (endlessly), answered, listened to and read to. It may feel strange to talk to your baby as if they can understand every word, but this is the foundation of them learning new words every day.

Children who were “poor comprehenders” in their early years later had lower educational outcomes in English, mathematics and science. Poor early language (vocabulary) also predicted later poor understanding of written words.

Reference: Ricketts, J., Sperring, R., & Nation, K. (2014) Educational attainment in poor comprehenders. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 445.