Post Scripts: The pleasant task of reading

One of the pleasant things I am asked to do each week is go out to the elementary school and have children read to me. There are others in this group, including Mary Virginia Croy, who was the original contact with the school, Helen Muller, Norma Johnson, and my wife, Kathy Snyder, Dr. David Mackintosh and his wife, Darlene, and Lawrence and Pat Jefferson who substitute now and then.

The theory is, and I am convinced of it, that learning to read begins in infancy. Babies bathed in words learn to distinguish the sounds that make up language. Infants, toddlers and preschoolers learn to love reading almost by osmosis if they are regularly read to by parents. From chewing on a book to turning pages and pretending to read, very young children learn essential pre-literacy skills at home long before they begin first grade.

The problem is some parents don’t or can’t read to their children.

Happily, a good teacher, or other adults, can still teach basic, important lessons. When children fall behind on reading readiness skills before they enter school, they quite often experience difficulties they may never fully overcome. This is sad, because being able to read well by the end of third grade is an indicator of future success or failure. The goal should be that pupils be able to read English at their age level by age nine, whether they grow up in homes surrounded by books in a language-rich home or in a home where books are not considered important and trips to the library are few and far between.

A book-less home discourages reading ability. I was fortunate back in the Depression era because even though there wasn’t any spare money, I always received a book for Christmas and on my birthday. I’m so happy my folks did that, because it opened up the world to me. As I sometimes tell the children who read to me: "I hope you learn to love books, because books take you anywhere, provide any kind of entertainment or fun, and store a lot of information in your brain."

What should a child read? It doesn’t matter. Anything that offers a glimpse of a world that is not immediately here and now. Anything that stimulates thought, sense of adventure, reality or wonderment. Display joy in reading and language when you’re talking to children. Help spread the good news about books and worthy periodicals.

I am always discouraged when a youngster tells me he or she doesn’t like to read.

That child has been shortchanged at home.

I often encourage young readers to treat a book kindly. It hurts when I see a nice book with the binding damaged from stepping on it, or dropping it; even worse, marking their place by folding over a corner of the page. That’s a no-no!

Day care providers should offer reading as a part of the daily program. They can give a real boost to their wards in their preschool years. Day care or preschool should be more than play. When all is said and done, it’s really up to parents, who must prime their children in infancy to learn to read. Children who are talked to, and read to, are getting ready to read. That will become their foundation for reading, learning and achieving.

Someday they will thank you for it. You will be proud of them!