Reading aloud and literacy

Sep 08, 2008 Editorial

Today is International Literacy Day, and it is being commemorated in September, which is, not coincidently, our “Education Month”. Over the past few decades, it has been accepted that the literacy level of our population has been inexorably declining.

The reasons for this sad state of affairs are legion, but almost all commentators agree that the downward slide began when our economy hit the rocks in the late 1970’s. People had to scramble for a living; the value of literacy fell, and formal education itself began to lose its lustre. Parents and children lost the motivation to improve their literacy.

The theme for Education Month this year is “Education of the child: a Parent and Teacher Obligation,” and this is not just a matter of fortuity. Education in general and literacy in particular can only be inculcated in children within a joint endeavour between parents and children.

While the causes of declining literacy are myriad, so are the solutions to its recovery, but there is a broad consensus that the love of reading must be inculcated at an early age and that this receives an inestimable fillip through reading aloud.

In 1985, the report of the American Commission on Reading, Building a Nation of Readers, stated bluntly: “The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”

The report went on to point out that, in addition to encouraging parents to read to children at home, this practice must be continued in the classroom into the higher grades. It found that while some conscientious parents spend time with children during the “picture book” stage, they drop off precipitously once the children move to the written word. And this is the key time frame in which reading aloud is essential.

The child must begin to appreciate that the fun of a good story is inherent in the words on the pages of a book, and this will only happen when there is sustained reading aloud by the parent or teacher.

In our schools, reading aloud by the teacher is a dying art, and more insidiously for literacy improvement, it has been replaced by teachers insisting that students read aloud passages from their textbooks in unison for hours on end.

Apart from the terrible droning sound that this type of reading aloud produces, it causes our children to associate reading with memorisation of “facts”. This is the primary reason why most school children insist that, “reading is dull”.

The Ministry of Education, for quite a while now, has been commendably attacking the problem of low literacy in our schools.

However, based on the crucial role of parents in the “reading aloud” aspect of literacy, they must initiate and sustain a comprehensive program to rope parents into the act – and not just during Education Month.

Firstly, parents themselves must be made excited about literacy – if not for its intrinsic worth, then at least as a prerequisite for success later in life.

Parents must be living examples to children about the value of reading, and must ensure that there are books easily available in the house. Books must become desired gifts for children. Books for early readers, therefore, will have to be made more attractive than the ones presently available, and be considerably cheaper.

Secondly, it is laudable that more teachers are being produced for the educational system, but they should all be trained in reading aloud, and instructed to practice this skill extensively in all the grades.

That is, reading aloud must be made a part of the school curriculum.

Thirdly, the reading of books must not only be connected with the memorisation of “schoolwork”. Books must be assigned that are fun to the child and excite his/her imagination. We should absolutely prohibit the American practice of insisting that children submit book reports on every book that they read for the curriculum.

Lastly, in a structured manner, parents and teachers ought to invite good readers to perform “readings” to children in both their homes and the classrooms. Not only will the children benefit, but so also will the parents and teachers.

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Reading aloud and literacy

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