Reading is the key to life

I cannot over emphasise the value of parents reading to and with their children every day – no matter what their age. Reading is the key to life. It opens doors in ways we can only imagine. No other learning in any area can be accomplished without the ability to read. It is imperative that every child develops a love of reading and learns to read as voraciously as we can manage.

As educators, we ask you to read daily with your child – if you can only manage 10 minutes, then make it 10 minutes you sit with your child every day and read. (20 minutes is best, though.) If your child is continuing learning sight words, these too need to be visited daily. A child’s reading ability is only as good as the partnership between your child’s teacher and you. It really does take a village to raise a child. Your child’s teacher is teaching reading skills every day – it is the most important learning area there is. But these skills are worthless to your child is they are not reinforced at home with the time taken to sit with your child and read for the love of it.

It is all of our responsibilities to engage in our children’s education and to show them the value that is within. If we encourage daily reading, sight words, spelling, letter and sound recognition, then we will see progress in every child. 

Children are never too big or grown up to be read to. As adults you have access to more advanced concepts and comprehension and ways of reading than any primary aged child could ever achieve. Read aloud to your children every day. Talk through how you have comprehended the text, discuss the tricky vocabulary and grammar and how you figured it out, talk about other texts written by the same author – you will be amazed how fast and how much children learn from this – not just about reading, but about the world and it’s peoples in general.

Just try – commit to reading with/to your child for at least 10 minutes a day for the rest of the term and just watch the progress. Massive hand claps to those of you who already do!

Families like ours

This article appeared in our newsletter and was written by Maree, our Teacher Librarian. Maree is stocking some interesting children's literature in the Resource Centre that celebrate our diversity in society.

There are many different types of families. In children’s literature, we have met families such as The Swiss Family Robinson, Anne of Green Gable’s family, Little Women, The Seven Little Australians, The Famous Five (mainly about the siblings), My Brother Jack, The Dairy of Anne Frank, and more recently A Series of Unfortunate Events (about three orphaned siblings) and picture books like Are We There Yet? about a family travelling around Australia. The stereotypical nuclear family has mum, dad and a son and a daughter.

But times have changed and contemporary television programs like Modern Families deliberately highlight the diversity that occurs in contemporary society. In our own community, there are many single-parent families, small families of two, larger extended families, families from non-Australian backgrounds, families with two Dads, and families with two Mums.

As part of the History learning area of the Australian Curriculum, students learn about families that are different to their own. We have purchased some picture books to support this. These are available to teachers and parents (and are not on the general bookshelves). Some books about alternative families we now have in our Resource Centre are  Daddy, Papa and Me,  I call my Grandpa Papa and  In our Mothers’ House.

 

Although we’re not related by blood, I like to think that I’m part of a family of book-lovers and readers, and that I’m closely connected to the child who raced into the library last week and cried out ‘Miss Maree, I have good news. I can read!’ I’m very proud that of so many students in our very large Peregian Springs State School family also belong to the family of book-lovers and readers that  one day will move and shake the world.

Thank you, Maree, for your contribution. I hope that parents will take advantage of your offer, and come and look at these new books.