Monday: I am taking part in a series on education for Channel 4, Hands Up. As a parent I want to know how I can encourage my children to become readers. We hear so much about declining literacy standards and I am confused with the array of advice. Should I, for instance, read with my five-year-old daughter every day, should I use flash cards, “look and say” schemes, phonic methods? Or should I just leave it up to the school? And what about my 12-year-old son? Is it too late to cajole him into reading the classics instead of watching Gamesmaster and The X-Files? Complete with camera crew, I set off to find some answers.
Tuesday: I speak to Tina, a mother of three in Hertfordshire. She explains how she guides her children towards all kinds of reading material, taking them to the library, reading comics, looking for subjects they enjoy, relating books to favourite television programmes. Above all it seems she spends a lot of time talking to them.
Another mother in Stevenage has started reading with her baby, playing with books from a very early age. I’ve picked up some good tips today which I’m going to put into practice when I get home. Unfortunately by the time I’m back both are asleep.
Wednesday: My children are being filmed for the programme. After the fourth take my daughter isn’t happy. “I don’t want to do filming, it’s silly,” she says: “I want to go to school.” I tell her I’ll buy her a book as a reward. “No thanks, Mummy, I’ll have an ice-lolly instead.”
This evening we film a family reading group at a library in Watford. One Grandpa even reads the same books as his granddaughter so that they can discuss them together. I think I’ll adopt this approach with my son. Of course at 10pm he’s asleep, but I check his bedside reading material anyway; a copy of Coping With Teachers and three issues of Match magazine. I wonder if he might enjoy the latest Maeve Binchy?
Thursday: We travel to a primary school in Walsall to talk to pupils, parents and the head, David Brook, about an American literacy project he has introduced, “Books and Beyond.” It has had fantastic results. Borrowing from the local library has gone up by more than 60 per cent. The pupils are all keen to tell us about their own favourite books. I ask one little girl what she could recommend for my daughter, Little Red Riding Hood, she says, “she’ll love the bit where the wolf eats the Granny.”
Friday: I am staggered by how much other parents are doing to help their children enjoy reading and I worry that I am not taking the time to share a simple pleasure with my children. I pick up my daughter from school and ask her what is her favourite story. The Tiger Who Came To Tea, she says without hesitation. “You know Mummy, the one where you do the silly voice.”
Dorothy Stiven’s film on reading was shown on Channel 4‘s Hands Up last night. The series continues on Thursdays at 8pm
