early encouragement (A literate generation?)

Member Name: machar

Product:	A literate generation?
Date:	17/11/00 (17 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: invaluable skills

Disadvantages: takes time and patience to lay the ground work

In the era now of computers, cable and terrestrial TV, telling children that reading is fun takes some doing. Reading may seem like quite an energy intensive process - having to sit still, concentrate and all those pages to turn. Not much interaction and, all in all, a bit boring.
Encouragement is really required. Reading should be made out to be a pleasure not a chore. As a child I was book mad but my parents really encouraged me. From a very early age they read me a bedtime story every night. They bought me comics so I could follow the pictures as they read to me. In time before I could even read I would point out if they had missed a bit or were skipping on ahead to get me to sleep quicker! Every Saturday was book buying day and I was allowed to chose a book to read that week. This was seen as a treat and I had plenty of time to brouse in the bookshop and I was never hurried in my choice of book (up to about 45 mins and then I was persuaded to leave!). My parents always encouraged me to find things out. If I asked them a question to which they didn't know the answer we would find out. One of my parents would come with me to the library and we would look for reference books and find the answer. I should say that I am an only child so reading was excellent for me as it was an activity I could do on my own. I never really liked watching TV as, like fairy stories, I thought it was "made up and not real" but then so were my Enid Blytons!
It does take time and a lot of patience which maybe today in this hectic world we don't have as much time for as we used to. It definately helped me. At the age of 8 I had the reading ability of a 13 year old and it has undoubtably helped me at university. I am a very quick reader (probably out of impatience for the next bit of the story!) so scan reading for certain information for essays etc was easy. The initial stages may be hard but once a child is hooked on reading it will provide the
m with valuable skills for the rest of their life.

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