This is a sensitive issue for some and one which is important to me because of personal experiences.
Trying to force someone to read, or put some kind of restriction or rule on a young persons reading can do more harm than good. Or, more specifically, trying to do this without explaining why can be harmful.
I am covering this subject, not for the first time, because Michael Morpurgo has recently tried to have action taken on children's reading. He says that the cost of living is impacting children's right to read. Parents can't afford to buy books, and libraries are being shut down with several primary schools not having libraries either. So access to free material isn't possible.
It's also been noted that screen time is impacting children's reading.
He has a point. I grew up in an era where you only had five channels, if you were lucky enough. There were VHS tapes which were expensive, hardly anyone had internet, gaming consoles were at the point of being decent but also far more limited than they are now and absolutely no child had a mobile phone. If someone was making use of the TV, you probably didn't have anything else to watch or game on. Things like reading were one of the activities that kept us entertained, so kids from my generation read a lot and had to use books to learn and get their homework done because we didn't have much option.
So yes, screen time is impacting children's reading. It's impacting my reading, as the number of books I read a year changed when I got a smart phone and as I got more access to streaming services.
But there's the other half of the problem. Access to reading materials. Looking at screens might now be far easier and possibly even cheaper than reading.
As I covered before, there are multiple ways to get books, but they don't work for everyone. There are some really lovely bookshops out there, but the prices of books have gone up with everything else and people simply can't afford them. There are ways to get books cheaply, but for some, even the low online prices are too high. Second hand opens several options, but they're limited and, in many cases, still one expense parents can't afford.
Everyone will say "Go to the library" but what if you don't have one? There are a lot of towns and villages that don't have libraries. Mobile libraries to these places have been cut too. It is possible to go online, but for children, in many, many cases, this actually, really, doesn't work. Reading has always been a way to get a break from screens and children find reading more immersive when they can touch the page.
Libraries were a big part of my childhood. I was taken there every Saturday when I was young, and given the freedom to choose what I wanted to read, though there were always ready suggestions if I wanted them. Local libraries have been such an important part of my life as someone who loves reading and always has done. But I was lucky. I always lived with easy access to libraries and parents who encouraged me in reading.
Schools are tricky sometimes. They play a huge part in children's early reading. Storytime was and still is hugely important. I believe that it teaches children to love stories first, before they learn how to read a whole book themselves. It was always great to experience the stories with everyone else and see how each of us might feel differently or interpret the story differently.
All of my schools had libraries. I don't remember spending a lot of time in the ones at Primary School, unless there was maybe an event on. I'm sure there was a system at the first school for picking books and recording what you were reading. I changed schools because of a relocation and recently found the reading journal from my second school. It shows that, although the school made time for us to read and for them to monitor our reading, there was a serious lapse in communication and judgement about my reading abilities when I transferred. As the new school had little to no idea about my reading ability, I was allowed to only choose from certain boxes in the school library, which were probably below my reading ability and didn't engage my interest. This probably slowed my reading and I was marked down by the teacher. Fortunately, my parents were paying attention and realised I was actually reading a lot of books at home, which were of a far higher reading ability than the ones the school restricted me to. They made this known to the teacher and I was allowed to read whatever I wanted.
By contrast, a very biased teacher of my sibling claimed Harry Potter was too advanced. Our mother confiscated the book. At least, that's my siblings account. It seemed such an odd thing for any parent to do and an extreme lapse in judgement on all sides, to actually stop a child reading when they're enjoying a book and it's one way in which the school system can be at fault with childrens reading.
Parents and schools can set up systems to try and get kids reading and to monitor and communicate about a childs reading progress, but it's little use when neither the parents nor the schools can provide reading materials.
I think it is important to encourage children to read. It's good for developing language skills, general knowledge, stretching the imagination, personal development and it's good for mental health because reading gives us somewhere to exist beyond the reality we are given. Reading is generally just a vital life skill and one that's easier to develop well if nurtured from an early age.
Many, like me, were lucky to grow up with access to libraries and people who actively encouraged reading, and my natural love of it, without being too pushy. I was also lucky to live in a home and a time when affording reading material wasn't too much of a struggle and there were plenty of good places to buy books from.
Action is needed. Schools and communities need libraries to help everyone. That's largely a government responsibility, to help fund these services. As well as parents taking time to get kids off screens and reading; schools need fair systems to monitor childrens reading and communicate with parents.
Communities can come together too and hold events for reading, or holding book swaps and create community libraries.
We all have a responsibility to ensure children can read and we don't go back to the days where reading was privilege. That will cause a whole other host of problems.
Personally, I think it's bad enough many kids can't read analogue clocks.
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